Do dreams come true? Since we finally walked the peaks of Koshelev volcano – yes, they do!

Toward the end of our nearly three-week summer trip to Kamchatka, after already countless splendid days and endless incredible, breathtaking views that we were so fortunate to experience, we finally encountered the single most magnificent day of all. This day became unforgettable thanks to a walk around the peaks of Koshelev. This remote volcano, far from the main tourist routes, isn’t all that well-known, and it doesn’t always greet its rare visitors with good weather. We, however, were lucky: it treated us to an endless riot of shapes and a kaleidoscope of color:

The volcano itself is a complex structure formed by the merging of five (!) different volcanoes.

When viewed from a certain angle, you see that the highest peak of this volcanic massif has an almost flat ledge a couple of kilometers long, which – of course – is just begging for us to go walkabout along!…

What’s most intriguing is that almost no one comes here apart from volcanologists! If you search online for images of the “Koshelev volcano summit”, you either find my photos (or those of my Kamchatka travel companions) or those not of this volcano but some other one somewhere else in the world.

It seems the volcanologists here don’t upload their photos to public resources, but I guess that’s understandable: this volcano – no matter how beautiful – is just work for them. Tourists with proper cameras have seemingly never been here. Could that really be true? It sure looks that way, though it’s extraordinary considering the beauty of the place. So, get ready for a uniquely exclusive experience! (Yes – there are still some unexplored regions – terra incognita – on our planet (who’d have thought it?!)…

The views are simply mesmerizing (on a clear sunny day, which isn’t guaranteed here) ->

So how did I first learn about this volcano? It’s a short story, but one which spans several years…

During my first trip to Kamchatka, I was advised to visit the main “intro” spots: the home-version volcanoes, the Nalychevo Nature Park route, the Valley of Geysers, the Uzon Caldera, and the Khodutka and Ksudach volcanoes. They were all mind-blowing – especially that first time (I’ve been back to all of them several times since). But after those, I realized I needed to dig deeper – especially when I found out that there are many, many more stunning places in Kamchatka to be checked out.

On my second trip, the route became more detailed: it included Tolbachik, the Northern Fissure, the Ksudach-Khodutka hiking route, and other highlights. It became clear to me just how multilayered Kamchatka is. You see, usually when you visit a nice place, you enjoy it, take in the sights, photograph it, and then say goodbye. Even if you don’t get to see everything – you generally get the idea of what the place is about; returning might be pleasant and interesting – but not always necessary. With Kamchatka, it’s different. Beyond the basic program of the main sights to see, there’s always something even more vibrant and must-must-see to visit – and then something else, and something else again, on and on and on…

This led me to add the Klyuchevsky group of volcanoes and Kurile Lake to my itinerary (there were no regular helicopter tours there then). That’s when I learned about other local attractions: the white waterfalls, and the fumarolic and thermal fields of the Koshelev and Kambalny volcanoes. I decided to include them in my next travel plans.

After first seeing the colors of Koshelev in 2015, I knew I needed to return and study this beauty more thoroughly. Here are some of the pictures we took back then while walking up the volcano’s slopes:

It was obvious: I had to come back and explore everything – including the summits!

…But only in sunny, clear weather with obligatory blue skies! Unfortunately, during my next visit, in 2018, the volcano’s peaks were covered in clouds, and we could only see the base.

On our next attempt, in 2021, the morning forecast promised 100% magnificent weather!…

Alas, the ascent was challenging for non-professional climbers, and as we slowly and carefully made our way up, the weather turned against us, blocking all views with nasty clouds.

At this point, clambering up scree and “living” (squelchy) rocks to the top of Koshelev again was something I promised myself I’d never repeat. But fast-forward two years to last year – and we now had a helicopter! And given that at the summit there’s a large platform that accommodates several helicopters – off we flew!…

Flying over the grand landscapes of Koshelev:

Like I say, since tourists very rarely venture this far, these photos are rather unique (and not a tourist in sight in the pics either!) ->

Its northern slopes even have their own glacier:

After landing, first things first – climbing the nearest peak. There are several here, and it’s not immediately clear which is the main one. In the end we ascended the second eastern peak.

Old geodetic structures confirmed we were on the correct summit!

And here we are at the very top…

…with perfect weather and plenty of time ahead – taking our time to soak up the views in all directions:

To the north – Kurile Lake shimmers in the distance…

Behind it lies Ilyinsky volcano, with Khodutka visible on the horizon, 100km away in a straight line! Could that be Mutnovka even further out – 150km away?

