Journey to the Tungur in Altai. Mountain Altai

Photo 1.

This was already my sixth hike in Altai. So often I did not visit any region of Russia, perhaps only in the Urals was more, due to its proximity.
However, it is not surprising. It is worth a person to come here at least once and that's it ..

By the way, why not show here photographs from the first campaigns, still film, black and white? After all, it's been 20 years! I will probably do so in future posts.

And today is the first three days of our journey to Lake Kucherlinskoe.

Photo 2.


For orientation.
From Novosib to Tungur we (six of us) rushed by minibus, it took a little less than a day. The roads there are now normal, not what they used to be. They gave 3200 rubles each. from the nose. Now a lot of private traders and firms are engaged in the transportation of tourists, the prices are equal to regular buses.

Photo 3.

Here the chicken scribbled our route with her paw. In general terms, of course, whoever is interested will understand.

Tungur - lake. Kucherlinskoye - Myushtuayry glacier (did not reach) - lake. Darashkol, - return to Kucherla - pass to Akkem lake - Akoyuk river and valley of Seven lakes - to the foot of Belukha, Akkemsky glacier - back to Tungur.

Photo 4.


Here is Tungur. An ordinary village, if not to talk about the surrounding landscapes.
We set up camp on the banks of the Katun, not far from the Vysotnik base. And we went for a walk.

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On the slopes of these hills there are thickets of strawberries, it is a pity that they have not yet ripened, the beginning of July.

Photo 9.


Horses are my topic on duty)

Photo 10.


In the title photo, there is a pink slide with a horse. Pink color - these flowers. And below Katun.

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A pink bust of one of the revolutionaries who once established Soviet power here.

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Local boy.

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The next morning, we put on backpacks with a two-week supply of food, and we were on our way!
This is our navigator guide Lech. Maybe someone recognized him from my Kamchatka posts.

Photo 18.


The first 2-3 days, as always, are the most dreary, not interesting. Presh yourself and go along the path. Sometimes a rider on a horse will gallop towards you. It's also on the top photo, you can see it)

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here again .. The fact is that there is a full equestrian path here and many do not take a steam bath like us, but ride a horse.

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Our first stop surrounded by mountains, fiery baths and nettles.

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But those same, the right tourists.

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Here, near the Kuilyu grotto with petroglyphs (I didn’t take a picture of them), there is a regular camp of equestrian groups.

There are about 100 drawings in the Kuilu Grotto ancient man. But many of them were so spoiled by the hand of "grateful descendants" that they did not take pictures.

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The next morning we go further towards the snow-capped mountain peaks.

Photo 31.


By the end of the second day we go to Kucherlinskoye Lake.
Its shores are densely overgrown with forest, so that it is almost invisible for the trees.

The name comes from the word kuchurlu - "salt marsh". According to Altai legends, Kol-eezi, i.e. the owner of the lake, lives in the lake. It is believed that this spirit can scream like a bull. According to the foresters, deer, lynx, sable live in the larch-cedar forests surrounding the lake. There are marmot colonies on the mountain slopes. Mountain goats sometimes come to the alpine meadows.

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There will be many more types of Kucherla, but this is next time.
I’m going to look for old b/w films from 20 years ago, maybe there’s something left ..

Tungur village. Republic of Altai, Ust-Koksinsky district. Friends, I want to tell you about one very interesting place, which is far from civilization, where it even breathes in a special way!!!

The village of Tungur in the Altai Mountains is well known to climbers, climbers, esotericists, yogis, cyclists and motorcyclists, and has a well-developed tourist infrastructure. Indeed, interesting tourist routes to the sights of a large-scale natural park and the Katunsky Biosphere Reserve begin in this settlement. And most importantly, to the famous peak of Siberia - Mount Belukha, fanned by the aura of ancient legends and tales of the Altai people. Even the name of the village is poetic, in translation it sounds like "Shaman's tambourine".

