My People and Places Portfolio and Blog
After the boat trip we found our gear laoded onto what would be our main transportation around Kamchatka for the next couple of weeks:-
When we were all in I thought the bus was as packed as it could possibly be, I was worng as you will hear in a later post. The drive up to the camp at the base of Gorely Volcano was preceded by shopping for essential supplies, beer, vodka, mixers, plastic glasses, and bits of food for Lou as so far the vegetarian/fish request had fallen on deaf ears despite them asking us specifically. The cooks had apparently been informed. On the drive up we were mostly on tiny tracks better described as ‘offroad’ (the one above was a genuine ‘road’ apparently) but the driver was ‘mostly’ good at this driving thing so we were safe, or once again so we thought. We passed by Viliuchinsky Volcano, the large Stratovolcano we had seen earlier in the day whilst on the boat, a stratovolcano is a conical mountain formed by layers of lava alternating with pyroclastic ones. This shape is the usual ‘volcano’ shape we might think of in Europe and wherever else there are few of them. We arrived at the base of Gorely Volcano and set about unloading and putting up the kitchen and dining tents first, or some of us did whislt the other put there own tents up, this seemed to be a theme for the majority of the times we moved to a new camp. The smaller tents went up and I had another ok meal, and for Lou some lovely plain rice, it really was that tasty for her – Vision of Kamchatka need to sort things like this out if they are to attract good publicity and therfore more foreign tourists.
The next day it was time for the first volcano, Mutnovsky (2323 metres high). It is formed of 4 Stratovolcanos joined together and has a double crater but on the way up we would see some amazing sights such as small geysers, mud pools, and fumeroles. When we arrived one of the two guides for the volcanoes, Valentin (or Valya) made the decsion that the activity up near the top of the volcano was too much to go up straight away so we first went to see the large waterfall at the base of the volcano. The gully around the 80m waterfall is actually called the Dangerous gully and we were warned not to get too close as the scree was very loose and you easily lose your footing and find yourself falling to rocks below. I got a few photos of the area but I didn’t have my long zoom with me as it is heavy and I wasn’t sure if I could justify carrying it up the volcano.
We then started the main walk up the volcano, it alternated between short stretches of steep walking/scrambling and small relatively flat areas, or certainly less steep areas. I was conscious on the way up that we were walking up steep arease of loose stones, glacier, glacial melt and the sun was out making the walking a little harder than it needed to be, although all these things made for great photos. We eventually came to a point where we could see some people ahead had crossed a glacier that took then at least 10-15 mins to cross, and when we got onto it there wasn’t so much a pathway as about the width of a foot that seemeed viable to walk across, and eventually down a little. As I am not great with heights, or more the falling from them, and more than that the landing and splatting I took this pretty gingerly only losing my footing once or twice, but the trekpod go pro I had (a monopod/tripod/walking pole hybrid) brought with me helped to support me. This became invaluable as a walking aid on each walk often accompanied by a borrowed trekking pole, especially in this case as the glacier seemed to go a long way down. After brief respite the next stage involved walking up a section that was glacier that had a thick layer of volcanic mud coating it in places, and we even saw some mud from a fresh landslide. The rock formations on the way up were fascinating, as we were seeing a cross section of the side wall of a volcano, you could see the layers of old and new volcanic rock exposed. after some more hard scrambling up loose rocks we arrived at the area dominated by a landcape photographers dream, blumes of steam, the blue tinged translucent glacier with the sun shing through it, and most of all the fumeroles.
The fumeroles are a sign of volcanic activity below, and these ones spew out sulphur gas, which is dangerous, and what Valentin was worried about earlier that day, but they look pretty cool whith the huge deposits of sulphur on the outside, but probably best not to get too close as you can start to suffocate and fall in (it has happened, even to specialists). So, poisonous gas blowing around, this obviously seems like a good place to stop for lunch, so we did, but this gave me a chance to take some great photos of the fumeroles such as this:-
The next stage was up another part of the glacier, to enter the side of one of the craters, inside there is part of what was once a much larger lake. The hot lake appeared after the last big eruption in 2000, vefore this there was a lake of glacial melt, then in 2007 some of the glacier collapsed into the lake leaving only a fraction of original lake. The lake itself was an aqua blue colour due to the chemicals in the water from the glacier and volcano and surrounding it and above is the glacier itself with lots of interesting yet deep crevices. There was an option to go up to the top of the second crater however we did this in two groups, I was in the second, and when they came down an explained what was at the top I decided not to go up. It was a very narrow ledge with loose fine volcanic ash/sand scree so I wasn’t sure if my knee that had started to twinge would like me going up there, instead I went down to the lake with Valentin and some of the others and got some great photos.
When all the group was together we bgan the descent, this took 2-3 hrs, and I began to feel my knee twisting on the steep parts of loose ground depsite zig-zagging down the trail, by the time I got to the bottom i was glad to see the van/bus. However the day did not end there, on the way back we picked up some Kazak Scouts who we had seen on the way up and down, and squuezed them in, with them sitting/sluching on the floor which was fine until we hit very wet sand going through a rivulet, the bus was stuck and could not be freed. After unloading the van we walked the rest of the way back to our camp by Gorely, the driver returned with another van/bus that was with another group who happened to be walking up Gorely that day to ow our van/bus out of the mire.
As always take a look at the gallery below, and these are only square thumbnails, click them to show the full picture.
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