Tag Archives: altai

The main course of our Altai-2020 expedition was of course the rafting down the river Katun. However, the various hors d’oeuvres before it were rather special too. The rafting main dish came after a good long steady mosey from the northeast to near where the river starts out up in the mountains. The route: along the R256 highway up to the village Kosh Agach, and from there it wasn’t much further as we were already high up in the mountains.

Approaching the riverhead, we took one look at the super-high level of the water of the river Chuya and realized a spot of rafting upon its rapids was out of the question. Boo! We’d be missing the Behemoth Rapid, the Horizon Rapid, and the Turbinny Rapid (woah: three remote sets of rapids – each with their own English Wikipedia page:). There’d simply been too much rainfall this year – much more than usual.

But what we did instead made up for these omissions: we drove over to the multicolored Kizil-Chin mountains – aka ‘Martian mountains’ due to their unusual yellow-orange coloring.

Read on…

In this post there’ll be a lot more photos than there are words. First up – photos of the route to Chulyshman ->

We got there in a small convoy of sturdy vehicles, supplied by the Altai-Guide tourist agency (which we helped with an expedition to Chukotka a while back; the stickers on the vehicles are those left over from then).

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Lake Teletskoye fills you with rapturous joy. Its vastness, its fiord-like vistas, and of course Altai’s mysterious… vibes. Bit more info re these mysterious vibes, btw: They’re not only magically calming-soothing and encourage you to go full-on meditative “we’re-all-one, there’s-only-now”; for some reason they also… keep you from sleeping! I reckon it must be that the part of the brain that’s responsible for all the deep and philosophically pensive activity simply doesn’t permit the rest of brain any room to maneuver: it kinda just hogs all the resources, much like a very old computer antivirus ).

The lake was calm and even-surfaced when we were there, with occasional odd ripples catching the sun (to fairly blind you:). The views all around – aaaaah (if you’re eyesight’s not shot:).

Read on…

I think I’ve mentioned in passing recently – perhaps more than once – that I took my annual summer vacation this year in Altai. But it’s mid-September already – and still no Altai series of pics and tales? Eh? But don’t worry, it’s on its way – coming up soon. The thing is, there are soooo many photos this year, and so much video too that needs professional digital editing. Still, I am today able to at least give you my traditional taster, aka, starter course, aka aperitif, as a warm-up…

First, I can tell you – no, repeat to you, since I’ve been to Altai before, and even wrote a travelogue-book about the experience – that Altai is one of the most magically enrapturing places in the planet, IMHO. It’s crammed with: marvelous mountainous beauty, rivers with water of various bright colors, glacial lakes, and assorted other extraordinarily beautiful natural landscapes. But what’s perhaps most extraordinary of all is the fact that the place has a mysterious, powerful… energy, which you almost start to feel physically after several days there. I don’t know what it is; it must be some kind of magic force that’s emitted out of the Altai earth. What I do know is that it affects how you feel: better overall; experiences and sensations are brighter, richer, more intense; and your mood is always fairly cloud-nine! And the wildlife there is similarly other-worldly: ants are huge – the size of cockroaches; mushrooms grow to the size of watermelons; while the region’s mosquitos… – you might expect them to be similarly crazy and mutant-ninja, but no – they’re not interested in humans, leaving them practically completely alone! EH?!

So yeah: Altai: oh my, oh my. Natural, wild beauty redefined!

Read on…

The GoPro photos and videos of our recent Altai-2016: Big Water Trail have started to arrive.

Here are some fun pics of us going down the Akkem rapid. There’s no ‘horizon line’ – there simply wasn’t one :). The camera was fixed to my helmet. Enjoy:

Read on: 100% hydrotherapy…

After passing the Akkem rapid, we had another day of pure meditation and contemplative activity, which was only occasionally interrupted by the helmsman’s commands: “let’s paddle a little”, “let’s move to midstream”, “there’s a hole in the riffle, wanna go for it?”

Read on: Go on, carry on climbing!…

After the Shyoki rapids, the Katun turns into a relatively calm river and stays that way for a full 200 kilometers, where the river’s smooth (though fast) current is only rarely interrupted by short stretches of riffles. All around there are mountains, lush forests and fields, and not a single person in sight for kilometers – except for us . We didn’t even see any wild animals except ducks, and some local type of nettas or cormorants occasionally flew back and fore along the river.

Our raft with the tourists on board splashed down the river, the captain was silent – there were no orders to paddle – so we enjoyed the sights and landscapes as we floated along. The sun came out, warmed us and looked down on us from above. So we fell into meditation and nirvana…

Read on: That was cool! I want to do it again!…

Before, when I heard the words Katun River or just ‘Katun’, I imagined rapids and rafting. It was the first thing that came to mind. Now, that idea is set in stone after more than 400km of rafting, scores of rapids, several dozen riffles and goodness-knows how many thousand paddle strokes. But Katun no longer just means rafting and water – it’s a place of sublime beauty.

But more on that a bit later. First, we need to actually start rafting. For instance, like this:

Read on: …and this and that…

This had never happened before – but here it is, happening again (с).

Who would pass up the chance of flying in a chopper over sharp peaks and deep ravines? Not to mention flying for the first time over Belukha, plus a chance to get all your rafting gear up to the Katun river head!

But why use words? This is a place for viewing pics, not reading words…

Read on: Boom! surprise!…

Our first destination was mount Belukha. It’s famous – but only in certain circles. And that’s a pity, because the place is absolutely stunning! Beautiful, monumental, enormous. There’s snow, glaciers, colorful rocks, bright greenery, white rivers (“glacial milk”) and white foamy mountain waterfalls with the purest, tastiest ice-water. But we decided to begin with the Stone Town – a cult place of interest for connoisseurs and fans of Roerich and his secret forces of nature in search of an Altai Shambhala. A short walk along the Jarl gorge brings you to the stream of the same name (see here).

Read on: Out of this world colors…