Bear Feast in the Far East

Day 1: Arrival in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

Participants arrive at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the capital town of Kamchatka, and are promptly transferred from the airport to a comfortable hotel. The day is spent adjusting to the weather and visiting the market to buy some essential gear like head-torches and gumboots at affordable prices which is essential for the rest of our expedition. Later in the evening, a welcome-dinner will ensue in the restaurant discussing the prospects of the Tour with Skipper.

Days 2 and 3: Exclusive Marine Expedition.

We take a boat from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky out of the Avacha Bay into the Pacific Ocean to see and photograph seals, Pacific gulls and, rather excitingly, killer whales.

These giant marine-emperors are rewarding photographic subjects, as they challenge your reflexes with their spectacular acrobatics above the water surface, ‘porpoising’, ‘breaching’ or ‘skyhopping’ in some sort of aquatic dance performance, holding you in a relentless grip of total enthrallment.

Equal to the allure of the orcas are the lower rungs of the food chain, the Steller’s sea lions, Northern fur seals, harbour seals and spotted seals, which often strut out in the open presenting themselves as sitting targets from atop the rocks.

Breaking away from the ship in small zodiac boats to feel the sea from closer quarters, we can get close enough to resting seals to get wide-angle perspectives and other creative opportunities.

Day 4: Volcanoes & Travel to Kuril Lake.

Our tryst with the Kamchatka brown bears begins as we reach the Kurilskoye Lake by evening, and along the way, we’ll visit the following volcanoes.

Ksudach Volcano

The weather allowing, a morning helicopter-flight lasting an hour will take us to the Ksudach Volcano (in the event of inclement weather, a second attempt will be made to visit it on the fifth day while returning from Kurilskoye Lake).

After landing, we take a walk into the crater lake of Schtubelya, which is situated inside Ksudach Volcano, and then visit a beautiful waterfall where water pours out of the crater. Later, we visit a ‘hot beach’ – a site of hot springs on the shore of a lake, and then fly to the famous Kurilskoye Lake – an experience that will have uniqueness stamped all over it.

Mutnovsky Volcano

Going by helicopter, we disembark just below the 20000-year-old volcanic hills of Skalisty and Dvugorby, to climb up a foot-trail past steam springs, from where the trio of volcanoes of Asacha, Opala and Gorely are seen. The route then traverses by the hillside, crossing three snow-fields, before a final rise to the mouth of the caldera exit gorge.

Climbing the slopes of the glacial till, we descend slightly to the snout of the western glacier, slicing straight through fumaroles and mud pools, watching streams emerging from the snow and ice fields, and flowing back under the glacier toe.

Taking a recess after the helicopter ride at 1540m, we continue to explore the area close to the active crater from where the fumaroles can be seen on the crater floor, which is about 350m across, and its walls drop nearly vertically for over 100m.

Weather Conditions: Helicopter rides are subject to weather conditions. We will make every effort to adhere to the primary plan, but extempore modifications to the expedition itinerary may be inevitable under prevailing conditions. If we cannot visit these volcanoes on this day as scheduled, we will make another attempt later. No refunds will be made if weather disrupts landings on the volcanoes.

Kurilskoye Lake

Following this excursion in the afternoon, we arrive at our lodge at Grassy Point, a small and cozy wooden affair, which affords a magnificent view of Kurilskoye Lake and the surrounding mountains – a setup very similar to having a giant wallpaper outside your balcony. While we put our feet up and relax, we look out for bears that are often seen fishing along the lakeshore from the lodge. Afterwards, we venture onto the lake’s pumice rock beach and receive our in-camp instructions for the rest of the Tour.

Days 5 to 7: Bear Feast In Kuril Lake.

For the next two days, Kamchatka’s wildlife takes centre-stage, as we visit salmon-spawning places to pursue brown bears. We enjoy a walking excursion with local wardens to a nearby bear-viewing platform that is not far from the lodge and is located at the mouth of the several rivers that drain into Kurilskoye Lake. Here we have a good chance of making excellent, close-up images of bears fishing for migrating salmon, which stay briefly in the lake before moving on to the streams where they ‘spawn’. The bears’ opportunism will be matched by ours, as we seek to capture this unique phenomenon in all its extravagance.