To the southwest: the Kuril Islands are visible on the horizon – Onekotan to the left, and Atlasov to the right (also ~100km away!). Further to the left there’s Shumshu, but it didn’t fit in the frame. In the middle, something barely discernible – is that yet another island, Antsiferov? That’s 180 km away! Incredible (and rare) visibility!

The views below also decidedly designer:

The view to the west – as orangey as… Fanta!

That’s where we were headed next ->

…Along that peak:

Descending slightly, we climbed an adjacent ridge. The views remain stunning with bursts of color all around…

Where we’d come from:

 

The views around are simply breathtaking. Nowhere have I ever seen such colorful landscapes in such abundance. I mentioned colorful mountains when I wrote about our Kamchatka-2018 trip:

“There are many colored rock formations – especially red ones – around the world. The most famous are the red rocks of Utah and Arizona, and Uluru in Australia. Less famous are ones, for example, in different parts of China, like in Zhangye. But most of them become brightly colored only when there’s a low sun either at dawn or dusk – or when Photoshop is used for digital color boosting. On Kamchatka on the other hand there’s a place where red rocks glow brightly all day – not just in the mornings and evenings. That place is the volcano named Koshelev.”

I remember dreaming, back on our 2021 visit, of walking along this very ridge. I even wrote about needing to come back with a helicopter one day to manage it. Woah – dreams do come true: just three years later – here we were doing it!…

The Kurils over there:

A colorful spur branches off from the ridge. By the way, we walked around its lower part, if you can call it that, back in the leaden-sky year of 2018.

Glacier:

We walked really slowly. Strolling and taking it all in. After all, we’re “contemplative” tourists!

And we took a lot of photos!…

It’s a pity we didn’t bring drones to the summit (for some reason, unknown to me)… Looks like we’ll have to come back!

We’re contemplative tourists, and there’s more than enough here to contemplate!

So we walk, contemplate, walk again, and contemplate some more.

Suddenly, something goes boom on the horizon!

Oh, it’s our old friend Ebeko volcano sending up an ash cloud again!

It was far away, so not scary: just under a hundred kilometers away. But even up close, in 2019, it wasn’t particularly scary for us either ).

The ash plume is quickly carried away by the wind:

By the time we reached our destination for today, almost nothing of the plume remained:

Looking back, we saw… a human figure on the eastern summit of the volcano! ->

But it didn’t surprise us, as earlier we’d encountered a young, fit volcanologist running toward the summit. People with such physical fitness usually complete our routes three to four times faster than we do. Alas, we’re office workers – not always suited to physically demanding challenges…

Why do you think the volcanologist climbed to the summit? Usually, their research is conducted where the eruptions happen – where everything’s smoking, bubbling and reeking of volcanic chemicals.

The next photo (zoomed in) answers the question “why?”:

There’s a mobile-phone signal at the very summit (I know this for a fact)! When volcanologists are down near their thermal and fumarole sites, they have no mobile connection! And satellite communication is expensive. So, they run to the summit to make a call.

That’s why there are no photos from the summit. Only volcanologists go there now, and they’re not concerned with the surrounding landscapes – they’ve long since gotten used to them. They climb to the summit with their phones just for the signal – for purely practical reasons.

So, any photos from these magnificent summits will only come from crazy tourists like us. That’s just how it is.

Meanwhile, we reached our destination for the day. We didn’t know how far we’d get – we just kept on walking. But when the ridge of the combined Koshelev volcanoes became uncomfortable to navigate further, we decided to stop, take in the views, and turn back.

A view of the direction of the further route:

The view back toward where we had just come from:

A panoramic view of everything at once, looking north:

And once again – the views are absolutely stunning!…

And here’s almost all of us (I’m missing, as I’m taking the photo):

Yes, this is us! The ones who, for the first time, had a splendid hike along the ridge of the Koshelev volcano in fantastic weather, and took envy-worthy photos!

But it’s time to head back – over there:

And now the helicopter is coming to pick us up:

That’s it – the dream’s come true!

But there’s still a sense of incompleteness – or maybe the appetite just grows while eating: I’d love to camp overnight on the ridge to capture a sunset and sunrise in clear, sunny, moonlit, and windless weather. I don’t like to ask much, you know that ). So it looks like we’ll just have to come back – again!…

The rest of the photos from our Kamchatka-2024 trip are here.