Where is Tungur Location of the village of Tungur: Republic of Altai, Ust-Koksinsky district. The village stretched for 3 km along the left bank of the turquoise Katun, opposite the mouth of the Kucherla River, at the foot of the low Mount Camel. The northern borders are guarded by another height - Mount Baida, which is a spur of the Terektinsky Range (it offers a beautiful view of Tungur and Belukha). Distance Novosibirsk-Tyungur - 885 km; Barnaul-Tungur - 693 km; Biysk-Tungur - 541 km; Gorno-Altaisk-Tungur - 449 km; Ust-Koksa-Tungur - 59 km.

For travelers exploring the Altai Mountains, Tungur is the best village for active rest and adventure. Alpine landscapes with green forests dominated by cedars and larches stretch around. There are also acacias, small birch groves, and glades framed by bushes of bird cherry and wild rose.

To the east, places untouched by civilization begin, there are no settlements. And only the mountains squeeze the raging Katun in a close embrace. On many old maps of Altai, the Tungur-Inya highway along the left bank of the Katun (through the village of Inegen), 70 km long, is marked, in fact it does not exist. It is a dead-end country road, the dirt road ends near the mouth of the Akkem River. After that, complete off-road begins, the so-called "Tungur trail", 20 km long to Inegen itself. At the moment, a project is being considered for the construction of a modern highway on this section, which will connect Tungur directly with the Chuisky tract. But for now, it will not be possible to drive a car along this route to Inegen, although in 2006 a group of extreme sportsmen on off-road vehicles accomplished such a feat. Somewhere they built temporary bridges, in some places they dragged heavy jeeps on their hands, they cut through rocks in especially narrow areas, expanding the passage. Within a few years, the footbridges rotted, the path again crumbled and collapsed. The Tungur-Inya trail is passable only for tourists on foot, on horseback, bicycles and mountain bikes.

Next to the Tungur path is the "Stone of Health" - like a rock formation cut in half, into the fault of which 6 people can easily enter. It is believed that it has healing power: if you stand inside the split for at least 10 minutes, then your health will improve significantly. Above the path you will meet another unique rock - the “Mirror of Time”, according to local residents, astrally connected with Mount Belukha. Nearby perched "Stone women" - tall sculptures with human faces, created by ancient craftsmen. The route is also interesting for those who want to look at the Akkem breakthrough or pipe - the roaring and raging Katun River makes its way through a narrow canyon. A five-kilometer chain of rapids and three-meter shafts is the first difficult rafting down the Katun, 23 km from the village of Tungur. Only strong-willed and courageous tourists are able to overcome it, because it belongs to the 4-5 category of difficulty.

All the most interesting is concentrated south of the village of Tungur. Wild alpine lands begin there, breathing with primitive power and introducing even sophisticated tourists into awe. The Tungur-Belukha route is one of the most popular in the Altai Mountains, the mountain is located at a distance of about 50 km, depending on the winding of the chosen path. Along the way, tourists enjoy fabulous views and visit popular natural attractions: the unique Akkem Lake with silver-white waters, behind which the Katunsky Range sparkles with snowy peaks; the valley of the Kucherla River and the magnificent Kucherlinskoye Lake (distance from the village of Tungur - 33 km), Mount Belukha is reflected in its mirror surface; The valley of seven lakes, interesting for its reservoirs with different shades of water. To the west of Tungur, the entire civilization of the Ust-Koksinsky region is concentrated - the regional center and villages of the Uimon valley (Katanda, Multa, Zamulta, Chendek, Terekta, Upper Uimon).

Every year the flow of tourists visiting this isolated part of the Altai Mountains is increasing. All paths to the village of Tungur begin either in Biysk or in the capital of the Altai mountains - Gorno-Altaisk, you can get there both by your own car and by public transport. Regular buses run from these cities to Ust-Koksa. Then local buses and minibuses will take tourists to Tungur.

