Today we went to see the Akturu glacier in the South Chuya mountain range. This required about 40 km offroad. And real offroading it was! We had a full body massage and we hope no vital body organs became displaced. The car we had was another UAZ - UAZ Hunter tuned for this type of roads: high clearance, appropriate tyres, some car parts were from GAZ and ZIL. Locals know how to make cars work on the roads where people and horses could get stuck.
On the way, we met a young German couple who decided to leave work and travel from Germany to Nepal. Part of their journey was through Russia: from Saint-Petersburg to Ulan-Ude and they decided to spend some time trekking mountains in Altai. They are from German Alps and have quite a good mountain trekking experience, so we were glad they were with us, as mountain trekking was quite new for us. We both hiked mountains and volcanos, but these were rather different.
As we arrived at the base camp, we were greeted by Nikolay - he used to work in Tomsk university and used to come here on rotation to study the glaciers. After retirement, he decided to move to Aktru for good as he fell in love with this place. We had an omelet and hot tea with bread and honey. Later we were quite glad we had this second breakfast as the way up required a lot of fuel. Nikolay also gave us sweets and crackers to make sure we have enough sugar for our muscles. He also gave us his walkie-talkie as we were the only people going up the mountain that day and he felt much safer having connection to us.
The path to the mountain was rather steep at places, with a lot of boulders. Some areas were still covered with snow: we sank in snow a few times to discover that there were streams of water below. As our visit to Aktru was only for one day, we had only limited time. We almost made it to the Blue Lake, but had to stop short. Anyways, we were told that the lake was still frozen and we would not see it. Hence, no feeling of disappointment because we did not make it whatsoever.
As we were approaching the base camp on our way back, we met Nikolay. He was searching for us and was worried something happened. It turned out, that the volume knob of the our walkie-talkie turned down and we did not hear his calls. In fact, we were quite surprised that he only called us once. Well, he called us numerous times, but we did not hear.
The way back was equally bumpy. The driver even asked us once to leave the car and walk a little as this was becoming too dangerous.
We finished the day with a throat singing performance, which was quite impressive with the mountains at the background and open fire.
On the way, we met a young German couple who decided to leave work and travel from Germany to Nepal. Part of their journey was through Russia: from Saint-Petersburg to Ulan-Ude and they decided to spend some time trekking mountains in Altai. They are from German Alps and have quite a good mountain trekking experience, so we were glad they were with us, as mountain trekking was quite new for us. We both hiked mountains and volcanos, but these were rather different.
As we arrived at the base camp, we were greeted by Nikolay - he used to work in Tomsk university and used to come here on rotation to study the glaciers. After retirement, he decided to move to Aktru for good as he fell in love with this place. We had an omelet and hot tea with bread and honey. Later we were quite glad we had this second breakfast as the way up required a lot of fuel. Nikolay also gave us sweets and crackers to make sure we have enough sugar for our muscles. He also gave us his walkie-talkie as we were the only people going up the mountain that day and he felt much safer having connection to us.
The path to the mountain was rather steep at places, with a lot of boulders. Some areas were still covered with snow: we sank in snow a few times to discover that there were streams of water below. As our visit to Aktru was only for one day, we had only limited time. We almost made it to the Blue Lake, but had to stop short. Anyways, we were told that the lake was still frozen and we would not see it. Hence, no feeling of disappointment because we did not make it whatsoever.
As we were approaching the base camp on our way back, we met Nikolay. He was searching for us and was worried something happened. It turned out, that the volume knob of the our walkie-talkie turned down and we did not hear his calls. In fact, we were quite surprised that he only called us once. Well, he called us numerous times, but we did not hear.
The way back was equally bumpy. The driver even asked us once to leave the car and walk a little as this was becoming too dangerous.
We finished the day with a throat singing performance, which was quite impressive with the mountains at the background and open fire.
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