Travel blog
Hike to the northernmost peak of the Ural Mountains
The Polar Urals are conventionally divided into two parts, northern and southern, they are divided by the Seida - Labytnangi railway. When the question arose about planning the hike and writing the route, it turned out that the southern part has been walked by tourist groups far and wide. The point of attraction there is Mount Payer - the highest peak of the Polar Urals, most of the routes are built around it and are similar to each other like twin brothers. Only a few people go to the north of the Polar Urals – rare sports groups and lone enthusiasts. Why is that? It is a big question. Perhaps because of the complicated, long and expensive transfer and drop-off, or maybe because of ignorance: there is not much information about those places on the Internet. But it is the unknown that attracts, awakens the spirit of the explorer and beckons with opportunities for personal discoveries. The more I immersed myself in studying the northern part of the Polar Urals, the more attractive it seemed to me. This is how the idea arose to go on a hike to the northernmost peak of the Ural Mountains – Konstantinov Kamen.
So, the goal was defined, but the important question was what point to designate as the starting point. It was decided to start from the source of the Bolshaya Khadata River – the eastern end of Lake Bolshoe Khadatayoganlor. We got to the starting point after an eight-hour transfer on the Trekol across the swampy tundra. Technically, it was possible to go further, thereby reducing the walking part of the route by 30-40 kilometers, but the desire to get the most complete impression of the northern part of the Polar Urals did not allow us to ignore its so-called "highlands" - the highest mountains of the northern part of the Polar Urals are located on the shores of the lakes Bolshoe and Maloe Khadatayoganlor, as well as the largest glacier of the entire Urals - IGAN. In fairness, it should be noted that the heights here are not high (no more than 1350 m above sea level), but by the standards of the Polar Urals, where the highest mountain has a height of 1472 m, these mountains are very high. In addition, due to the very location in fairly high northern latitudes, where there are no forests, and the vegetation is exclusively tundra even at the foot, it seems that you are in fairly high mountains, and Lake Bolshoe Khadatayoganlor, located at an altitude of only 210 m above sea level, looks like a real high-mountain lake.
Also on the way to the drop-off we came across a reindeer herder's camp. It is a well-known fact that reindeer herders annually visit these places, and we hoped to meet them during our journey, but to meet them so early on – at the very beginning of the journey – was rare luck. We stopped and met the hostess: her name is Tatyana, she is wearing a very beautiful dress that she sewed herself (Nenets women sew all their clothes and even shoes themselves). Tatyana told us about her life, her family, and allowed us to feed the reindeer bread…
A huge herd of reindeer, a tent, wooden sleds next to it, people dressed in traditional clothes - all this looks like scenes from a movie, a different life unfamiliar to us...
But let's get back to the starting point of the hiking part of the hike, the shore of Lake Bolshoe Khadatayoganlor. The lake is incredibly beautiful, especially in the morning hours, when the surrounding mountains are reflected in the surface of the water.
The water is cold, but the sun warms it and it would be a sin not to swim in the purest water against the backdrop of magnificent scenery.
On the first active day of the hike, we make a radial exit to the IGAN glacier - a good warm-up before the main part of the hike. We ford the Bolshaya Khadata River, meet deer again, the herd is crowded on the unmelted snowfield on the mountain slope, probably escaping from the heat. The weather was really unexpectedly warm for these places.
The largest glacier in the Urals, IGAN, is located on the eastern slope of Mount Harnaurdy-Keu, 1246 m high. We climb to look at its bowl from above. As we climb, we are presented with increasingly more amazing views of the Bolshaya Khadata River, Lake Bolshoe Khadatayoganlor and the surrounding mountain peaks with snowfields. It is impossible to stop taking pictures and being photographed against the backdrop of this beauty.
And finally – the IGAN glacier. It is really big, and in hot weather it looks very refreshing. There are two turquoise lakes in the bowl – very beautiful.
After admiring the views of the glacier, we continue the ascent. We initially planned to climb to the top of Mount Kharnaurdy-Keu, on the slope of which the glacier is located, but it turned out that there is no passage to this mountain from our side, so we climbed another unnamed, but perhaps even more beautiful peak about 1200 m high (only 46 m lower than Kharnaurdy-Keu), gaining, by the way, 1000 m of altitude relative to the starting point near the lake (this is such a warm-up before the first day of the hike). The views from the top are mesmerizing. You want to stand for a long time and look at the lake, the river and the mountain peaks, you can't help but feel like you're in very high mountains.
