The Child

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Collection of my climbing programs in the Russian Caucasus

If you do the same job for a long time, seriously and with complete dedication, at some point it becomes something more than just a profession.

Climbing Mount Gestola in the Caucasus, Georgia

That's what happened to me. It started as a hobby, continued as an interesting job, and became almost a religion. I realized that mountains can be lived in, breathed in, felt in, and even understood in ways that are completely foreign to them.

Also, perhaps most importantly, I realized that mountains can and should be shared – this is especially valuable in the flood of charlatanism that inevitably engulfs any genuine topic if there's any profit can be made from it.

Sunset in the Caucasus Mountains

One of the less obvious, but very valuable, effects of mountains is slowing down. In the mountains, the human bustle that turns life into an indistinct stream of blurred images is almost invisible.

The mountains offer a place for peace, contemplation, and meditative fixation on what seems unchangingly eternal. Mountains reluctantly accept change; human time has no power over them.

The summit of Mount Kazbek bids farewell to the sun

And, like any element beyond human control, mountains teach us intuition, the ability to read quiet, implicit signs.

This intuitive observation helps us feel that even if it seems as no connection exists between events and phenomena, this limitation exists only in our consciousness, incapable of seeing chains of cause and effect that extend beyond the limits of our perception of the world...

Rainbow in the Mountains

For the first time I visited the Irik Chat Gorge in the Caucasus exactly 30 years ago. Then, almost as a child, I took part in a very adventurous expedition, which, by pure chance (fools and beginners have luck), did not end in rescue job...

In early spring with deep snow, we tried to reach the base of Mount Elbrus from the east. This adventure, miraculously without tragic consequences, is worthy of a separate story.

For now, I just want to record this location as an example of the thesis I'll present in this text.

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Since my first trip to Irik Chat in 1996, I've been to this gorge dozens of times – as a guide, climbing Mount Elbrus with groups from my favourite eastern side, or just walking for my own pleasure along the beautiful trail in the shade of ozone-scented amber pines.

Irik Chat Gorge in the Elbrus Region

Visiting this picturesque corner of the Caucasus once again, I stumbled upon an observation that, after some time, completed the puzzle of my worldview. The trigger for that was the rapid growth of vegetation in the Irik Chat Gorge.

10-15 years ago, the forest's contours still matched those I encountered during my first visit to the gorge in 1996. At that time, they still matched the old route descriptions from the 1970s and 1980s that we used to prepare our hike.

By forest contours, I mean its lower and upper boundaries, as well as its texture – the most dominant tree species.

Autumn colors of the Irik Chat Gorge

For the past 10 years, I have been haunted by the feeling of progressive change. The slopes of the gorge, which 30-50 years ago remained bare or were covered with a low-growing shrubs, now are densely covered with young forest, often becoming impassable due to the dense growth of trees.

Trails are becoming overgrown, and trees of several meters high cover the rocky couloirs – the channels of winter avalanches. The forest is growing up and down the gorge. In the upper part, at altitudes of 2,500-2,700 meters, tree species appear that previously didn't grow above 1,500 meters.

The Irik Chat Gorge is overgrown with young forest

Above the upper boundary of the old pine forest, where 10-15 years ago there was nothing but creeping alpine juniper, there are groves of young birch now.

In my opinion, that doesn't show the variability of the mountain climate or seasonal changes.

It seems as if the forest senses the approach of something more serious.

Its spreading trend clearly confirms critical climate change, the severity of which is demonstrated by the possibility of observing it over such a short time interval.

Caucasus, Baksan Gorge

The same picture is supported by the catastrophically rapid melting of glaciers, which accelerated precisely during the period I outlined with the example of changes in the forest cover of the Irik Chat Gorge.

If even the mountains are starting to change, that is a very alarming signal.

And if the changes occur so quickly that they become noticeable to the human eye, that is... This isn't even a signal, but a real picture of the fact that we are at the peak of a climate catastrophe.

High-mountain glaciers are rapidly disappearing

Rising sea levels, rapid melting of the glaciers, visible shift in traditional seasonal patterns – all of this is noticeable in a wide variety of fields.

Global warming has become a popular trend or even a commercial product, the sale or operation of which consumes billions of dollars in budgets. But, on a global scale, for most people, the phrase "global warming" remains something vaguely defined and, therefore, comparably safe.

Glaciers in the European Alps have shrunk by 25% in 10 years and their melting rate is accelerating. But the obvious signals indicate something completely different.

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A climate phenomenon called El Niño (El Niño - the Child, indirectly - Jesus Christ) is directly associated with the theory of global warming.

For me, the scientific and less frightening name for this phenomenon is more neutral - Southern Oscillation. Why the name "El Niño" confuses me – I'll explain in a few paragraphs.

So, the Southern Oscillation. A climatic phenomenon which observations began approximately a century and a half ago, after Captain Camilo Carillo reported the appearance of a strange warm current in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Peru, at the 1892 Congress of the Geographical Society in Lima. Sailors noticed this current during the Catholic Christmas season, hence came the allegorical connection between the Spanish name "El Niño" and the name of Jesus Christ.

It's quite possible that we have yet to experience the significance of this phenomenon's discovery... The fact is that the Pacific Ocean is the main thermoregulatory mechanism on our planet. The slightest changes in its functioning affect not only the climate or weather. They affect literally everything.

Let me return for a second to the main conclusion from my mountain observations: If global changes become visible to the human eye, it means that in terms of geological time they are happening at lightning speed.

What did I find alarming about the (seemingly) innocuous name El Niño?

Here's the thing: with increasing intensity and at irregular intervals, this phenomenon was observed for approximately 150 years. This intensification of the phenomenon was accompanied by devastating climatic events: hurricanes, tsunamis, floods, and droughts.

Looking beyond the meteorological reports, one can notice that the peak phases of El Niño coincided with periods of other, non-natural upheavals.

It is precisely the periods of observation of active phases of El Niño that coincide with periods of terrible human cataclysms – epidemics, wars, revolutions, state collapses, and social upheavals. Recent peaks of El Niño activity – 1905, 1917, 1940, 1991, 2019, 2023/ 

Even on the example of Russia, these dates seem symbolic. These are only the results of recently recorded observations...

Lest you think I'm making this all up, here's a quote from Wikipedia:

"El Niño is believed to be associated with the cyclical nature of wars and civil conflicts in countries whose climates are influenced by El Niño. A study of data from 1950 to 2004 found that El Niño was associated with 21% of all civil conflicts during this period. Moreover, the risk of civil war during El Niño years is twice as high. "The connection between climate and military action is likely mediated by crop failures, which often occur during hot years."

I've come up with an awkward analogy. After all, if this is true, then the future of our planet and all civilization is becoming tinged with gloomy undertones. The speed and severity of climate change speak of something imminent and inevitable.

And the most disturbing: is the allegorical connection in the name of the climate phenomenon El Niño coincidental with the name of Jesus Christ, whose second coming, according to the Book of Revelation, means the end of the world?

Could it be that the Bible contains a hidden prophecy of the destruction of the world from a climate catastrophe, the harbinger of which is the appearance of El Niño?

There is no moral nor politics in this text. This is just my personal attempt to rationally process the observation that the familiar world has begun to change faster than people are psychologically prepared to accept.

The main conclusion is inescapably obvious... Even under the best-case scenario, our children will live in a different world. Completely different from the one we and our parents knew and loved from childhood.

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Text and photographs by Alexey Trubachev
MCS AlexClimb Mountaineering and Rock Climbing School

MCS EDIT 2026