Bezengi: The Mizhirgi Tragedy

Mobile version of the text in English
Versión del texto en español para dispositivos móviles

The roar of the Bezengi avalanche has reached even our South American shores — many media outlets in Peru, Argentina and Chile have reported on the tragedy in the North Caucasus. Answering questions about what happened, I have to interrupt the story of our current expedition and turn to a much sadder subject...

On September 6, at around 5 p.m., a massive snow-and-ice collapse occurred high on the Mizhirgi massif, near Bezengi Camp in the North Caucasus. An enormous mass of ice and snow broke loose from above, setting the snow and ice below it in motion. As the avalanche reached the flatter section of the glacier, it swept across an area that had previously been considered safe. At that moment, a group taking part in a training camp was there, practising movement and technical skills on ice.

As of September 9, 2026, of the 33 people involved, ten managed to descend on their own, six were injured, 13 were killed, and four are still missing...

I would deliberately avoid using the word *accident* for what happened. Given the scale of the event and the severity of its consequences, this was a major tragedy rather than an ordinary mountain accident. And I would question explanations such as “mountains have always been dangerous” or “nothing like this has ever happened before.”

There may well be objective causes behind this tragedy. And one of the questions that must be asked after Mizhirgi is this: to what extent are those causes connected with the changes in high-altitude terrain and glaciation that are now taking place around the world?

Today, mountains are no longer quite the same gentle giants that generations of travellers admired 20, 30 or 50 years ago. Mountains are changing along with the rest of our planet. Events in different parts of the world show just how sensitive the high-altitude environment has become to the climatic changes now taking place.

This is no longer a matter of abstract climate forecasts. The changes are already visible directly in the mountains — in the condition of glaciers, firn fields, permafrost and rocky terrain.

Over the past ten years, the glaciers of the Swiss Alps alone have lost around a quarter of their ice volume, while the rate of degradation has accelerated dramatically.

What is the corresponding trend in the North Caucasus? How systematically are these changes being monitored, and to what extent are they being taken into account when mountain routes and the associated safety measures are reviewed? That is a separate question.

And this, in my view, is where we should look for one of the possible factors behind both the Mizhirgi tragedy and other similar disasters that we may, unfortunately, still have to face.

How well does our system for monitoring critical changes in mountain terrain keep pace with rapidly melting glaciers and the overall warming climate?

When was the last time the mountaineering and trekking routes in Bezengi were reassessed to determine whether they still meet current safety conditions?

When was the upper glaciation zone — situated at great altitude and potentially threatening the surrounding valleys — last systematically monitored? After all, the presence of enormous masses of ice above relatively narrow valleys is one of the characteristic objective hazards of the Bezengi region.

A significant proportion of the basic descriptions of Bezengi’s classic routes date back to the 1960s and 1970s. How systematically are we reassessing today not simply the technical descriptions themselves, but the objective hazards of those routes in light of changes in glaciers and terrain?

How many routes have actually been closed because their objective danger has become unacceptably high?

The 2026 season has produced particularly grim accident statistics in two areas of the Caucasus at once — Elbrus and Bezengi.

But the mechanisms and consequences of accidents in these two areas are very different. Until the Mizhirgi tragedy, Elbrus was the undisputed leader in the number of incidents, attracting enormous numbers of people because of its accessibility and popularity. Most accidents on Elbrus, however, result either from tactical mistakes made by climbers or from other subjective factors unrelated to larger global processes.

In this respect, Elbrus is conservative.

The Bezengi Gorge is a different environment. Its terrain creates a much broader spectrum of objective hazards than the Elbrus region. Most of the Caucasus’ 5,000-metre peaks are concentrated in Bezengi, along with one of the most powerful high-altitude glacial systems in the entire Caucasus.

Besides this massive glaciation, Bezengi is characterised by dramatic differences in elevation and enormous masses of ice hanging above narrow valleys. In a period of rapid climate change, operating safely in an environment like this requires serious attention and constant monitoring.

Perhaps the main problem today is not that mountains are falling apart.

They always have.

The problem is that now they are changing much faster than we would like to notice...

Text and photographs by Alex Trubachev

Your guide to mountaineering, ice climbing, and rock climbing
MCS EDIT 2026