The overnight stay at Lake Bolshoe Khadatayoganlor left warm memories for all the group members. You can still make a fire in these places: there are bushes growing along the banks in some places, and you can also find remains of firewood left by other tourists, this is a relatively popular place, fishermen and rafters drop off here, and many hiking routes start here.
The next day we started moving north. Our route was along an all-terrain road, but it turned out to be difficult, because we walked almost 20 km, and the road often went with a climb. A significant part of the way we covered along the Vorshagor River valley, periodically fording it. Fords are a symbol of this hike, not a single day went by without them, and on some days there were close to ten of them per day. The good news was that the rivers were mostly shallow: knee-deep or slightly higher. There was only one really difficult ford on the entire route, across the Tisnenzas? channel, but more on that later.
Once again we encountered a herd of reindeer, there were clearly more of them than people.
When approaching the overnight stop on the Ngodyakha River, we saw the camp again and met worried reindeer herders who asked if there was a doctor among us. When we asked, "What happened?", they said that a woman was giving birth in the tent. There was no doctor among us, and later we saw how the woman was taken away somewhere in a sled tied to an ATV. In the morning we were told that they managed to bring the woman in labor only to the neighboring camp, where she safely gave birth to a girl. For us, all this looked like another world... Some other life... Children from the camp came to our camp, they said that there were thirteen children in the family. I wonder if the girl who was born is the fourteenth? By the way, children of the tundra study in boarding schools, visiting their parents on vacation, many plan to enroll in colleges and universities. Not everyone returns to the tundra, the cities beckon. But there are those who continue their parents' business - they breed reindeer and roam the tundra.
The next day began with a radial exit to an extremely interesting point on the map, located in the wrong place - the easternmost point of Europe. Scientists have proven that the easternmost point of Europe is in the Polar Urals, on Mount Ngodyakha, 793 m high. On the way to the mountain in the valley of the Ngodyakha River, we were impressed by the snowfields that looked like ice caves, from which streams flowed, giving life to the river.
And here it is - the eastern edge of Europe.
The views of the surrounding mountains from Mount Ngodyakha are also good.
Having enjoyed the views from Mount Ngodyakha, we return to the camp to have a snack and continue our route. On this day, our path still lay along an all-terrain vehicle road and, despite the presence of ascents and descents, the walking was relatively easy. Only in a few places we decide to take a shortcut through the tundra, so as not to repeat the bends of the winding road. By evening the road begins to deteriorate, becoming more and more damp and swampy. In order not to get dirty slush in your boots, you have to use maximum skill... Someone brings up swamp boots... On the positive side: mushrooms and berries (cloudberries and blueberries) begin to appear. From this day on, almost every dinner was enriched with a good portion of mushrooms. The berries were not ripe everywhere, but it was still possible to choose something ripe. We set up camp in a picturesque clearing by the river with a view of the mountains. We even managed to collect some branches from the surrounding bushes for a small fire.
The morning of the new day for me began with swimming in the river. In general, this hike can be called one of the "cleanest". There is enough water to fill you up, and the weather on most days was conducive to water procedures. The only nuance: the water in the rivers and lakes of the Polar Urals is cold, but so crystal clear and attractive that you do not notice this cold, it simply beckons you to plunge in, this feeling is impossible to resist. Probably, this is partly why I overcame most of the births on the route in rubber slippers on bare feet. There is some special thrill - immersing your feet taken out of heavy boots in clean cool water.
The topic of the next day of the hike was to overcome the shore of Lake Maloye Shchuchye. Recommendations for passing its shores in different sources differed, we chose the western shore. It is difficult to say whether we made a mistake or not, since we were not on the opposite bank, but walking about 8 km of the western coast turned out to be quite a challenge. We were met by blockages of scree, thickets of dwarf pine, periodically alternating with swampy areas ... Periodically starting and stopping rain and gusty wind completed this picture. Due to all these obstacles, the passage of the shore of Maloe Shchuchye Lake was delayed, and we were about to put up tents on its shore to continue our journey the next day, but the wind was so strong that it was impossible to put up the tents, the wind literally tore them out of the ground, threatening to carry them away into the unknown distance, leaving us without a roof over our heads. We had to urgently collect all our things and go further, beyond the lake, despite the late hour and approaching twilight. We were literally blown off the lake.
Nevertheless, Maloye Shchuchye Lake is beautiful. It has an elongated shape and is located in a bowl of mountains, the water in the lake is crystal clear, and along the shores in some places you can see meadows with cloudberries.
