From Houston to Sydney 2013

Russian Far East - 2014

It seems that yesterday’s bathe in the hot spring was even more fortuitously timed than I had expected.  The water in my room had even less pressure than usual, and the customary slow trickle had deteriorated to a medium-paced dripping, even when the tap was turned on fully.  It was another cold, grey, wet morning, and a morning shower was clearly not an option.

Breakfast this morning was scheduled for 9:00am, so I made my way across the wet muddy ground beneath the dripping leaves of the overhead trees to the restaurant in the neighbouring hotel.  The food was somewhat less impressive this morning – two frankfurts, two boiled eggs, an apple and a small cup of instant coffee.

Despite promising to do so yesterday afternoon, Maro had not given any indication what time I would be collected this morning.  My printed program said departure was at 9:00am, but this was clearly impossible with breakfast having been scheduled for 9:00am.  The default assumption seemed to be that pick-up would be half an hour after breakfast.

Time passed by and there was no sign of any vehicle, so I asked the hotel to phone Maro to see what was happening.  We got through at 9:45am, and Maro told me that the driver was having some problems and they would arrive in 25 minutes or so.  I think Maro really needs to learn to communicate with her clients to give them at least some vague idea what is happening, and when.

Today’s destination was Vachkazhets Peak with the aim of completing a trek to the mountain cirque, with visits also to the lake and waterfall.  It is claimed that Vachkazhets and its surrounding area is among the most beautiful spots in Kamchatka, telling a story stretching back to ancient times when Vachkazhets was a single-cone volcano before exploding and dividing into three parts as they stand today – Mount Letnyaya Poperechnaya, Mount Vachkazhtsy and Mount Vachkazhets itself.

The 25 minutes eventually became 45 minutes, with no phone calls to update me on the situation.  Maro and the driver eventually arrived at 10:30, an hour and a half later than the printed program indicated.  My hope was that the delayed departure might mean that the fog and low clouds had some extra time to lift and reveal the spectacular scenery that was said to be lurking in the mists.  As I set off from the guesthouse, I strongly suspected that the beauty of Vachkazhets would be shown at its best on a fine day with blue skies, rather than under the cold, wet, grey, overcast conditions of today.

The drive to the base of Vachkazhets Peak was scheduled to take two hours, and fortunately the rain had stopped for the day by the time our drive began.  The first hour was easy driving on an excellent, though narrow, sealed road.  The next half hour was very slow going along a very rough unsealed road.  However, the final section of the road had deteriorated so much after the rain that the minibus was not able to continue, and we got out and walked the final leg, a distance of about three and a half kilometres that took 50 minutes each way.  It was during this walk that I discovered I was well and truly back in the land where mosquitoes seemed to believe they were the ecologically dominant species.  Inelegant as it might be, this was definitely a day for wearing the mosquito net headgear, which is what I proceeded to do.

When we finally reached the base of Vachkazhets Peak, marked by a beautiful almost rectangular alpine lake, one of the three peaks was visible to us, but the tops of the other two were covered by low clouds. It was also obvious that the cirque that was our destination was covered in fog.

Notwithstanding the combined challenges of fog, mosquitoes, steep slopes and slippery soil, we set off on the climb to the cirque, about 100 metres above us.  Although the altitude was only a little over 700 metres, the high latitude meant that the vegetation was alpine in nature, and we soon found ourselves confronted by several snowfields that had to be crossed to reach the cirque.

Unlike the others in the group, my shoes were clearly not up to the task of crossing steeply sloping snowfields, and I found it difficult to get a firm footing.  With the assistance of some of the others, I persevered, but it was one of the more daunting, less enjoyable, more tiring – and probably more dangerous – of the treks I have undertaken.

Persistence paid off, however, and we were rewarded by reasonably clear views of the cirque, with just a little fog lingering at the far end.  We spent just a few minutes at the cirque; there was no-where to sit and everything was damp, and so we began our descent down a different track, marginally better formed than the way up (which was completely unformed for much of the way).

After a brief standing stop at about 3:30pm for refreshment (a tiny but very welcome bread roll with apricot jam in the middle), we circled around one of the horns of the cirque and headed up into the neighbouring valley.  Our destination was a waterfall, and the track involved areas of alpine marshland, areas of sharp glacial scree and some small snowfields.  By the time we reached the viewing point for the waterfall, the fog was closing in quickly. Thus we saw the waterfall, but not I suspect in its true glory.

The walk down was more easily handled than the ascent, although it still involved some perilous snowfields (one of which saw me slide down on to my backside, though fortunately not all the way to the foot of the steep valley), and a crossing of a small stream using a three-log bridge.

We reached the lake that marks the foot of Vachkazhets Peak at 4:55pm, but it took a further 50 minutes to walk along the mutilated roadway to reach our bus.  After all the climbing and walking, it was bliss to reach the bus, sit down, and finally have lunch at a quarter to six.  We even managed to get five minutes of sunshine while we were eating – the first for me since arriving in Kamchatka – and although it was quickly swallowed up again by the grey clouds, it was hopefully the portent of better weather tomorrow.  The portents were far from clear, however – as we looked back to the cirque and the valley we had been visiting, we saw that both were already obscured by low clouds that had completely filled both depressions in the short time since our visit.

When I returned to my hotel at 7:45pm, I managed to make the hotel manager (a lady with zero English) understand the problem with the hot water in my room.  It turns out that all the rooms on the top (3rd) floor have a deficit of hot water, and so it proved to be no problem whatsoever for me to change rooms.  I shifted my belongings from room 14 to room 9, which is on the middle (2nd) floor, and as a consequence, I am looking forward to an acceptable hot shower.  After today’s climb, using muscles I had forgotten existed and which, I think, were hoping never to be used again, I am fairly stiff and sore – a hot shower might work wonders.

Day 16 - Vachkazhets Peak

Wednesday

16 July 2014