Fun and games, laughing and joshing – half-way up an Altai mountain!

Finally!…

Finally, we pulled off getting into a nice straight line for a proper, full-posse, Altai summer trekking photo! Phew! (No, I don’t know why it took so long for it to happen:).

And here’s an action shot – us doing the Altai trekking thing, on a beautiful sunny day, trekking sticks in hand, heading to our next river, mountain or mountain pass! ->

Ahhh. So nice to walk in these here wilds under such clear blue skies amid such lush landscapes all around!

Of course, it might not have been so enjoyable had we not been accompanied by such obliging (also surprisingly jumpy) horses to carry most of our heavy kit. Thank you horsies!

As per our usual MO, we spent plenty of time taking in the very special panoramic views, and getting all meditative and spiritual while doing so. Ommmmmmm!

Over there the Argut goes off somewhere to the right toward the Katun, while we veered toward the left and then upward…

Wherever we observed the Argut, it was always fast-flowing and turbulent: nothing but frothy white water as it gushed over and around the boulders.

Bye for now, Argut; but we’ll be seeing you in 10 days’ time…

And here we are, taking one of our meditative pauses again. Well, why not? )

We sit, we lie, we chill, we fixate on what we see – a bit like staring at a painting the entrances you in a gallery )…

Meanwhile the path takes us higher, up to a mountain pass and into a forest. Here is the path. Don’t see it? Neither could we…

Suddenly…

What’s THAT?! ->

Turns out – a huge mushroom. Actually two of them, conjoined (I told you there’s something magical in the soil here!) – of the lycoperdon genus, the type that go brown when they ripen – and if you step on one it… breaks wind! (No, that’s not me being vulgar! The perdon in the name means just that [‘The scientific name has been created with Greek words (lycos meaning wolf and perdon meaning to break wind) and based on several European dialects in which the mushroom name sounds like wolf-farts.’ – Wikipedia]!).

Btw, there’s plenty of wildlife that roams about the Altai Mountains; however, since we were always behind a convoy of horses most of it was scared off before we could see it! We only saw a few specimens, mostly far off; for example, this here mountain goat (about two kilometers away).

At one point we even saw a young grizzly bear. Yikes! This time we were quite thankful it was a long way off! My photo is too bad to put on here. But if anyone really wants proof of Altai bears – I can provide it!

The following morning, instead of a bright sun and clear blue skies…

Yep – overcast skies, murkiness, dampness – and dampened moods…

As the day went on, the weather only got worse:

The horses seemed down in the dumps due to the fogginess too:

At times the wind got up and it looked like the fog would lift; but merely our hopes were lifted – only to be shattered!…

Never mind. Thankfully, the following day was clear and dry and sunny and warm again. Phew! More on that – in tomorrow’s post!…

All the pics from Altai-2020 are here.