In general, aesthetic pleasure combined with some physical difficulties - isn't that what we are looking for in hikes?
The next morning, the place near the small lake where we eventually set up camp looked magnificent, even the sky above us turned partially blue, while gloomy (but beautiful!) clouds still hung over Maloye Shchuchye.
We were running away from the bad weather along a gorge through an unnamed pass. The rain occasionally caught up, but it lasted no more than a few minutes, so the discomfort from it was insignificant. At the pass we found a note from a sports group from two years ago. It seemed that tourists do not often come here, and this gave us an awareness of some kind of exclusivity, an understanding that you are one of the very few who have seen these places, this unique beauty.
By the end of the day we reached the wide valley of the Gerausvayu River.
The valley amazed us with its beauty and space, and also with a rainbow that suddenly appeared. Rainbows are a separate chapter in our journey. They accompanied us almost every day: bright, full, sometimes even double. Probably, we saw so many rainbows due to the changeable weather. We often saw rain on the horizon while the sun was shining. It was also the other way around, but fortunately for us - less often.
To continue our route, we needed to overcome two passes: Lednikovy (1A) and a non-categorical pass with a suspicious name Surprise. According to the original plan, we wanted to pass Lednikovy in the evening, and leave Surprise for the next day, however, since we approached the ascent to Lednikovy quite late, we decided to leave both passes for the morning. How correct this decision turned out to be, we realized the next day (the passes turned out to be difficult and it took us the whole day to overcome them). In addition, having stayed overnight in the Gerausvayu River valley, we found a great place for a camp with picturesque views of the valley.
The morning was a little darkened by the rain, which soon ended, and we set off to overcome the passes. The ascent to the first of them, Glacier, goes along a fairly narrow river gorge, completely littered with scree. In some places the gorge is so narrow that its slopes come right to the water, which is why we had to climb higher on the rocks and walk along a fairly steep slope. In a couple of places we had to go out onto snowfields, and sometimes walk on slippery stones, crossing streams flowing down the slopes. The gorge, however, is very beautiful, its landscapes are significantly different from the wide river valleys, which we had encountered on our way before.
Not far from the saddle of the pass, a waterfall roars, and at the very top, you can observe the birth of a river: it flows out of a glacier in a wide stream, shaped like a cave. Of course, it is impossible to deny yourself the pleasure of climbing under the arches of this ice cave and taking a photo.
The climb to the pass took several hours and took a lot of energy, so we have lunch at its highest point, collecting crystal clear and amazingly tasty water from the river flowing from the glacier, and then begin the descent. The descent is not as long as the ascent, but it goes along a much steeper slope and requires maximum concentration. The pass is not called Glacier for nothing, part of the northern slope is occupied by a glacier, making natural adjustments to the trajectory of the descent.
Having finished with the first pass, we walk for some time along the relatively flat tundra, enjoying the views of the surrounding mountains and picking mushrooms, but we are waiting for another pass with the mysterious name Surprise. They don't give names to passes for no reason. The surprises started already during the ascent. What do most people expect to feel under their feet when climbing a mountain pass? Most likely - stones, or at worst - slag or ice... Here we were met by a real swamp, in order not to get stuck in which, we had to not only put on swamp boots, but also run around a lot in search of a route that was as muddy as possible. Talking about the Surprise Pass, I would like to especially mention a moment that became one of the most vivid impressions of the hike.From the saddle of the pass, you can climb higher to the top of an unnamed mountain, which offers stunning views of Lake Bolshoe Shchuchye and the delta of the Pyryatane River. The climb is simple, low and fast, but the views are amazing: a river valley with many branches flowing into a large lake, squeezed between the mountains. I am sure that Lake Bolshoe Shchuchye, due to its large area, should be viewed from above (the scale will be unclear from below), and this mountain near the Surprise Pass is one of the most advantageous viewing platforms for this.
Despite the fact that on the way up the mountain I was drenched with rain, and then dried out by the wind like a hair dryer, I felt incredible happiness from being there. The surprises of the Surprise Pass did not end there. On the descent from the pass, snowfields were waiting for us almost right up to the rather steep slopes of the gorge. We had to make our way either between the snowfields and the slope or directly along the snowfield, which, given the fact that a fairly turbulent stream was roaring under the snowfield, required extreme caution.
