Tag Archives: kamchatka

Hi folks,

After the brief Chinese interlude (the three intro-posts to our China-2024 trip), it’s time to move (figuratively) directly northeast back to… Kamchatka!

Without a doubt, one of the jewels in the crown of the Klyuchevsky group of volcanoes is Tolbachik. We’d already marveled at the northern volcanic trio (Klyuchevskaya Sopka, Kamen and Bezymianny) of the group, and also the canyon of the Studyonaya river. Now it was time for the mentioned jewel; actually – jewels. For Tolbachik is actually two volcanoes – the long-dormant Ostry (sharp) Tolbachik, and the rather active Plosky (flat) Tolbachik…

The view from the north:

And here’s the view of practically the whole Klyuchevsky group from up in a helicopter. The pointed-cone volcano in the foreground is Ostry (remember – sharp) Tolbachik; the flat-topped on next to it – you guessed it: Plosky (flat) Tolbachik ->

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Having been duly impressed by the monumentality of the Klyuchevsky volcano group – it was time to head further south. And there’s so much more jaw-dropping awesomeness ahead that you’d better… tie your jaws together now! :)…

Actually, we didn’t have far to walk fly – just around 10km southwest of the Klyuchevsky group (from here, to be precise) is the picturesque canyon of the Studyonaya River, from the mouth of which there’s a contemplative view of Tolbachik:

Down the millennia the river’s cut some interesting chasms/crevasses/canyons out of the lava fields here – with vertical walls some 10-20 meters high. There are a few of these corridors (well – at least two), and though not very long (100-200 meters each), they’re still very striking:

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Sorry for taking so long to post about my Kamchatka 2024 trip! My business travel schedule has been crazy lately. Almost immediately after Kamchatka (I didn’t even have time to catch my breath!) I set off for a business tour of Colombia, followed by Chile and China, and now I’m at Kazan Digital Week. Sometimes my travels can really throw me around like a rag doll.

But I haven’t forgotten about Kamchatka 2024! I’ve sorted and processed my photos, and had my fellow travelers do the same :). Now I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to share how it went.

Let’s start in the north with the Klyuchevsky group of volcanos. It comprises 14 volcanoes, but the big three are Bezymianny, Kamen, and Klyuchevskaya Sopka. Here they are all together; Bezymianny is the smoking one. A little further back is the sharp cone of Kamen, and flanking it is Klyuchevskaya Sopka.

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Hi folks!

It all started in… Magadan…

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It’s getting to be a tradition feasting here at the airport before the long-haul east…

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After checking out the very orange Koshelev volcano, next up simply has to be milky-white waterfalls – a truly unique phenomenon.

I mean, the water in these falls isn’t just seemingly white, much like waves coming in off the ocean (all the bubbles/froth). This water is actually really white – like milk! How so? Well, due to the local volcanism there’s an unusually high concentration of aluminum (and other similar natural elements) in the water here, not only making the water milky, but also leaving deposits of whiteness on the bedrock underneath and along the waterways. The milky water also seals up the walls of underground natural streams, forming tubes – along which water flows. Pressure builds, and eventually it is shot out of the ground like a fountain:

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One fine (shock, horror!) August morning in Southern Kamchatka last year, we awoke at the foot of the wonderful Koshelev volcano (shocking awesomeness). Then we heard the nearby – aluminum laden – streams a-trickling (shocking, but true). Yes, there was so much shock to our collective systems we did all nearly faint, but we pulled through, fully conscious – just…).

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It’s 2022 already, and I still can’t get to the end of my Kamchatka (summer) 2021 tales! And I really do want to finish up at least by the end of the Russian New Year public holiday break (Dec. 31 – Jan. 9!) as… well, to be able to make a fresh start on fresh tales about fresh travels and other fresh adventures in the fresh New Year!…

So, where did I leave off the other day? Ah yes – choppering down to Kamchatka’s Kurile Lake; specifically – its Ozerny camp, situated on the river Ozernaya, which flows toward the villages of Ozernovsky and Zaporozhye by the western coast of the peninsula. Here’s Ozerny camp:

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Ksudach caldera ring-walk: done – twice! Next up – a helicopter ride down to Kurile Lake…

One great thing about helicopters, at least here in remote Kamchatka – they come to you! You don’t need to get up early, get a taxi to the airport the other side of town, and then stand in various lines and wait around for hours until you’re finally seated on an airliner. With a chopper – all that’s missed out; for us, here, that meant it landed on the hot beach our camp was on! Distance from ‘bed’ to ‘seat on the means of transportation’ – a few hundred meters, covered in minutes!

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Another marvelously mind-blowing place in the Kamchatka must-see category is Ksudach. It’s the caldera of an ancient volcano inside which a new volcanic cone continues to grow, resulting in two lakes that are simply unreally fantastic to behold. The scale too is… almost off-the-scale for a volcano: the main, outer caldera – almost an ideal circle – is some seven (7!) or eight (8!) kilometers wide! To see such a spectacle with your own eyes (photos never fully capture it), is oh-my-gargantuan! Especially from the ridge of the caldera:

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Next up on our Kamchatkan adventure – rather: next down – we chopper out of the city and fly south!…

After half-an-hour, or around 100km, we make it to our next must-stop-and-investigate. We could have stopped off along the way for some hors d’oeuvres, but the weather was just a bit too cloudy for comfort, so we settled for hors d’oeuvres-tasting from the comfort of our helicopter instead:

That symmetrical beauty is Vilyuchik, which you can see from the city (as long as it’s not hiding as a mirage). Oh Vilyuchik – why are you so photogenic?!

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