Tears welled in my eyes twice while hiking some of the most beautiful landscapes on the planet - once in mid-wretch gag and once in awe-struck wonder.

They were unexpected bookends for a journey that only vaguely resembled the trip I planned for myself and my hiking partner Ben Yeomans. But that's how adventures often happen in Russia — unexpectedly, with wonder, bewilderment - and occasionally even nausea.

In years past, Ben and I together have climbed, hiked, backpacked and canoed mountaintops, deserts, canyons and wilderness rivers. Never, however, have we traveled through landscapes as severe as the knife edges and wind-swept terrain found along the Russian-Georgian border - the landscape of the Caucasus Mountains.

And never, for that matter, have we opened a trip in a ramshackle hostel, cups of vodka in hand, eyeing with deep suspicion a plate offered as a welcome dish by our Balkar hosts, who are mountain people and sheepherders by tradition.

It was sheep's fat wrapped in sheep's stomach, tied with sinew and boiled until it becomes a gray, wiggly doughnut hole. Vodka washed the first piece down. I wretched at the second and tears poured from my eyes, gag-reflex in full operation, vodka out the nose. Not good.

The Caucasus region is wedged between the Black and Caspian seas with the eponymous mountains climbing skyward in an tectonic crumple. The Balkars are among dozens of ethnic groups living here who have feuded with one another, or their Russian conquerors, for centuries - giving the Caucasus a deserved reputation for persistent violence, particularly in Chechnya and on the Russian side.

Most adventurers who come here head to Mount Elbrus, Europe's highest peak at 18,500 feet. It has year-round snow pack and glaciers that draw skiers, snowboarders and mountaineers, not to mention weekend tourists who take an aging cable car up to the snow fields, snap a few pictures, then descend to spas, bars, discos and hotels in the valley.

We avoided Elbrus, mainly to avoid other people altogether, but also so we that didn't burden ourselves with heavy mountaineering equipment.

Our starting point was the hostel, called Zhilisu, where we arrived in the fog-shrouded dark after a three-hour ride, having climbed up through an abandoned, post-apocalyptic uranium mine in the back of a car that resembled a 1970s van. The Russians call it a jeep and it bravely traverses roads that horses might fear to pass. Out the windows we peered through pea-soup fog and dusk to look hundreds of feet straight down into gullies and ravines. No guardrails, of course.

More than once, we bounced over a ditch and slammed our heads into the car's roof. Our driver smoked incessantly and maneuvered around washouts, while making regular jokes about dying. Later, at our hostel, faced with a second plate of boiled sheep's stomach, I too began to wonder about dying.

The morning after, we left Zhilisu on foot. We explored nearby mineral springs and saw a towering waterfall through jagged cliffs above sending veils of mist into the gorge and the sunlight.

We then climbed southeast past hobbled horses and cows up through a notch toward our first pass — Eldarbashi. The washed-browns and October yellows of the grasses and pastures gave way to fields of broken rock. At the height of the 9,500-foot-high pass, we looked down into the Islamchat river valley, scoured out by erosion that has humbled these mountains for thousands of years. We pitched our tent on a high bluff as the fog dulled the river's echoes and closed us off from the world.

The next day, winds pushed us up to the Kyrtykaush Pass, at 10,600 feet, where we found a metal monument marker from the Communist Party's youth organization, Komsomol, dedicated to native sons of the Caucasus who died in World War II, which Russians call "The Great Patriotic War."

On the downward slopes, a herd of horses eyed us warily, then scrambled higher. At valley's bottom, the braids of the Kyrtyk River carved a wide swath between two lines of peaks stretching up into glacier and sheer rock. Upstream we could see decrepit stone-and-timber sheepherders' camps along with rusting shipping containers marked "CCCP" - Russian for U.S.S.R.. Above us, a figure chased a flock of sheep up over the ridge. With a sweep of the arm, I ran my fingers over the cloud-swept glaciers, down the river valley, through the flood plain and over the pine tree hillside.

