Alan and V2 at Base Camp. The Barrels are, well, barrels Photo: Michael Liebreich

In Europe or the USA, this camp would be called "The Portacabins"; in Russia, they have lugged 10,000 gallon boilers up the mountain and cut windows in them to act as shelters. Summer climbers have reported the Barrels as being famously unhygienic, so it was with some trepidation that we loaded up our packs and set out up two ageing cable-cars to the Mir Station, and on from there by ratrac.

The living quarters were a pleasant surprise. Once ensconced in your barrel with your mates, it is easy to forget you are perched at 3,800m on Europe's tallest mountain. Heated and lit, our barrel became a welcome home from home for the next few days. The only thing we worried about was the wiring. Bare wires dangle from the ceiling. At night the play of sparks around the plugs keeps you awake. You can write your name in the soot marks that surround generations of melted junction-boxes.

The other camp facilities were very basic. The kitchen was filthy, layered in the grease of a thousand climbers' ad hoc meals. All water had to be collected as snow and melted.

At night you tried to remember which snowdrifts were clean and which soiled.

The toilet was a hut'n'hole, thoughtfully equipped with a shovel, in case the accumulating mass of excrement poked its head above floor level. No-one told us what to do if it turned out to be frozen solid, as I imagine it was.

Remains of chip-pan fire at 4,200m - the Priutt Refuge Photo: Dr K Henderson

The Barrels was not always the base camp for Elbrus. In the 1930s the Russians built what they referred to as the "highest hotel in the world", the Priutt Refuge, at 4,200m. It served generations of climbers until burning down in the seventies. A replacement was built, with a distinctive aluminium roof like a caravan, which could hold several hundred climbers. In 1996 it too burnt, and has not yet been replaced.

Since the destruction of the Priutt Refuge, the usual plan is to spend an acclimatisation day climbing to the Pastukhov rocks at 4,700m (these turned out to be a patch of rubble, not the fearsome jagged peaks of our imagination). Descending for a second overnight at the Barrels, you begin your summit push very early the next day, hitching a lift by Ratrac to around 4,000m.

An alternative, for those with gonads like ball-bearings, is to pass the second night in a tent somewhere around the Pastukhov rocks. Sensibly, we ignored this option.

View towards the peaks from the Barrels Photo: Dr K Henderson

The day after we arrived in the Barrels dawned warm and windless, and we set out on skis for the Pastukhov rocks. Accustomed now to the rhythm of skinning, we made good progress, passing the ruins of the Priutt Refuge after a few hours. The snow was good and the slope shallow. Every so often a ratrac would clank past us, carrying a load of skiers up the mountain; a little later skiers and ratrac would swoop past us in the other direction as we laboured uphill.

By 4,200m we could take stock of the climb ahead. The snow was petering out, leaving an exposed ice-field, not more than 25 degrees steep, but slick and shiny under the hot sun. Leaving our skis, we roped up, put on our crampons and began to climb. Once again, dehydration was the enemy, and by the time we neared the Pastukhov Rocks my head was throbbing unbearably. I was happy when we turned around, our objective for the day achieved, and returned to our snug Barrels.

The evening was fine and clear. As soon as we were back at 3,800m my head cleared. The fact that we had climbed to the height of Mont Blanc just as part of our acclimatisation routine brought home to us the sheer scale of the mountain. Concentrating on our own thoughts, we bustled around preparing for an early start the next day. Everything all looked set for a good run at the summit, and we set our alarms for 3.30 am.