We will also undertake longer walking excursions to a large meadow where bears feed on wild berries and visit other spawning streams farther from the lodge. Along these streams we are likely to see salmon and consequently bears fishing just a few yards away as we walk along the stream banks.

Khodutka

We start day five with another walk to the bear viewing platform and later in the evening, a helicopter will fly us to the Khodutka River for a blissful bath in Kamchatka’s largest natural hot spring. The water sprouts from a section of tundra just below the Khodutka Volcano, forming a stream. Further downstream, the water gradually cools and we can find a section of the stream which is at just the right temperature for a dip of hedonism.

Following this sensual experience, we board the helicopter again, which takes us to the Ksudach and Mutnovsky Volcano plateau all the way up to the caldera if we failed to do this earlier due to weather conditions.

At the end of day 7, we return to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and stay over for the night.

Day 8: Checkout and Dispersal

Participants not availing of the optional extension check out after breakfast and are transferred to the airport for their departure for Moscow and thence home.

OPTIONAL EXTENSION: 1 NIGHT/2 DAYS

Geyser Valley Tour or Avacha Volcano Visit; Overnight in Petropavlovsk Kamchatsky.

Please Note : Participants who wish to take optional extension are to arrive a day earlier.

This day we highly recommend our participants to travel by helicopter to the amazing Valley of Geysers and the Uzon Volcano at an additional cost of EUR 800 or use the day to visit the Avacha Volcano close to town. Your skipper will accompany guests who choose to opt out of the Valley of Geysers tour on a drive to the Avacha Volcano. This day can also be used to swim and rest if you are not interested in either the Geysers or the Volcano. The following are the details of the options.

GEYSERS VALLEY AND UZON VOLCANO OPTIONAL TOUR

Additional EUR 800

Post-breakfast, participants wishing to visit the lovely Geysers Valley and Uzon Volcano at additional cost will leave their things in their rooms, deck themselves up in boots, add rain gear to the sack, and leave in a bus on a 45-minute drive to the heliport at Yelisovo and fly to the Valley of Geysers in about 75 minutes. This takes you to the east of the Zhupanovsky Volcano, with the low flight affording spectacular views of the taiga landscape home to brown bears, which are nearly sure of being spotted during the flight.

The cluster of geysers, fumaroles and hot springs in the Valley of Geysers, discovered in 1941, lies above the Uzon Caldera. A few large-but-brief periodic eruptions are seen in the valley, and there are many perennial hot water spouts.

Our helicopter lands in front of a timber lodge, whence we take a trail into The Valley of Geysers in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve.

The walk shows us a magnificent overview of the landscape, punctuated as it is with cliffs of tuffs, eroded into earth pillars. Down in the valley below, the vegetation is mostly lush. Ahead, the Bolshoi and Maly Geysers form major attractions, the former especially interesting for the water it throws about 10m high!

Continuing on the path upstream, we then descend to a bridge over the Geysernaya River. The river reaches a temperature of 26°C in the summer; while in the winter, it drops to about 16°C. Water from the springs and geysers varies from 35°C to a literally boiling 100°C. A little upstream of the bridge, the Schell Geyser, which erupts every 35 minutes, will make things very interesting indeed.

The walk ends with a view of the Velikan, a giant geyser on the far bank, which throws water to about 25m for around a minute each time. A trail on the terrace above the valley floor affords splendid views of the Fountain Platform, and goes by various hot pools. A hot lunch at the Valley of Geysers Lodge rounds up the morning’s trip.

We then visit the Uzon Caldera, which is bordered by steep caldera walls and shows features of three collapses and lake remnants on marshy ground sediments. The lake, which is about 30m deep, is a pool of liquid sulphur at a balmy 140°C.

To the east, we plough through the alder bushes up the Belaya Dome, adjacent to which there are two small acid lakes. To the north, we explore Lake Dalneye, which is nearly a kilometre across and was produced by the steam explosions from the caldera floor.

Following an utterly fascinating day of exploration and learning, we return by helicopter to Yelisovo and by bus to the Petropavlovsk Hotel, dine and retire for the day.

AVACHA VOLCANO EXCURSION

Additional EUR 200

In order to make the most of the Tour, we recommend participants to avail of the Geysers Valley Tour, but as an alternative, you may opt to visit the Avacha Volcano instead. Talk to us to find out more about the Geysers Tour and why you should avail of it.

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