At the beginning of the village there is a suspension automobile bridge across the Katun. The village is a fairly large tourist center. Tungur is the nearest settlement on the way to Mount Belukha and the starting point of numerous mountain, hiking, horse and water tourist routes. There are several tourist bases in the vicinity of Tungur, from which hiking trips are organized to the Kucherlinskoe and Akkemskoe lakes, horseback riding, rafting and a trip to the foot of Belukha, which can be reached on foot by passing the Kuzuyak Pass and further rising up the Akkem River. Or on horseback and on foot - up the river. Kucherla and through the Karatyurek pass to Akkem lake and the foot of Belukha. In the village you can rent horses for a horse trail or delivery of goods. Tungur shops sell mountain honey from local apiaries.

At the entrance to the village of Tungur, to the right of the highway on the banks of the Katun, there is a monument to Pyotr Sukhov, the commander of the Red Guard detachment, defeated by the White Guards in August 1918. The village has a post office and mobile communications.

On the right bank of the Katun, opposite the village of Tungur, there are the Vysotnik camp site and the Tyungur camp site, which is part of the Kucherla tourist complex.

All camp sites have experienced instructors specializing in a particular type of tourism (rafting, horseback riding, hiking, mountaineering).

Many times I saw a photograph with the same subject - a mountain lake in which the sky is reflected, then a couple of dark mountains that look like gates, and behind them - a grandiose shining wall of ice and snow from the very peaks. I knew that it was in Altai, and that somewhere in that mountain wall - Belukha (4509m), the highest point of Siberia, sacred mountain many peoples, and according to Roerich - Northern Kailash. And if road trips along the Altai tracts are the prerogative of Novosibirsk and other regions in the neighborhood, then people go to the mountains and rivers of Altai from all over the vast, and even when I was at school, the head of our tourist club took groups here. The place from the photo turned out to be Akkem Lake, the most famous trekking attraction of the Golden Mountains. And even though I myself am not a hiker (of which I had to make sure once again), the experienced Olga rode with me, and the week-long trip to Akkem became the culmination of mine.

The story about the Akkem campaign will consist of three parts: the way up from the last village of Tungur (including footage from the way down), Lake Akkem and its surroundings, radials to Yarlushka and Seven Lakes. In I showed Ust-Kan, but between it and Tungur there is also Ust-Koksa and the Uimon Valley, which I will show after Akkem. And instead of a preface -.

In the upper reaches of the Katun there is the fertile Uimon steppe, the Old Believer Belovodie. Behind it is the small Katanda steppe, the owners of which under the tsar were the Cossacks of the Bikatun line of the Siberian army, under whose protection Vasily Radlov was the first to dig their archaeologists in 1865. And outside of all the dimensions is the village of Tungur, whose name could be translated as Zabubenny: in Altai Tyungur is a shaman tambourine. Behind Tungur there are sparsely populated mountains without roads, after passing 70 kilometers you can jump out. View downstream, almost all the shots from Tungur were taken on the way back, when we left here - and this is not so easy, because there is no scheduled transport here, officially its passage is prohibited due to an emergency bridge in Katanda, and an unofficial minibus "Only for locals" they are also periodically fined - I suspect that around the time they are convicted of transporting tourists.

On the high bank - the grave of the Red Army. In the upper reaches of the Katun, there was also the culmination of the Civil War for Altai, and in fact, the heroes of the semi-mythical fought. In 1918, near Tungur, Pyotr Sukhov died with a detachment of red partisans, defeated by the "whites" in the Altai steppe and retreating here along the mountains. In 1921, in Katanda, in his house, the last ataman of the Bikatun Cossacks Alexander Kaigorodov, who was trying to liberate Russia from the territory of Mongolia, was killed. The locals, however, believed that he did not die, but went to China, and it was easier for the Reds to wash their hands. Here rests, of course, Sukhov:

There is also a Round House in Tungur - a clear Uimon trend:

And harsh rusty jalopies, reminiscent of the fact that locals do not live by tourism alone. I saw Altaians in Tungur, but it seemed to me that this was mainly a Russian village.

