Russia part 3

Ok, so the top of Mt Avochinsky was high. Which mean the air was thin. Which meant that we were all gasping from our exertion. However, you might notice there are a lot of clouds constantly surrounding the top of the volcano. Those are sulfur vents. Anyway, after we got up there Alexandre told us not to "breathe too deeply". He then proceeded to break up chunks of rock for us with his HUGE hammer that he carried up there. I had nice visions of me passing out from sulfur inhalation and rolling down the cone to my death. I didn't let something silly like that stop me though. They explained that the cap was made of different rock since it was the cooled lava that fell down into the volcano to act as a plug to keep the magma in. Sweet. It was kinda like climbing around on big pieces of steel wool that would bloody you up good if you weren't careful. Our way back down was a lot easier and more fun. At one point the told us to zip up our jackets and hurl ourselves down the snow covered hill, so we could slide down and the sherpa guy would catch us before we slid off the cliff. That was fun. We got back to camp and were pretty much spent. An 11 hour hike will do that to you. All in all it was an outstanding trip and I cannot stress enough that it would never have happened in the US. Not without waivers and training and all types of safety procedures. Good times.