We camped along a stone wall, on the south bank of the river, littered with paper birch and aspen leaves that caught the evening sun. The next morning, we were spotted by a cow herder with blackened hands, mud-caked rubber boots and a filthy undershirt. He didn't know what to make of two American backpackers, but he did the neighborly thing for the Balkars: He invited us in for a cup of tea and a smoke of hashish.

We declined. He then gave us a quick tirade on the state of the world. "The Soviet Union; it was a godless country." The bitterness was understandable. Thousands of Balkars were deported from here by Stalin in 1943, accused of collaboration with the Germans.

He said he'd been in the pastures all summer and would stay all winter, occasionally making his way home to the Baksan Valley - just like his grandfather and great-grandfathers did before him.

We followed a road to the valley and met our driver, who took us to the base of a ski area, where we set off for the second part of our journey — this time almost due south to the border with Georgia. In spitting snow and fading light, we hopped on a single-chair lift up the south side of Mount Cherget (11,300 feet) and were met by a border guard - who, like the herder, seemed bemused by our presence but willingly recorded our name and passport numbers.

Later, in the twilight and snow, we pitched our tent on the marshy shores of Lake Donguzorunkel, a basin of brilliant aquamarines, glacial water and minerals fed by two splashing waterfalls. The clack-clack of hail on the tent drowned out our conversation; the rumble of glaciers separating and snow packs collapsing into clouds of white kept us awake.

We had hoped to climb farther to a smaller lake over the next ridge, a half-mile from the border. The guard the previous day had warned that we wouldn't be allowed to because we were foreigners. He was right: Despite offers of gorp, chocolate and a gift of maple syrup, two young guards refused to let us go.

Instead we scrambled down and up and down again over sofa-sized boulders that shifted under foot, over green-gray lichen and through alpine scrub. We passed an old helicopter wreck, "CCCP" stamped on the engine block and doors. And we clamored on tufts of tundra grasses up to a parapet high over the lake, the steep slopes falling away around us.

I stopped and looked out. Below us, the vivid hues of the lake and echo of waterfalls. Above us, serrated, snow-swept crags straining up into the rush of clouds. At their base, wet slides crashing down chutes and gullies into alluvial fans of snow, ice silt and rock.

It felt like we were watching geological time unfold before our eyes, epochs and eons sweeping past like clouds that lick the mountaintops and dissolve.

We were very, very small travelers passing but only briefly through an enormous world of almost unfathomable beauty.

I closed my eyes as tears again welled up.

___

If You Go...

TIPS: Russia's North Caucasus is a volatile, corrupt and mind-boggling place, a mix of mindsets that is one part holdover Soviet bureaucracy, one part clan-driven, xenophobic distrust, one part anti-terrorist police policies. The rewards are immense if you have a thick skin, willingness to grease a palm or two, and the patience to weather capricious bureaucracy.

TIMING: For trekking or hiking, September is the best time to go, after the crowds have gone and the weather is cooler. July and August are peak hiking and climbing months. Be prepared for long lines of tourists if you are climbing Mount Elbrus. For skiing, snowboarding or ice climbing, late winter from February on is ideal.

VISAS: Most foreigners will need a visa, obtained well in advance, to enter Russia, and will need to register with authorities upon arrival and have permits for visiting Mount Elbrus, the park and border area. You may want to consult with a travel agent experienced in Russian travel. U.S. State Department recommendations are at http://travel.state.gov/travel/.

GETTING THERE: Most routes involve flying to Moscow's Sheremyetevo or Domodedevo airports; then to Mineralniye Vodi, the city nearest Elbrus; then a three-hour drive south to the Baksan River, the jumping off point for Elbrus.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

-Mount Elbrus & Caucasus English-language Web site: http://www.elbrus.net/home.htm

-Elbrus National Park administrative offices, ul. Lesnaya, 2 Elbrus Kabardino-Balkariya, phone 011-7-( 866-387-8141

-Guide services based in Russia: Elbrus Navigator, 011-7-866-387-1424 or navi5642(at)yandex.ru or Go-Elbrus Terskol, 011-7-866-387-1335 or http://www.go-elbrus.com.

-Travel agency based in Ireland with experience in travel to Elbrus region: Adventure Alternative, http://www.adventurealternative.com/

MIKE ECKEL