And behind the Katun - a squirrel and the highest Katunsky ridge in Altai, from which the Katun itself flows in an intricate spiral. This, as I understand it, is the Kucherlinskaya valley, and usually they go up along it, and down along Akkemskaya. But such a hike, with the Kara-Turek pass separating the valleys, lasted ten days, or even a couple of weeks, which I didn’t have. In principle, the idea to combine dynamic road trips and mountain trekking in one trip turned out to be, to put it mildly, not very successful - most of the trip we had to carry useless (except for the trekking part) cargo, there was frankly little time for trekking, but we already managed to squander.

Belukha is clearly visible from the hills above the Tungur, primarily Mount Baida. 12 kilometers down the Katun, almost opposite the mouth of Akkem, is the mouth of the Turgunda River, where a whole "magnificent seven" kezer-tashes ("stone warriors") of Turkic times have been preserved. But going there is a day, and renting a car is inadequate thousands, and I saw a lot of "stone women" on that trip. So let's go over the bridge:

The suspension bridge across the Katun, not the first and not the last along its course, literally hangs over the Tungur:

It was opened in 1982, and as I understand it, it was from that time that tourists poured into Akkem and Kucherla in a stream:

And if Tungur himself stands on the left bank, then behind the Katun - his camp sites. On the way "there" we spent the night at the camp site "White Krechet", which was served by two boys who looked like brothers. These were not service workers, but classic "enchanted by Altai", who helped brothers in mind go to the mountains, and the fact that they took little money for this was perceived by both us and them as a convention. But the guys refused to take our things to the storage room - from day to day "White Gyrfalcon" was closed for the winter. The neighboring tourist base "Bayry" has already been closed - and this is in the first days of September! Only "Vysotnik" operates here all year round, combining the functions of a camp site and a forest hotel. "Vysotnik" and holds both of these valleys, organizing various casts. On Akkem, he has a "branch", which is simply called "Upper Vysotnik" here, and we also had to get acquainted with him.

On the "Vysotnik" we spent the night on the way back - and I understood that I would go to spend the night here for any money. Firstly, we were terribly exhausted and soaked to the skin in the rain, and secondly ... a hiker must either not sweat or have a winter swim: I really wanted to wash. In the summer there is a tourist shelter with sleeping bags in the common room, but in September it was already closed, and the choice was to put up a tent or spend the night in a hotel from the frame above. Rooms with amenities there cost 1500 rubles per person, without amenities - 1200. At the same time, there was nowhere to hang wet rags to dry, the water heater was designed for one and a half people in capacity, and perhaps the lack of Wi-Fi could be explained by the lack of fiber optics in Tungur. It is also forbidden to eat and keep food in the rooms, but who will control this? Otherwise, "Vysotnik" was good - a cozy area, polite staff, excellent food in the cafe (but expensive), in the tourist office they are attentive to customers, which helped us out on the way "there". And here it is not necessary to settle in order to use the left-luggage office for the duration of the trip to the mountains.

There is also a separate show. In the morning, we were lured out of the room by the noise of the propeller:

A small helicopter arrived - a light American "Robinson R66", five-seater with a cargo compartment. Heavy helicopters, as many of them I saw in Siberia, are exclusively Russian and Soviet, but small "flying cars" are the same overseas "Robinsons" with a characteristic mast under the propeller:

Helicopter tours are a very popular entertainment in Altai, and it suggests that there are not so few people with money among us as it seems. A 40-minute air excursion with a flyby of Belukha costs 70,000 rubles overboard, and this particular R66 was flying from an intermediate landing (apparently for refueling) in Tungur. In the frame - the entire cabin of the helicopter, not very different from the car. As I understand it, 4 tourists and an instructor are flying here, and the tour is read automatically.

