loading…
loading…
When not river fording or passing through the almost impenetrable "stlánik" forrest the terrain is a tundra and wetlands easier to walk.
Tasty blueberries and some kind of red-berries (not sure their name) are on the way.
There are many bears in the area, but they are not interested in meeting you if you don't do stupid things like getting in between a mother and her cubs. We finally saw only their footprings on this trip.
Most of the bears are to the south on Kurile lake catching salmons rather than you.
Our journey
7 km: bypassing a gold mine "асачинский рудник" right after 2h taxi ride. Wilderness camping, cooking on a fire.
21 km: 8 h moving time + lunch break with cooking and drying on open fire. Fording a river by gum boots many times. No time to rest except for the lunch. Getting through "stlánik" impenetrable forrest on couple of places very slowly. Curing a knee ache by a vodka bandage.
16 km: 6 h moving time + lunch break. Mostly tundra, but "stlánik", picking mushrooms for lunch, fording a river. Arrival to Khodutka hot springs and bath, fishing.
Relax at Khodutka: hot springs bathing, fishing and eating fish.
same way back: fording, bear paths, blueberries, fishing.
same way back + fishing.
same way back: fishing in "aquarium": a river full of salmons. Passing impenetrable "stlánik" again. Hitchiking to Gorely.
What's nearby:
Our final destination was Khodutka hot springs with wooden huts at the foot of 2090 m volcano.
A true full relaxing day of bathing in hot springs and fishing.
The inflow of the hot springs into the pond gives a unique opportunity to choose a water temperature you like just by moving around in the pond.
Our Russian friends continued south to Ksudach volcano and we went the same way back alone.
Rybalky is a Russian word for fishing.
We had a fishing rod and a small fishing net.
There were tons of salmons everywhere in the river. We were fishing around Khodutka and in Asacha river in the middle on the way back.
Almost impenetrable terrain and no landmarks to navigate
It's the toughest trip we did.
There’s no map nor path to follow. There are no landmarks to navigate other ways than by GPS.
You need to find your way through GPS points you know are easier to pass. Satellite images can help to find areas with less vegetation but you neet to have the GPS points in advance.
The forrest gets almost impenetrable at some places: 1 km of dense mountain pine can take hours to pass. Russians call this kind of forrest „stlánik“.
Frequent river fording and wetlands
It’s faster with gum booths. Foot wraps are necessary to prevent feet becoming damp. We switched between gum booths for frequent fording with more comfortable Gore-tex boots in less demanding areas.
During a lunch break we were drying the foot wraps.
On your own. Days from anybody.
Things can break. Be prepared to deal with it or improvize.
One of us had a serious knee pain from a heavy backpack. We took all her staff and made a wrap from bandages soaked with vodka and a plastic wrap around. This time it worked and she was good the next day.
You are days from civilization. No GSM signal anywhere.