Tag Archives: altai

All right folks – here we go: finally, my series of posts on our Altai summer vacation begins!…

Now, as everyone knows only too well, backpacking across mountains and valleys is always a good idea. But to do so far away from civilization over five days (or even a week or two) isn’t just good, it’s exceedingly good – especially if the route is surrounded by OMG-beautiful views and assorted unusualnesses. I once even compiled a short list of such amazing best-in-the-world mountain-and-valley treks – here. Well that list needs a +1 for sure – and it’s well overdue: the tracks/paths across the Altai Mountains…

I’ve hiked around here on two routes: between Tyungur village and Akkem Lake (in 2016), and between Belyashi and the same Akkem Lake along the Argut river  (in the summer of covid-stricken 2020). The latter was wonderful; but since it rained for several days in 2016 and we didn’t get to see any beautiful views on that route whatsoever, we decided to do a second pass this year – and we don’t regret it at all!…

You can get to Akkem Lake via different routes; we chose not the shortest but probably the most contemplative (in good weather). In total we walked around 45km, but with ups and downs of more than two thousand meters. We completed it in go-slow mode over four days. It’s generally not the most difficult of treks, but office plankton does need to put in at least some pre-training beforehand.

Read on…

It’s been quiet on this here blog of mine of late (sorry for that), but my schedule’s been as full as a Rastafarian’s head of hair. So what have I been up to?…

Well, last Monday, Moi & Co. got on a plane and flew east. And ever since it’s been just four or five hours’ sleep of a night in hotels, a lot of helicopter rides, a zillion photos, and a crazy quantity of impressions. All of which I’ll eventually be imparting to you sooner or later here. And one particular thing I’ll be telling you about later is the food. Yes – that’s something I rarely do, but when I do, it means something culinarily very special occurred. Spoiler: we came up with the phrase “aggressive hospitality”, which stands for tons of food (waaay too much) – and copious quantities of drinks too. (Two other new terms we invented in Krasnoyarsk: “punitive cuisine” and “gastro-extremism”.) But all in due course…

Our Krasnoyarsk (here, in Siberia) stay was simply awesome, and, like I say – more on it later. Meanwhile, I’m already somewhere else in Siberia – on a bank of one of its great rivers…

…And from now on and for the next 25 days there’ll be little internet time for us (if there’s any internet at all), so my tales from the Siberian side will only start appearing here mid-August.

A brief glimpse of Krasnoyarsk:

Read on…

Oh good Lord in heaven – I’m 57!

Indeed, it was a +1 year for me last week. As always, I’m like… “where did that go?!”. However, today, no self-congratulatory birthday banter, for I always prefer to keep things low key. Instead, let me show where I hid myself (far!) away for my b-day this year so as to maintain that desired level of low key…

Before I tell you, can you guess where I was? ->

Any ideas?… ->

Getting warmer (while it appears to be only getting colder where these pics were taken)?…

…And snowy:

After having become a touch nostalgic while looking back at some of my previous birthdays, I figured this year’s was just as suitably celebrated in grandiose fashion, or, at least – in a grandiose setting…

For those who haven’t worked it out yet, this year I was in Altai. First we flew to Gorno-Altaisk Airport, and from there we took a helicopter to Lake Teletskoye.

There’s the Katun river, down which we’ve often rafted. Never seen it so low though (as it gets in fall) ->

Still no less magnificent:

Here a some rapids – called “Dollar” due to the shape of the river – on the lower Katun ->

Already wintery up in the mountains:

Mountain pass:

Lake Teletskoye! ->

Its environs – also awesome:

Autumnal scenes:

The lake is enticing, but it’s simply too cold for a dip:

We were staying at Altay Village – a five-star resort made up of luxury cabins. Nice. I’d show you my photos thereof, but I’m afraid I don’t have any: I was too busy low-key birthdaying :)…

The rest of the photos of autumnal Altai are here.

First, the bad news: Altai-2020 is over!

Now for the good news: There’s a Very Big Altai Video in the pipeline! And it promises to be full of super-duper material, and also to be professionally produced and edited. In a word or four – it’s gonna be awesome!