He did not specify whether this helicopter could be used as a means of dropping off tourists on Lake Akkemskoye or picking them up from there, in both cases also showing Belukha. A more well-known option for those who are too lazy to go on foot is a horse, but at a price comparable to a helicopter: firstly, not one, but two mares carry a tourist with a load (one for himself, the second for a backpack); secondly, an instructor will go at the head of the caravan, whose horse is paid separately at the same rate; thirdly, you pay separately for the return trip at the same rates for each horse. That is, the calculation formula is as follows: the number of horses \u003d (number of tourists) x2 + 1, and we multiply all this by the number of days + 1. Considering that renting a mare costs 1500 per day, for two we would have come out from 15 to 22 thousand rubles , of which half to a third would be spent on the return of the instructor.
The easiest option to simplify the transfer is to take a "shishige" (cargo GAZ-66) to Three Birches. The fact is that Akkem flows into the Katun about 15 kilometers below the Tungur (map), and in order to get to it, you have to overcome the Kuzuyak pass along a boring forest road: the first day of the journey promises a lot of effort and few spectacles. Taxi "shishiga" costs 10 thousand rubles, which is even inexpensive for a large group, but single tourists for 1100 rubles (100 rubles - the "Vysotnik" commission) are put on quite frequent occasions. And in the evening, when we left for the "White Krechet", we were told that there were no opportunities for tomorrow, and the maximum that they could offer was to participate in the rafting to the mouth of Akkem for the same money. However, in the morning, a car was suddenly found, transporting some materials and cargo to Three Birches, and the girls from Vysotniki, who had not forgotten about our wish, called me. To pay or not to pay 2200 for two, Olga and I did not even have a question. At 11 am, a jeep drove up to the gates of Vysotnik and took us to Kucherla - the real "last village" three kilometers further:

If Tungur seemed to me mostly Russian, then Kucherla is an almost purely Altai village. And at many houses of Kucherla there are chaks - traditional Altai hitching posts. Because the horse here is not a luxury, but a means of transportation and earnings:

Somewhere in Kucherla, the "shishiga" was waiting for us. On the Kuzuyak road, they can be found in this way, but according to other tourists, they take strictly 1000 per person from any point and do not bargain.

On the wooden bridge "shishiga" crossed the river Kucherla, even more turquoise than the Katun. The Kucherlinskaya valley, compared to the Akkemskaya one, is considered more picturesque and gentle, but also longer, and the beauty of the alpine lakes and the almost kilometer-long glacier-icefall of Mushtuairy, to which it leads, is very difficult to access, and as a rule, tourists turn from it to the Kara-Turek pass to Akkemu, along which they go down. Pay attention to the fragment of the bridge and a bunch of logs - the bridge was washed away by a flood a few years ago, but since then a new one, also wooden, has been built.

The road behind the bridge basically looks like this, and even UAZs don't drive here after the rains - only shishiga, only hardcore! And how fun it was to walk along it back ankle-deep in slippery mud or, if the edge, waist-deep in damp grass ...

A couple of kilometers from Kucherla there is a grandiose meadow, two kilometers wide itself, followed by forests and a dirty dirt road again. Just an ordinary forest, without any special beauty, which would take hours to walk through. "Estimate would have trampled on foot!" would think with Olga, understanding each other without words. The only spectacular place on 22 kilometers of this road is actually the Kuzuyak Pass (1513m). It rises 700 meters above the "Kucherlinskaya" side, 500 meters above the "Akkem" side, and the ascent to it is not extreme, but simply boring and difficult.

You can see Tungur and Kucherla, stretched along their rivers:

And this is already a descent beyond Kuzuyak, and the deep valley of Akkem, which goes into the distance, is clearly visible. Notice how the lighting has changed? In the sun, it is in this valley that unnaturally bright colors are:

Here the road was no longer wet, but dusty. A couple of times we saw tourists walking towards us, and in some places behind Kuzuyak we could see hayfields and fences.

The way back was much harder - the weather deteriorated, it rained for two days in a row, and the roads were swept away from all sides, but this time there was no opportunity. Therefore, we walked on foot, and only the wild rosehip, which grew abundantly on the "Akkem" side of the pass, brightened up the efforts - we gathered it for the future, and brewed it into tea for several more days after the hike.

