From Houston to Sydney 2013

Russian Far East - 2014

 

Today had all the ingredients of being perhaps the highlight of my entire trip through the Russian Far East.  The Valley of Geysers (in Russian, Dolina Geyzerov), is located about 180 kilometres north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and is Kamchatka’s most famous attraction.  Only discovered in 1941 when researchers tried to find out why the snow melted earlier in the area compared with nearby regions, it is a six kilometre long valley with geothermal features such as geysers, boiling mud cauldrons, hot springs and pools of boiling water.

The weather was perfect; I woke to clear blue skies with just a few small patches of early mist.  Even Maro’s communication seemed to be working; when I returned to my hotel yesterday, it was the trigger for the hotel manager to phone Maro, who told me to have breakfast at 8:30am, and then be ready to receive a message some time after 9:00am with the pickup details.  Like yesterday’s visit to Kuril Lake, a trip to the Valley of Geysers also required a helicopter flight – another positive thing to anticipate.  If it hadn’t been for the persistent chest cold that I had been trying to shake off for the past five days, I think I would have been feeling on top of the world even before the day’s program began.

There are no phones in the rooms of the guesthouse, as they apparently try to make a virtue of being cut off from outside distractions such as telephones and internet.  (I am at a loss to reconcile that with the small television sets that are found in each room, although as they only receive one channel, I guess that should also be classified as being ‘cut off’).  Because the rooms lack phones, all communications with Maro have required the hotel manager’s co-operation to use her brick-like mobile phone.

The call from Maro came through promptly at 9:05am with quite precise instructions – be ready to be collected in front of the hotel by a white minibus, number 794, at 10:50am.  And right on time, the bus arrived.  In contrast to yesterday, I was not the last on the pickup list, so I had the chance to see some of the other hotels in Paratunka.  There are some very pleasant, comfortable places to stay in Paratunka – dare in say, in stark contrast to the place where I am staying.  However, I’m not worried, as I have arranged to move hotels tomorrow so I can be in a less isolated location; from tomorrow night I’ll be staying in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

The check-in procedure at the helipad in Yelizovo was simpler than yesterday, as they already had the one piece of information they needed, which was my passport number.  Once again, my transport for the day was a Mil Mi-8 helicopter, although a different and slightly newer one.  We took off at 12:05pm and headed north-north-east for the 180 kilometre journey to the Valley of Geysers.

The scenery on the way was spectacular to see, as the helicopter flew at quite a low altitude through the valleys and between the peaks for most of the journey.  At times, when we crossed ridges, we were literally at treetop height.  As we got closer to Valley of Geysers, the pilot circled the peaks of two active volcanoes for us to get a closer look.  The first, Karymsky Volcano, was a 1536 metre high conical peak with a huge solidified lava flow on one side, while the second (Small Semyachik Volcano) was distinguished by having a milky white crater lake, signifying a highly acidic lake containing sulphuric acid.

We landed at Valley of Geysers in beautifully clear weather at 1:00pm.  The two hours that we spent there hardly seemed enough to take in the vast array of geothermal sights.  Prior to 2007, there would have been even more to see, but a huge landslide in June of that year buried a huge part of the valley, destroying the surface features and changing the landscape quite dramatically.  Of course, the magma and hot water are still beneath the surface of the landslide, but it will take some time before sufficient cracks and fissures form to allow surface features to be seen once again.

Nonetheless, there was still a great range of things to see in the part of the valley that was unaffected by the landslide.  The entire area now forms the Kronotsky Biosphere State Reserve, and as with other state reserves I have visited in Kamchatka, we were accompanied throughout our visit by armed gunmen to protect us in the event that a bear might appear.

One of the conditions of visiting Valley of Geysers is that visitors must stay on the boardwalk provided to avoid stepping on hot rocks or on thin surface soil.  The boardwalk took us on an anticlockwise route through the valley with several stops at features such as some large red boiling mud cauldrons (the red colour coming from iron), several pools of bubbling water, a turquoise pool of boiling water, some small vents that were expelling what was obviously hydrogen sulphide before we stopped at a viewpoint to admire one of the valley’s most spectacular sights, the 40 metre high Vitrazh (Stained Glass Wall).  The large slope contained several geysers and hot springs, and the hot water flowing down its side caused it to be covered with a colourful mix of geyserite and thermophilic algae.

A short walk brought us to a geyser beside Lake Geyzernoye that erupts every 40 minutes or so, so we stayed and watched its performance for several minutes.  Lake Geyzernoye is now something of a misnomer, as the lake appeared after the 2007 landslide, but disappeared again in January 2014 when tectonic movements cleared the barrier that had formed the lake.  Rather than the turquoise lake that existed for six and a half years, ‘Lake Geyzernoye’ is now just a section of braided stream in the Geyzernaya River.

All too soon, our two hour stay at valley of Geysers was over, but there was more geothermal activity to see.  A short five minute helicopter flight took us 14 kilometres away to the Uzon Caldera.  Although the distance covered was short, we found ourselves in a totally different microclimate – gone were the clear blue sunny skies of Valley of Geysers, replaced instead by grey overcast skies and light but steady rain.

Uzon Caldera was filled with a lake of steaming hot water, although the vibrancy and intensity of its appearance were flattened somewhat by the dismal weather conditions.  Nonetheless, we were able to see the small green sulphur delta at the side of the lake, several pools of boiling water, and some impressive grey boiling mud cauldrons (the grey colour coming from aluminium).  Frustratingly, the rain cleared just as we were leaving, and had the weather been better during our stay of one hour, I’m sure Uzon Caldera would have made a much deeper impression.

Our next flight lasted thirty minutes, during which we flew 101 kilometres to a small outpost beside the Zhupanova River.  The place, apparently without a name, was so isolated that I struggled to get a latitude/longitude position using the GPS in my mobile phone (as I had been doing for each of the stops over the previous few days), although eventually I managed to get some kind of intermittent connection.

The stop at Zhupanova River was to last an hour and a half, because the helicopter had to transport a team of men away from the outpost and return with some cargo of timber and oil.  We were invited to bathe in a small hot spring, but along with most of the others, I declined the offer.  Unlike the other hot springs I have been using, this one comprised a small, deep pool inside a little hut.  The water was, I was assured, not nearly as putrid as it appeared.  Finally, lunch was served to us at 6:00pm (the Russians really seem to like very late lunches!) – an identical boxed lunch to the one provided the previous day.  Lunch conversation was with a delightful German couple, now living in Moscow, whose daughter had applied to attend a UWC several years ago.  She had missed out on the scholarship support she needed, and so attended another IB school in a different country.  Needless to say, we found a huge amount to talk about during our very positive and enjoyable conversation.

The final leg of the journey back was a relatively short 83 kilometres, which took just 25 minutes.  The scenery was not quite as spectacular as it had been in the morning, as the air was becoming progressively more hazy as the day went on, and most of the mountain peaks were covered in cloud.  After a great day’s travels, we touched down in Yelizovo just before 7:10pm.

Transport back to the hotel took a little longer than expected because of some detours, and I returned to my hotel at a little after 8:00pm.

I began by saying that today had all the ingredients to become the highlight of my entire trip through the Russian Far East.  It was a great day, and would easily qualify for ‘best’ day had I not had so many other memorable experiences in this fascinating part of the world.

Kamchatka is one of only four areas in the world with geothermal activity, including geysers (the others being Iceland, Rotorua in New Zealand and Yellowstone in the US).  My visit today has completed ‘the set’ for me.


Day 19 - Valley of Geysers

Saturday

19 July 2014