Khibiny. Mountaineering school, March 2024

Alexander Dorojukov, a guide of the 7 Summits Club, reports from Khibiny:

Greetings from the group Iskorka from Khibiny! We did it!  We climbed the summit and got a mountaineer badge. The program has been completed, we could go home!

Guides Alexey Lonchinsky, Ratmir Mukhametzyanov, Alexander Dorojukov.

The guide of the 7 Summits Club, Alexander Dorojukov, reports from Khibiny: 

Greetings from the group Iskorka from Khibiny! Today, our team got out on the rocks again. We practiced climbing rocks, learned how to work with embedded elements, use improvised devices for descent, if we lost original descender, learned elementary polispast. Then everything is according to plan, we are working.  The day before, our team went on an ascent. But soon the wind rose in gusts up to 50-60 km/h and we were blown off the slope. And the forecast was good. Well, it's hard to guess the weather.

The guide of the 7 Summits Club, Alexander Dorozhukov, reports from Khibiny:

Greetings from the group Iskorka from Khibiny! We are moving on with the program.  Today we spent the whole day on the rocks, practicing climbing and descending on vertical fixed ropes. Then there was a little rock climbing, and we smoothly moved on to snow classes. We are all pleasantly tired right now and we are resting before tomorrow's classes.

 Guides Alexey Lonchinsky, Ratmir Mukhametzyanov, Alexander Dorojukov.

The guide-instructor of the 7 Summits Club Andrey Selivanov:

 The NP2 group made an ascent to the summit of Takhtarvunchorr along route 2A of the difficulty category with nsme"X". It was windy and cold at the top, snowy, but the mood was festive. From the top, we congratulated all the girls on the holiday!

News of the mountaineering school in Khibiny

NP1 department. 

Today we had a day of practical training on natural terrain. The main goal was to prepare for the terrain that we will have on the upcoming route. Since our route will be technically simple, but there will be a lot of snow, we held snow classes.  We learned how to trail snow, walk with an ice axe, performed "self-arrest" in the snow, on a snowy slope in several stages. We spun through the back, spun through the side, walked in ropes.

We got to know a little more about the structure of crampons and learned how to put them on. After that, we returned home, where there was a lecture section.

We got acquainted with the itinerary documentation, with the itinerary, told how it goes in the alpine camps, who is the graduate, who is responsible for safety, how the itinerary is filled out. And in the description of the route, we studied our route, drew the attention of the climbers to important points. We chose tactics and discussed it, selected equipment for tomorrow's route, told how to navigate the route, what, again, to pay attention to.

Guides: Ratmir Mukhametzyanov, Alexey Lonchinsky.

 Department of NP2

We climbed to the summit of Yugspor along route 1B "Damsky" on the left side of the South buttress.  There was a lot of snow on the route, as always in winter Khibiny, but visibility was excellent. On the descent, the aurora borealis was observed during the day in the form of a rainbow column over the neighboring peak.

Guide: Andrey Selivanov.

 Yesterday, the mountaineering school of the 7 Summits Club in Khibiny started!  Both branches of the participants (beginners and continuing ones) gathered in the city of Kirovsk.

The first department:

"We had a lecture on equipment, a lecture on knots, a practical lesson. They told the participants about the equipment hanging on the system, which points and how much they hold, how to carry it all, how to shorten ropes. But not all of them passed, they did not overload people with information.

Then there was a practical lesson on the interaction of ropes. We walked between the trees in ropes. We learned to get attached first, middle, last, shorten the rope, belay each other, get each other, get up on self-belay and now we are all going to go together to watch the northern lights.

Tomorrow there will be a practical lesson on the terrain all day, we will continue to learn how to set points and assemble stations and re-work out interaction with new introductory ones."

Guides: Ratmir Mukhametzyanov and Alexey Lonchinsky.

 The second department:

"The NP-2 group of the Seven Summits Mountaineerimng School of Khibiny held the first day of training sessions on the Urban Gap rock massif. After the lecture on "Modern climbing equipment and its proper use", the participants of the Mountaineering School practiced the techniques of climbing snow-covered rocks in crampons, climbing and descending with a "dulfer" along vertical fixed ropes. We tried real drytulling on icy rocks. The weather in the Khibiny is now like in winter Scotland, snowy and humid."

Guide: Andrey Selivanov.