The zigzags of the wide "bump" gauge are conveniently cut along narrow and steeper paths. On the slopes, the mud, held together by roots, is not so slippery, but in the lowlands there can be very nasty swamps. These trails are not so much for pedestrians, but for horsemen, who sometimes come across us:

And on the way to the pass, I suddenly noticed a dog at my feet. Looking around, we saw a caravan, but only some other:

It was not imposing tourists with a misanthropic instructor who rode here, but stern Altaians with guns, and there were much more horses than riders, and on each horse hung something that most of all resembled a sack of potatoes. Having come up to level, the leader shouted to us: "Jump on the red! 1000 rubles to Kucherla!", apparently sincerely not realizing that a person may not be able to saddle a horse on the go.

I asked the next Altaian where you were heading from, and he answered me "What are you interested in?" in such a tone, as if for the next question he would take a gun from his shoulder and shoot. Only after seeing them off with a glance, we realized that these were cones, and the "potatoes" in bags - cedar cones from some distant plots, the location of which, of course, they did not want to shine. The meeting with the pack caravan for me at least somehow justified the difficult return trip.

Let's get back to the sunny start of the hike. At some point, an ail appeared from the bushes - there is a small camp site, where the "shishiga" materials were brought, apparently for conservation for the winter. We were taken another half a kilometer ahead of a wide meadow and landed on this clearing, popularly known as Three Birches. There are, however, more than three birches here, and I don’t know which ones gave the glade its name.

There are a couple of completely abandoned houses here, and on the way "there" we dined at the table in them, and on the way back we settled down to spend the night there, literally wet to the skin: if you walk in heavy rain for several hours, no raincoats and jackets will save . Inside it was not warmer than in the tent, but unlike the tent, the house already stood. He has seen a lot in his lifetime, probably:

So, we drove 22 kilometers. As the further path showed, we wouldn’t have passed them in a day: I just don’t know how to go to the mountains, and Olga lost her strength and dexterity in three years without hiking. In addition, she was used to walking with a large group, and therefore, no matter how light the backpack was, she still gained more on the road than she could carry. I could unload it (and in the end I carried more than 30 kilograms), but in purely tourist matters - to put up a tent, cook food - there was little use from me, except to collect firewood for a wood chipper and bring water from a stream, so we set up for 3 hours, but we gathered for 4 hours at all. That is, we walked for 7-8 hours a day with an average (including halts) speed of 1 km / h up and 2 km / h down, if measured in a straight line. From Tungur to Three Birches - 22 kilometers along the road; from Three Birches to Lake Akkem - about the same in a straight line, that is, in fact, 1.5-2 times more. Ministry of Emergency Situations and border guards pass the Akkem trail in a day (this is included in their standards), normal tourists - 2-3 days from Tungur and 1-2 days back, but we went up 2.5 days from Three Birches and 2 days went down to Tungur.

Or we could go even slower, but the Akkem trail is not a wild taiga, but a park. Probably, the Chuisky tract looked about the same in the "eternal" era - at least a meter wide and with carefully sawn trunks of trees that fell on the road. For the most part of the trail, there are solid kanmi and roots, and if on the descent they pretty much interfere, then they help a lot on the ascent, forming a kind of staircase, and it’s not slippery to go here in any weather.

On the right, streams flow in steep rocky channels:

To the left, from behind the trees, a wall sometimes appears and the noise of the ferocious Akkem is heard:

There are forks on the trail, but they are all conditional - the branches will converge after a maximum of several hundred meters. And along the entire length of the trail every 2-3 kilometers, or even more often - Glades. Tourists have developed them so thoroughly that others on Maps.me were marked as campsites. Many have left some sauces, jars of salt or sugar, bottles of water - take it and use it if you don’t disdain! Walking here is not dangerous - even if you broke both legs (which is not so easy to do here), then in a few hours at most (and most likely earlier) other tourists will pass by and if they don’t help themselves, they will report to the Ministry of Emergency Situations above. But all this self-made infrastructure has a downside - a shortage of firewood. Even the wood chips in most clearings are chosen almost cleanly, and it takes a whole hour to collect them for one cooking in the far district of the clearing.

