Tag Archives: oka

Now that we’ve covered the campsites, it’s onward and downstream on the Sayan Oka River!…

In places, the beauty all around us was simply off the charts:

Read on…

Today’s post is all about the campsites we stayed at on our summer rafting trip down the Sayan Oka River, of which there are many and in different flavors, but which all turned out to be decent. Even though there was a pretty heavy stream of rafting tourists (every day we crossed paths with one, two, or three groups), and on top of that fishermen started showing up farther downstream (they come upriver in motorboats through some fairly rough riffles), we always found a nice little spot to spend the night.

Sometimes it was in a forest:

And very nice they were too:

Read on…

Hi folks!

Back to my habit of mixing things up both chronologically and geographically, today’s report isn’t from Southeast Asia (Laos); it’s from Buryatia – just north of Mongolia. Actually, Laos is directly south of Buryatia, but I digress…

First – quick recap…

Our Sayan Oka River escapade: ~280km to cover on the water, with a couple of rapids and countless very interesting riffles along the way. We started at the Buryatian village of Orlik, and from there it’s all the way down to Verkhneokinsky (Irkutsk Region). The elevation at the start is ~1370m, and at the finish it’s ~560m. That’s a total drop of ~800m. Along the way the river cuts through the Eastern Sayan, where it gets pretty wild in places. That stretch is roughly 170–180km long (depending on how you count it); the rest is the warm-up/run-up at the beginning, plus coming out onto the plain and floating down to the finish at the end. Everything in-between is in the mountains. The most interesting and most action-packed segment of the whole run is the Orkho-Bom gorge, which is 65km long – though I never did figure out exactly where it begins or ends.

The first two days of rafting were fairly calm: we just cruised along with the current – only occasionally paddling over to where it ran faster. And now and then we came across some shallows and easy little riffles.

But then we came to the start of the mountain section – waaay over there, just before those mountains, was the left turn into the gorge. And we’re off!…

Read on…

If you take a close look at the photos from our rafting trip down the Sayan Oka River – say, at the waterfall or the spot where we parked up – you may notice a few oddities on the surface of the landscapes that surrounded us there. Maybe not. Maybe it’s just me with this fixation!…

Aaanyway – what am I getting at?…

Just this: We were in a river valley amid a mountain massif. But the river itself is hemmed in between steep banks on both sides that are tall, steep, and unmistakably volcanic in origin:

Eh? How did that happen? Look: on the horizon – mountain peaks; the banks of the river – undeniably volcanic lava rock:

Read on…

The Sayan Oka River‘s raftable stretch is roughly 280 kilometers long! Yes – that’s one heck of a lot of jaw-dropping views and meditative-&-briefly-adrenalized R&R; there’s fishing too. Most of it is perfectly harmless fast-flowing water, interrupted only once (well, twice, but in the same place) by rapids; the rest is up to you…

You can get around the standing waves and “holes” in the riffles by staying away from the main current and hugging the bank on the right or left (if you don’t feel like taking a dip). But we preferred the “water park”, of course! ->

Read on…

My tales about our 10-day hike along the Karavshin mountain trail have all been shipped, but, as they say, “not so fast”… For next up was part-two of our action-packed summer vacation, which saw us teleported northeast from Kyrgyzstan’s Pamir-Alay to the Sayan Mountains. Plan: rafting down the Oka River. Result (spoiler): it was brief but unforgettable!…

Technical details will come later; for now, as per tradition, teaser pics to give a sense of the scale involved, to roughly map out the directions, and to give you an idea of what the scenery looks like [in good weather] // and that’s important.

Surprise! The banks along the river are all made of volcanic rock! Brief history: an old mountain valley was flooded by lava flows from a newly emerged volcano: the lava flowed down the mountain valleys and then solidified, and later water and nature carved out new riverbeds – carving out canyons like these. The views left and right are just mind-blowing!

The Oka River at first carried us along at 10–14km/h – that’s how fast the current runs in its upper reaches.

Oh, the views!

Waterfalls cascading down the same volcanic cliffs:

Of course, we headed on over – and under!

This is where our CTO, A.I., went and… left his sunglasses behind:

This all went on in the mostly Buddhist Republic of Buryatia. Hence the mantra Om mani padme hum appears on mountains ->

The campsites along the Oka are pretty decent, but I I’ll save the details for a little later…

Drone pics of the Sayan landscapes:

A rushing tributary – where it meets the Oka there’s a good campsite:

The river’s main channel:

Views from the water:

Lunch break :)

And “back to work” again :)

But we didn’t come here just for the contemplative views; we came for something else that’s wholly wholesome for hardworking office plankton in need of some proper recuperative time-off: adrenaline! – the kind that courses through the veins from activities like this! ->

More on both contemplation and adrenalization in the Sayans coming right up!…

The best photos from our Sayan rafting trip are here.

Ladies and gents, boys and girls – greetings!

It’s been a while. But of course it has: there was a vacation-heavy summer to get through! And now, finally, the time has come to begin my traditional tales from the summer-holiday side…

This year I’ll be splitting these write-ups into two segments: the first – all about our mountain trekking adventures; the second – all about our mountain-river rafting escapades. But first – also as per tradition – overview intro-post: an overview of what we did, and what’s coming up in both photos and texts…

First we hiked the Karavshin route in Kyrgyzstan, then air-teleported ourselves over to the Sayan Mountains (Russia) and rafted down the Oka River there (not to be confused with the more well-known Oka River not that far from Moscow – literally five thousand kilometers to the west:).

So how was it? In a word: awesome!

Karavshin = 10 days on foot, 115 kilometers covered, total ascent and descent = 7.5km:  the most physically punishing trek I’ve ever done. Even Kamchatka-2015 (315km trekking up and down volcanoes) was easier. All the same – it was worth every step!

The views on show there are downright magical:

The (southern Siberian) Oka River is a real beauty too…

Read on…