Russian security forces killed at least 10 suspected militants on Friday in a firefight outside of Cheget: http://reut.rs/iCo7C6

More (bad) news from Pelgrim Tours:

Tourists still are not allowed to come to Elbrus area through the police posts on the road.

There are May holidays in Russia now. A hope that the area may be open at least for holidays was not justified.

Now it sounds the restriction will last for a long time - at least until June or longer.

I wrote before that there is no forecast because no idea which goal must be achieved by this restriction. If the restriction has its own value (same as there is no access to areas near military bases or something) the situation may last for months or even years.

About alternatives in the area. Actually all the region in the mountains is closed. The nearby valleys are also prohibited even far away Bezengi valley. The police posts are low enough to prevent tourists to come in the mountains in the whole area.

There is still possibility to come to the North side of Elbrus because the road starts from another State. Several groups tried that instead of South side but that is just wasting of time at the moment. Groups came for short terms with light gear and poor experience in winter climbs which is ok for South side with roads, hotels, huts but definitely not sufficient on the North slopes in April-May. The North side may become reasonable choice if you have at least 10 days, some experience in mountaineering and starting from June or better from July. However to my mind if the South area stays closed by that time the North road will be closed too. It is not closed now just because there are no tourists. Same as with Bezingi valley - formally it is closed as well but sometimes it is possible to come there just because there are no tourists yet - too early for that region.

The conclusion is:
- Most likely area will stay closed until summer and many chances it stays closed for all the season.
- Special planning of something in the area instead of the traditional South side of Elbrus (in the North area, in Bezengi or other valleys) seems senseless. When tourist really start come these areas will be closed same strictly as traditional Elbrus area and it is much easy for authorities to close them because there is no tourist dependent population.

Seems like I climbed it just in time.

I'm actually glad to see something is happening. The article mentioned they killed some of the militant leaders. I'm not giving up hope yet for a climb in July.

Just keep following the Pelgrim Tours -forum. They update regullary. The only thing you can do is wait and hope for the best!

And the latest post in the Pilgrim forum, though only rumors, is encouraging.

This is today's post on Pilgrim:

Through hearsay the Elbrus area may be open in some days.

There is no official declaration (same as no declaration about closing) but police officers on the road say the area may be open very soon.

Fletch, are you still going to go if it opens?

We bought our plane tickets. At this point we will just wait and see. If it is not open by July 1, then we will cancel. It does look encouraging though.

From Pilgrim:

At the moment (May 06, 13 pm) there is still no normal access to the area.

Some possibilities to come exist already but very dependable on current police shift, their mood, time, presence or absence of their bosses and other reasons. Still may not be recommended to come from abroad to try how that really works in your case. However that is much better than a week ago and raises some hope. A dozen of skiers even may be seen on the slopes.

We are in the same boat of having bought our plane tickets. So even if it opens at the last moment we will go. Our Elbrus week starts June 10.

We already bailed on our trip in June. Switched flights to Ecuador and will be climbing Chimborazo and Cotopaxi instead. The change fee was $150, so even if you have flights, you probably still have options to find something to climb.

The north side is currently open and some climbers are going that way. However, this seems like a hugh financial risk to me that you could arrive and get turned back. Once you fly there, obviously the plane ticket cannot be reused or refunded. We would take the north side route in a heartbeat if we knew we would not be turned away.

They must be losing a lot of tourist revenue. Hopefully things will settle down and they will reopen the south side.

Since the south side is closed, we were considering climbing from the north. It was previously open but it looks like they have closed the north side now too.

The chances of climbing Elbrus this season look pretty bleak right now. However, we're still holding out slim hope that they will reopen it. Since we have our plane tickets, we will wait and see what happens until the last minute.

http://www.pilgrim-tours.com/forum//phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=7a327fe385c91f4baab4abd22809a601

Alpinist wrote:Since the south side is closed, we were considering climbing from the north. It was previously open but it looks like they have closed the north side now too.

The chances of climbing Elbrus this season look pretty bleak right now. However, we're still holding out slim hope that they will reopen it. Since we have our plane tickets, we will wait and see what happens until the last minute.

http://www.pilgrim-tours.com/forum//phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=12&sid=7a327fe385c91f4baab4abd22809a601

We are in the same boat. It's not just the plane tickets, there are tours in Moscow and St Petersburg, train, hotels, transfers, deposit to Pilgrim, visas.
We're going to Russia so we're trying to salvage the situation.

Alpinist, when you are going? We leave next week.

Does anybody have experience with Over the Rainbow / Elbrus-tours?
http://www.elbrustours.ru/en/
They offer Elbrus from the north and say they have gotten groups past the check points.

Some groups get past the check points, but it seems that the closer we come to the climbing season (july - august) the stricter policeman will be. Persuading them looks necessary, and I don't speak russian at all Maybe we could bring them some vodka and girls as entertainment