The main landmark on the local trails is horse manure. If you haven’t seen him for quite some time, it means that you probably managed to go the wrong way. But, contrary to expectations, there is not much garbage - somewhere one piece of paper or a tin can is lying around, but I have never seen spontaneous dumps along the entire trail. The piece of iron, resembling either a homemade stove or a burbulator for a whole camp of hippies, was the largest example of local litter, and even this, perhaps, is not litter, but a "working" pine nut sieve. And it’s not the sozanny of tourists (one cattle company a month is enough to litter the entire trail to the state of a viper), it’s just that in Altai they understand that they need to clean up, and volunteers and instructors follow the cleanliness along the Akkem trail. They say that this is not the last reason - garbage attracts bears, problems with which are definitely not needed here. But if you meet Goga - remember that he is a Man!

There really isn't much to see on the trail. Forest and forest, dense and humid, and the mountains are reminiscent not so much of beautiful views as of a sinusoid in a vertical plane, which is a path.

The only thing that pleases the eye is living creatures - for example, nutcracker. Didn't know they were so funny.

Squirrels here are mostly black, and there are really a lot of them:

And on the stones underfoot, such black spiders, or rather haymakers, plentifully scurry about:

The section of the trail behind the Three Birches turned out to be the most difficult - constant steep ascents, sometimes replaced by mocking descents: if the general direction was up, then each descent promised a new ascent. In addition, Olya did not immediately realize that her carrying capacity had decreased, but I did not want to stop, and as a result, on the very first kilometer, she overstrained herself so that she could not recover until the end of the trip. Every now and then we came across other tourists, and their backpacks were two times smaller than ours - and alas, I have too little experience to understand how they succeed. We walked about 6 "straight" kilometers during the day, and at dusk we got up for the night among the boulders under the kurum near the Akkemskaya Pad stream. Until the end of the campaign, I called this place the Devil's Meadow, because on the basis of fatigue and dejection with very modest results, here I had an epic quarrel with Olga.

And the next day Belukha reconciled us. At some point, we saw a fork - one path went up, the other down, and Olga remembered from her past trip to these parts about a certain Lower Akkem path, where she had to climb through bushes and kurums. Therefore, she went to reconnaissance from above, and I - from below, and quickly realizing that the lower path was more trodden, I returned to the backpacks. And looking up, I saw squirrels shining beyond the taiga and:

And I didn’t know then that it was Belukha itself, coupled with the round Delaunay peak (4260m). From the Russian side, they look like a dome and a pyramid, if you like - like Easter cake and Easter. The Altaians call it Kadyn-Bazhy, which means the Head of the Katun, but at the same time Katun itself means "Lady", and then Belukha is simply the Main of the Main. According to the Altai belief, its peak is a channel connecting our world with the heavenly one, and even shamans were forbidden to approach the sacred mountain. I started with photographs of Beluga whales. Well, the Altaians know the entire Belukha massif as Uch-Sumer (Three-Headed), and its third element is the Western Belukha (4435m), the second highest peak in Altai and the most spectacular of the mountains above Akkem. Behind the mountains there will be a gentle slope with the Gebler glacier (military doctor Friedrich Gebler first explored the mountain in 1835), from which the Katun originates, and the steep northern slope is the Akkem wall, from which Akkem himself breaks out with a roar. "Ak" in all Turkic languages ​​means "white", "by whom" - a river in the ancient Turkic language. Akkem is really not turquoise, but white all over:

And the sign on the stone near the path reminds him of his furious burrows:

Akkem doesn't seem to be deep, but it's really not even quite a river, but something transitional between a river and a waterfall. Continuous threshold 40 kilometers long. Here, look - the slope of the channel is visible to the naked eye! In the distance, behind the trees - the western peak of Belukha:

But the taiga sinusoids ended, and the path now led along Akkem, and the slope, which was huge for the river, was quite tolerable for the path. The main obstacle on the second day were kurumniks, however, also mostly found ones. When we went up, I remembered that there were two or three of them, on the way down it turned out that there were at least five.

