Glade under Mushrooms on Elbrus

There is another flat hollow between the Glade of Stone Mushrooms and the German airfield, which is marked on maps as a Glade under Mushrooms. Some people call it the Moon Glade, but this is wrong. Moon Glade is located 300 meters above, at an altitude of 3500 meters, on the border of the eternal ice cover of Elbrus.  

In the Glade under the Mushrooms, you can see giant chaos of stones up to 100 meters high and lava fields. In the past, there was a glacial lake here. It was sandwiched between a glacier moraine and a mountain range towering over a German Airfield. It has two peaks: one of them is unnamed (3077 m), the second peak is called Birjaly (3179 m). From the side of the Glade under the Mushrooms, these two peaks look like small hills littered with scree lava fields. The height of the Glade itself above sea level is 3050 m . The famous Glade of Stone Mushrooms is located directly above it, at an altitude of 3200 meters.

In some essays, this place is also called Obsidian Valley. Obsidian is a type of volcanic glass formed by the rapid cooling of lava. Considering that the Glade under the Mushrooms is a former glacial lake, the formation of obsidian in these places is more than likely. However, it is wrong to assume that the stone chaos of this valley consists only of obsidian. Most of all there is ordinary black basalt, which is cooled volcanic lava.  

The Glade under the Mushrooms consists of two parts: Large Glade and Small Glade. There is a water source in Small Glade, so climbers sometimes stop here for acclimatization before climbing to the top. These glades are located near the edge of the eternal ice cover of Elbrus. The snow cover here comes off only in July, although in many hollows snow lies all year round