Once we settled into the hostel near Terskol we got a chance to explore the neighbouring mountains and used our few days before the climb wisely by doing some acclimatisation treks. Well that went for some of us.. The border between Russia and Georgia was situated only a few kilometres away from us and with young military men marching up and down the mountain with large backpacks and expressionless faces the ambience suddenly became quite sinister. We reached around 3000m whe