May 18 Stone Mushrooms and a hard walk to visit Uchar waterfall

The plan for the day was to visit the Stone Mushrooms of Altai  (Here is a site that gives a good description of these formation) and then walk to the Uchar waterfall. As we learned later, it was an ambitious plan, but we finished the day with a great sense of achievement. The weather was merciful to us and we had sun and warm wind throughout the day - not unlike yesterday.

To get to the mushrooms we had to cross the river Chulyshman on a small boat (service provided by locals) and then walk on a short, but steep footpath. The views from the top over the Chulyshman valley were quite impressive and the stone mushrooms were quite a nature masterpiece. It took us some effort to climb the hill, so looking at local goats who leisurely went up and down was quite embarrassing...

For the walk to the Uchar waterfall, we took a guide from the tourist camp where we stayed and we were glad we did it as we were discovering the surprises of the path. The walk was not particularly long (11 kms each way) nor steep, but it was quite challenging.

The first part of the walk was quite easy: flat across a field of boulders - we just had to check where to put our feet on each step - so we managed to progress at a good pace. Then we entered into the valley of the Chulcha river and things started to get harder. The footpath follows the river, but because the sides of the valley are quite steep, there are plenty of rockfalls of all sizes ranging from almost sand to massive boulders. We had to be extremely careful not to slide all the way down to the river or trap a leg in between rocks. If that wasn't bad enough we also had to cross a stream on a precarious "bridge" and cross a small waterfall with ropes. The Uchar waterfall was not very impressive, as the water was low. We should have come here a couple of weeks earlier, according to our guide.

When we finally arrived to the Uchar waterfall our legs were completely exhausted and we were wondering how we would manage to make the return. Fortunately, after having some food and rest we were feeling strong and the return didn't feel too bad - it was actually slightly faster, because we almost did not stop to take photos.

Note to parents: although the path was quite precarious, we had a guide who helped us through the toughest bits, so no reckless activities took place. In fact, without the guide, we would have probably stopped somewhere at the beginning of the path as we would not had felt comfortable continuing it.

We made it to the stone mushrooms