The multicolored Yarlu valley, and a tough trek to a glacier.

A walk through the Yarlu River valley is an absolute must if you ever find yourself at Lake Akkem. The valley is unique in two ways: first, there’s some kind of crazy underground magnetism/energy here (which I mentioned in yesterday’s post), which makes you feel just great. Second, the colors of the mountains here are sublimely beautiful – just fantastic:

The valley is approximately three kilometers (along the trail) from the Akkem River and Lake Akkem – here:

Right then; off we popped toward it!…

Gorodok (“the Little Town”) is the result of tourists getting creative down the years. An interesting spot, but, alas, the Yarlu River is slowly destroying it ->

Gorodok features a special stone, which apparently caught the attention of Nicholas Roerich himself during his Altai expeditions:

Why and by whom “2000” was carved into it and carefully painted blue I don’t know…

But the place is special so, of course, we had to set Midori Kuma loose there!

Another great idea is to climb up to the multicolored ridge that sits right in the middle of this one-of-a-kind rocky creation! ->

So off we strolled – over there ->

It’d be great to traverse the whole central ridge and get up to that shelf at the other end, but, unfortunately, without proper mountain gear and training it’s extremely risky. In at least two spots along the colorful ridge it’s just impassable. Most people start up the ridge from the bottom (there’s a well-worn path there), make it through about a third, and then an impassable section stops them (perfect for a photo session/selfie break), and then everyone usually heads back. We’d done this twice on previous trips, but this time we tried something different… and found an alternate route! You can actually get up to the far end of the ridge via a grassy area that nature has kindly laid out on the southern slope roughly 700 meters from Gorodok:

And here we are:

Crawling up these slopes isn’t the most pleasant experience (bring hard-wearing – or at least cheaper – gloves), but it’s definitely worth it! Up top it’s just oh-my-grandiose-and-gorgeous! ->

And the view in the other direction:

Another angle… woah! ->

Eventually you come to a stop: it gets impassable again ->

So, we just sat there and took it all in:

Magical!

Judging by the photos’ metadata, we hung out up there for a whole hour and a half! Alas, we had to then head back down…

The walk through Yarlu Valley certainly exceeded expectations; however, our Akkem Glacier experience turned out a bit lackluster… Anyway, here’s the glacier – a drone shot:

Our intention was to make it to the glacier, soak up the surrounding mountain views, and meditate upon the icy expanses…

Unfortunately, for various reasons we were all pretty darn tired after several days of trekking. Also – the weather was getting worse, and, to be honest, we were all just feeling lazy a bit lazy. So this is how it went down: we only set out toward the glaciers quite late, and on top of that the path wasn’t a good one; we had to walk over rocks like these ->

Not knowing what difficulties awaited us… we woke up late, had a leisurely breakfast, and set off. First, we had to cross Lake Akkem…

Good news! For a small fee, there’s an Akkem ferryman! ->

Then we followed a trail – well-trodden by thousands of feet – and on we went…

There were a few water-related obstacles, but most of us managed to get across without soaking our boots:

Still, there were some rather nerve-wracking moments…

And we continued along the bank of the Akkem River itself…

Then the trail ended, and we had to switch to clambering-scrambling over boulders of various sizes…

We reached the chapel built in memory of fallen mountaineers, which stands between Lake Akkem and the glacier of the same name. From here, some pretty tough and often risky ascents toward Belukha Mountain began:

The view back at Lake Akkem from the chapel ->

And up ahead – still a long way to go:

Onward!…

But here there was only a short stretch of decent path. After it, there were all kinds of totally unexpected, rockfall-prone, almost impassable sections where we had to scramble on all fours. That’s why there are no photos from here.

Little by little though, we slowly moved toward the glacier…

This stream here is the source of the Akkem:

And here we go again – time to conquer more rocky obstacles… And we’d only have to tackle the same on the way back too (eek!)…

And here we are at the glacier. Alas, the views aren’t all that stunning:

But that was all down to us! We should have had an easier previous day, and started out earlier on this day – maybe then we’d have seen something more spectacular (spoiler: we wouldn’t have) ->

To reach the real icefields and get back all in one day from the lake – that’s a job for superheroes who can leap across endless fields of rocks of all shapes and sizes. As for us, this is all we saw of the glacier:

Time to dolefully head back:

On the way back – Lake Akkem was in a thoroughly photogenic mood:

And here’s another great photo taken by DZ:

And that was that for the day’s hiking. And that was that for the hiking part of our trip. Up next – a helicopter ride and some water-based procedures at the “Katun Aquapark”!

To be continued!…