After crossing the Mutnovsky Plateau for three hours in our bus/truck transport, we were tantilisingly close to Mutnovsky Volcano.  But our driver could take us no further than the road head.  From there we had another three hours ahead of us trudging on foot over scree, ash, ice and snow and up a glacier to get to one of Mutnovsky’s craters.

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It’s not easy crossing ice.  We followed each other, single file, carefully.

One wrong step and it would be a slippery slide down to the rocks below.

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Once across the ice, I could take time to take in the rock formations around me.

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There was still ice aplenty on the ground.

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It was a long, slow, tiring march up the valley.

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But the higher we went, the better the views of the Mutnovsky Volcano crater.

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While we expressed that overused word “WOW” many times, some had seen it all before.

 Our guide Sasha, in camouflage, and our interpreter, Gulya, stopped for a chat.

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For the rest of us, all this was new and quite spell-binding; difficult to take it all in.

It was one of those ‘pinch yourself’ moments!  Am I really here?

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In front of us, fumaroles belched steam out of all that hot stuff inside in the volcano.

This is one volcano that is still very much alive.

There are something like twenty seven active vocanoes in Kamchutka.

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Sulphur deposits.  These usually emit that awful rotten egg gas smell, but not here.

Perhaps the breeze helped!

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It quite takes your breath away looking down into these deep holes.

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Yellow, sulphur rimmed fissures could be seen right across the crater.

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Huge rocks had been blown out with a blast at some time whilst mud bubbles nearby.

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After walking around the crater edge for some time, we realised it was already 14h30 .

Well and truly time for a bite to eat.

We sat down to enjoy the view and to enjoy the delicious food in our lunch boxes.

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Then ’twas time to begin the return journey back down the icy valley.

Some folk already on the trail were now just tiny specks in the bottom of the valley.

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We passed a simple memorial to a young man who had fallen.

He was just 22 years old; a reminder that this is a dangerous place.

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A view of the track through the ice.  We had just walked across that.

In fact we had successfully crossed it twice: there and back!

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On the way, I noticed some plants that pioneer areas such as this after volcanic activity.

This one is Saxifraga merkii or Merk’s Saxifrage.

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Another plant that survives in this inhospitable environment is

Shrubby Beardtongue, Pennellianthus frutescens, with its small mauve flowers.

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Spiraea beauverdiana can be found in habitats such as this from Alaska to Japan.

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This bright red berry is the Lingonberry, a favourite food of bears.  Lingonberry, Vaccinium vitas-idaea is found in the cold to moderate zones of the whole of the Northern Hemisphere.  It’s a valuable medicinal plant and is high in vitamins.

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We detoured on the way back to camp to look down at a waterfall formed when melt water from both the glacier and the remaining snow from last season tumbles over a precipice.   The first snow of next season will arrive before all the snow from the last one melts.  The water turned to ice at the bottom of this waterfall.  That’s cold!  Very cold!

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Here’s a landscape for all of you artists.  What a wonderful palette of earthy colours?

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A lonely Spiraea beauverdiana in a huge landscape!

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The walk back down took us 70 minutes.  We were all very pleased to climb back into our vehicles after our 12 km hike ( 6 up, 6 down). The return trip to our campsite took us two hours, back through the snow and ice, but this time with no dramas along the way.

After dinner we sat around the campfire and introduced ourselves and gave a short biography.  Six of us come from Canberra, and include the only two men in the group and one from Sydney.  The other three are New Zealanders.  It was then the crew’s turn to reveal all!

David

All Photography copyright ©  David Young  of  jtdytravels

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