And side streams, still coming across every now and then. Bridges have been made through many, here is the most solid one:

A large butterfly was beating on the stones of one of the kurumniks, buzzing helplessly, like a fly. Her time has passed:

In the mountains in September it can be -15, and the eezi (spirits of the mountains) were favorable to us - although the nights were cold, and it rained on the way back, the temperature never dropped below 5-7 degrees.

Here the goblin met, who did not pay the slightest attention to us - he bypasses his possessions before conservation for the winter:

Sod canopies under twisted roots came across such that they can be used as a hut:

However, we passed not only them, but also the largest parking lot in front of the Tekelu waterfall, which apparently most tourists reach from Three Birches in a day. Near the waterfall, they say, it is very beautiful, but there are no bridges over the Akkem, and photo No. 39a shows how the attempt to ford might end. Moreover, I am sure that there the river carried away much stronger and more experienced people than we did. Therefore, they usually go to Tekelyushka with a separate radial from above:

Behind Akkem, meanwhile, loaches are already appearing - not yet our path, but the surrounding mountains are sucked out above the line after which trees do not grow:

Having passed a couple more kilometers beyond Tekelyushka, we decided to get up for the night - on the second day we walked a little more than on the first, but still about 4 kilometers remained before the goal. Well, I chose the glades, not least because of the views that opened from the shore of Akkem - here, for example, in all its glory West Belukha before sunset ... do you see the FACE on the slope?

But at dawn - and the whole array of Uch-Sumer, in which other esotericists peep the Trident of Shiva. The view is grandiose, and thanks to the more severe climate, the icy 4-thousanders of Altai are no less majestic than.

In the morning at the same place. This is where the title frame of the post was taken from. The colors are still unrealistic:

And other tourists were walking towards us all the time, and their geography was not at all the same as that of those met on the roads - almost none from Novosibirsk or Barnaul, but every other time Moscow or St. Petersburg, and also Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Arkhangelsk, Chesky Budejovitsy. ... Only once on the way back we came across tourists to overtake: although we were moving slowly, the flow upstairs had almost dried up (especially since they often go up Kucherla), and those who followed us went faster just a little faster and in approximately the same mode of halts and overnight stays. People we met appeared every one or two hours on the way up, several times a day on the way down, and we invariably greeted each other, exchanged questions about the further path, and moved on. On kurumniks, passing a group, I got off the path, and the last passerby invariably gave me a hand - as on winter roads, where one slides into the snow, and the other, having passed, pulls it out.

Sometimes horses descended with a lone instructor, most often an Altaian - they had already taken the passengers upstairs ... but downstairs, mind you, they are not going without a load, and this load is most likely the same cedar cones:

And steadily every other day, the Akkem Gorge was heard by the crash of a low-flying helicopter - first up the valley, and after 20 minutes and down. This, by the way, is not a "Robinson", but also an American "Bell-407" (or another "Bell"), that is, the Belukha flight is carried out not only by "Vysotnik":

The forest gradually thinned all the days of the ascent, the birches and aspens became smaller, and on the third day the larch became the main tree. At some point, we ran into a gate for horses (so that they would not go down on a night pasture), which could be opened with only a little thought. But closing them behind me, I felt that the goal was very close.

In the next part - about Akkem lake and its inhabitants.

P.S.
Well, if my story seemed funny or pathetic to some of the experienced tourists, laugh and feel sorry for your health. I am not a hiker, and although Olga and I spent three weeks in the same summer, I did not gain much experience. Olga asked why I was always in such a hurry and jumping out of my skin, and after a little thought, I found the answer - because I don’t like trekking, the very situation of a long walk with a heavy backpack is stressful for me, and the goal is always unconditionally more important than the path before her. Therefore, if I still undertake such trips, then also in "park" conditions and for no more than a few days, for example, to Seydozero or Ergaki.

ALTAI-2017
. Trip review and. Katu-Yaryk, Pazyryk, Mikhalych outpost.