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As all great adventures it started all of a sudden on a July’s morning from a phone call: “Hey, what’s up?” my old friend, hiking enthusiast yelled from my phone’s speaker, “Any plans for august? I’m making an expedition to Elbrus, there are already 4 people in, what about you?” “Sure!” - was the only word I could answer. I could not believe my luck! That was my true desire to visit the great mountain of Elbrus, to swim in the mineral water sources, rouse my lungs with the air of Caucasus... of God, the decision was obvious. The difficulties could not scare me. To all the arguments like: it will be deadly cold, you could suffer from height intolerance, half of the group is complete strangers for you and so on, I shrugged and smiled back: yeap, I know, but I’m ready to face it. I wanted this adventure to happen. The July run by in preparation and training, all the equipment was arranged, we were ready to take off. I’m the only girl in the team of 6, well ok, let’s do that! Troubles started way too early, on the second day of our expedition. Almost at the end of the tortuous road up to the start of our hike driver turned to us with the words: “Bad news, the breaks are out of order, I cannot stop the car”. Our old UAZ-452 turned into a furious racket. Last 50 km was super-stressful, but the driver remained calm, later he told us how much effort that costed him! Oh, our hero, he had a plan how to stop the USSR rocket-car without smashing us into a pancake. The camp located at the hill and after the car reached the top he turned on the reverse and furiously turned the wheel right, so the car turned backward and bumped into the rock almost softly. The hit was strong enough to throw away our backpacks, but we were safe with no scratches. Wow brave start. The first night was not an easy one. I finally saw the Elbrus, the mountain was calm and covered in clouds. But I was scared, my mind was exploding with questions: how could I even dream to climb there? How and why will I do that? No, it is not possible. That was the last point where there was a net, hence – possibility to massage home, I wrote my mother that “I promise to be careful, but ’m not sure about coming back”. No connection to the external world for at least 7 days. That’s what I like! For the next 5 days we were creeping along the road up and down, getting our minds and body ready for height, enjoying the tranquil valleys and rugged rivers of Kabardino-Balkarian land. During these days we were accompanied by forest and mountains inhabitants, like hamsters, eagles, owls, but as we crossed over the mark of 3500 meter height the nature changed drastically: only stones were around, I imagined myself as a space explorer, walking on the strange planet, balancing and jumping from one pile of stones to the other, cancelling the basic rules of gravitation. Hey ho. Finally we reached the base camp just in time, upon our arrival the watchman told us we were lucky, as we had a chance to catch the moment of several hours when the mountain was clear and squeeze into that window. Great, we had a chance! Honestly, all the fear had gone, it was replaced with the great feeling of gratitude and astonishment, awoken by the people around and nature. Way up took slightly more than 6 hours. 6 hours of tet-a-tet with Elbrus. We had done it in full silence, the great mountain was benevolent and generous to us, we could not ask for more. After we came back – something changed in me: my all nature was reloaded, so to say – updated. I felt that everything around was under control of the one who created this absolutely magical world. The jump into unknown, commitment to risky experience appeared to be the great adventure.