The next point of our program after Khalaktyrsky beach, boat trip along Avacha Bay and excursions to the Valley of Geysers was hiking in the crater of Mutnovsky volcano.
If you want to order a comprehensive planning of your trip to Kamchatka or, conversely, learn how to organize your own trips, then that way 🙂
To put it mildly, we were not very lucky with the weather – a low overcast sky, at times it was raining lightly.
How to get to Mutnovsky volcano
From Yelizovo to the volcano you need to get about three hours on almost absolute off-road: either along gravel (this is, one might say, a track), then along a serpentine, then through a lava flow.
For as long as I can remember, and this has been like this since ten years, there was no normal road here. The fact is that the main purpose of the road is the maintenance and maintenance of a geothermal station, and for these purposes it is quite suitable.
Only in recent years, with the growing popularity of travel to Kamchatka, this route has been intensively used for tourism purposes. The government says, they say, this is not their way, let the geologists do it, and they, in turn, reasonably answer that everything suits them anyway. That’s why we have what we have.
Silver key
Somewhere in a 40-minute drive from Yelizovo, in the area of the village of Termalny, you can drink crystal clear spring water from the Silver (or Zaykin) key stream.
All tourists who go to the Verkhne-Paratunsky springs, Vilyuchinsky, Gorely and Mutnovsky volcanoes stop here.
You can read more about climbing the Gorely volcano and visiting the Verkhne-Paratunsky springs. here.
Kamchatka fauna
If you’re lucky, you’ll get in your way the Bearsbut we only found a bear trail.
And also met tarbaganov.
Waterfall Dangerous
At the entrance to the Mutnovsky volcano is waterfall Dangerous.
The Vulkannaya River, flowing down the slopes of Mutnovsky volcano, cutting through the bottom and western walls of the Northeast Crater, forms powerful 80-meter waterfalland below it forms a deep canyon – Dangerous.
Combination of waterfall, canyon and volcano makes this place one of the most popular tourist locations.
Mutnovsky volcano crater
The height of the Mutnovsky volcano is 2322 meters above sea level. The volcano consists of four craters. The most active of them is the so-called “Active Funnel”and we set off.
Mutnovsky volcano is still active. Recently, eruptions occur mainly from the Active Funnel. The last eruption was observed in March 2000.
The path to the crater is simple, but quite dangerous – you have to walk along a narrow trodden path along the very slope. Slag keeps pouring out from under your feet, shoes slip through the mud, and the earth rock is periodically replaced by an ice cover.. The only thing you have to rely on in such a situation is sports sticks. And now imagine that you are doing all this, either going up or going down, while breathing rarefied air at that time.Target – see fumaroles, steam jets and boiling potsand trust me, it’s worth it. The earth in this place literally breathes, emitting the sounds and smells characteristic of this process.I had to return back in dense fog, when nothing was visible at a distance of three meters. Scary, dangerous, but what emotions.It takes all the way round trip no more than two hours.And after such a busy day there is nothing better than to plunge into the waters of the Verkhne-Paratunsky thermal springs.
