The mountain climbers of the Airlangga-Semen Gresik Elibrus Expedition 2011 (ASGEE 2011) left early Friday morning and were scheduled to arrive in Moscow at 6.45pm West Indonesia Time. "Pray for them so that they will succeed in climbing the 5,642 meter high Mount Elbrus," ASGEE spokesman Bagus Setiawan said to ANTARA News here on Friday.
He said the biggest challenge for the ASGEE Team would be the low temperature and terrain conditions. He said the temperature in Elbrus could drop to as low as minus 20 degrees Celcius. He said however that the team had prepared themselves since October 2010 including staying for several days on the top of a mountain with a height of more than 3,000 meters above sea level.
"The three members of the ASGEE Team intending to scale Mount Elbrus are Evandra (22), Miftahul Agusta (21) from the Faculty of Economics and Business and Yasak (20) from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences," he said.
Three other ASGEE Team members are he himself from the Faculty of Economics and Business, Lestari Ningsih (22) from the Faculty of Cultural Sciences and Asyeb Awaludin (22) from the Faculty of Science and Technology.
"The effort to conquer Elbrus peak from May 13 to 20 will be started with a process of acclimatization as of May 16 which is to be continued with climbing to the peak which they hope to reach on National Awakening Day or May 20," he said.
To reach Mt Elbrus` peak the ASGEE team had prepared three scenarios. The first scenario or Plan A was to reach two summits in a day in 13 hours while Plan B was to be executed when Plan A had failed. Under Plan B , the team wold try to reach the western summit on the first day and the eastern summit on the second day.
"If the two plans fail because of weather conditions, the team would carry out Plan C , namely to return to the base camp and target only climbing for the western summit on the second day.
He sid the plan to conquer Elbrus was the third of the seven targets set by Wanala (Airlangga University`s student nature lovers) until 2022.
(T.H-YH/HAJM)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