In the meantime, today in this post – a few photographic ‘greatest hits’ my fellow expeditioners have sent me for your viewing pleasure: for those who’ve not been to Altai – as enticers, teasers, to get yourselves there; and for those who’ve been – as nostalgizers. Because – remember – it’s good to have been somewhere and enjoyed it, but better to have been somewhere and enjoyed it and then… to revisit it through photos as it might make you realize you should go back again :0)!

Pheeeew. What a trip! Simply remarkably marvelously fantastic. I think a wait of three or four years, and we’ll be heading back – if the magical Altai energy doesn’t pull us back before ). Perhaps we’ll do the trekking part a bit differently, but as for the Katun bit: that can stay exactly the same!

Read on…

Here we are with another installment from our expedition across Altai’s… extraordinary countryside. Wait! Extraordinary – that’s accurate, but… it’s a bit banal, no? Thing is, in describing Altai’s natural beauty, I seem to be forever repeating the handful of adjectives I normally use! So, before I started this post, I thought I’d find at least one new epithet (not the disparaging kind) that describes accurately (maybe I’ll try add one more new one with each post?) the Altai Mountains. So I did. And I came up with… anomalous! Well, why not? The effect of Altai’s mountainous scenery has had a deeply anomalous effect on me – more so than any other mountainous-volcanic place in the world. And then there’s the fact that the mountains and rivers are anomalous; there’s also the anomalous natural energy here that permeates everything – the air, the water, the mountains, your soul (!) – unlike anywhere else on the planet! But I digress. Meanwhile on the River Katun…

Where we were along the Katun on this day, more than 60 smaller rivers and streams – tributaries – had flown into it. As a result – it had become powerful, wide, and high:

A quick look at the map tells me that here the width of the Katun is 150 meters. While in 20+km all that water will be forced to squeeze through a narrow rocky canyon of a width of just 30 meters. So it doesn’t take a mathematician to work out that the rapids in that canyon are going to be pretty darn fast and anomalous! And those same rapids have an anomalously unique name too: Teldekpen!

Here they come! ->

Read on…

After our night on the beach, we woke to yet another gloriously warm and sunny day – hooray! If only the river were a bit warmer too; it felt like it was around 10-12 degrees centigrade, no more. Quick dips were doable but it was a bit too cold for swimming.

We had an interesting day ahead of us. Just to the left of that mountain down there the Kadrin Rapids begin, which was to be our first bit of action of the day…

Read on…

Altai-2020 continues. Up, breakfast, decamp > river. River: Katun. Up next: its Ilgumen Rapids – here.

‘Woah. I feel the need for a row!’

Just short rapids these, but intense! They begin here:

Read on…->

Onward – downward – on the best bit of our Altai-2020 expedition: the rafting bit. Again – the Argut River, this time where it meets the Katun. The same Argut, btw, along the banks of which we were trekking a couple weeks ago, astonished by the river’s sheer power.

The sound of the fast flowing water is amplified by endless echoes!

Read on…

Continuing our Altai-2020 expedition, one afternoon we moored our rafts to visit the makeshift river-traveler museum, which organically sprang up and grew over the years in a field by the junction of the Katun and Argut rivers. It’s a three-legged contraption-construction that has all manner of odd and sod hung upon it, placed there by passing river tourists:

Every year, new exhibits are added to the museum. Various art movements and styles are featured, but there’s a distinct preference for the post-industrialist avant-garde and general modern kunst!

Read on…

At Tyungur, we were up early > breakfast > tents down > to the riverbank > into the Katun on rafts > off we pop > 25km of calm rafting until we reach today’s main attraction: several sets of rapids called the Akkemsky Proriv (in Russian), which translates as the Akkem Rush (aka the Akkem Fissure, Akkem Breach, Akkem Rupture, etc., but Rush is arguably closest to the original meaning in Russian, i.e., referring to the water itself, not the location it’s set in. Just to complicate things further, it’s also known as the Akkem Pipe – or Akkem Tube!!).

Read on…