Despite all the difficulties of overcoming it, the Surprise Pass is a real decoration of the route. A beautiful gorge with snowfields and a river is decorated with outliers resembling sculptures, and at the exit from the gorge, picturesque views of the Pyryatane River valley open up.
Enchanted by these views, we stopped for the night right at the exit of the gorge, our evening was decorated by the sunset sky.
In the morning we continued our journey in the valley of the Pyryatane River, wide and sunny, then began to cross to the other side of a relatively low mountain range. Our path was again illuminated by a rainbow, even a double one, and behind us opened views of the valley and Lake Bolshoe Shchuchye.
Then we had to climb another mountain, from which views opened up in all four directions, the sunset time made the views even more picturesque. We wanted to stay here longer and admire the pictures of this incredible nature, but the relatively late hour drove us down to look for a place to spend the night, unfortunately, there was no water on the mountain, so we had to go down to the next valley.
We go down and set up camp by the nearest river, the views from there, by the way, are no less mesmerizing.
Interestingly, but in the morning the magic was gone, the blue, almost Roerich mountains, became prosaically gray and visually seemed to have lost in height, but the surrounding greenery and the bright blue of the lakes visible in the distance pleased the eye.
Our goal for this day was to reach Lake Tisnenzato and walk along its shore for about 5 km. We mentally prepared ourselves in advance for the fact that the task would not be easy. According to other tourists, we knew that the shore of the lake was marshy, overgrown with bushes, and in places littered with scree. However, when approaching the lake, gloomy thoughts were dispelled by the sight of the bright blue surface of the water and the picturesquely indented shoreline of the lake.
We had an hour of beach relaxation timed to coincide with lunch.
The lake is really very beautiful, not inferior and perhaps even surpasses the more famous Shchuchye lakes in beauty.
Difficulties in the form of obstacles from dwarf pine thickets and rubble heaps still caught up with us, some obstacles were bypassed right on the water. We walked almost until dark and were pretty exhausted.
We set up camp practically at the first place we came across, by the river closest to the lake; there are practically no good places for a tent on the shore of the lake itself. "The first place we came across" turned out to be quite nice, with a view of the lake we had just passed. But that's not all. Nature decided to reward us for our hiking efforts with the northern lights.
Many people associate the northern blue with winter and frost, but in the bright summer sky it looks much more exotic.
In the morning, the moment came that I was most worried about from the very beginning of the hike. The success of our entire hike in the form in which it was planned depended on the success of fording the Tisnenzas? River, flowing out of Lake Tisnenzato. The ford really turned out to be difficult (significantly higher than the knees and with a fairly strong current), but we managed to overcome it and continue our route as planned. And the Polar Urals continued to delight us with its wonders. First, we found a very interesting river canyon on our way, and then we came across real sleds left by reindeer herders in the middle of the tundra. Why they were left is a mystery. It is unlikely that they were thrown out, most likely, they just left them until they were needed. The sleds looked completely usable and unbroken. Probably, it is not customary to take someone else's things here, and the owners are simply planning to return to them when they need them. And who would take someone else's things here? The tundra is conventionally divided by reindeer herders into districts, and certain families live in each district. As a rule, they do not enter someone else's territory, so you can be sure that you will find the thing you left in its place.
Another camp, by the way, was noticed a little off our route. The mountains are lower, there are no thousand-meter peaks in this area, but we had to overcome another nameless pass to reach a relatively flat area of ??tundra. As we climbed, we once again admired the views that opened up.
The climb is not difficult, but again it happened at the end of the day, so we decide to spend the night right in the saddle of the pass (fortunately, there is a small stream and several lakes there). The day turned out to be rich not only in sights, but also in mushrooms, which provided us with a particularly tasty dinner.
In the morning I get up early in order to look at the surrounding views from the peaks surrounding the pass. In the river valley there is either low cloud or fog, and the sky above is clear and blue. On the side from which we came, mountains rise, on the opposite side there are only rolling hills, which confirms the fact that we are moving in the direction, where some of the world's oldest mountains fade away.
We have literally one climb ahead of us, after which we will descend into the vast, endless tundra. Descending from the last small pass, we notice a reindeer herders' camp: a couple of tents and a herd of reindeer. The camp is still far away and it is not at all obvious whether our path will pass by it or not, in general, we did not strive for this, since this was far from the first camp on our way, and, it would seem, neither reindeer nor a tent could surprise us. However, as we approached closer, we noticed some very vigorous activity in the camp: people were bustling about, driving reindeer into a pen, dragging something. Taking a closer look, we discovered that the tents we had spotted from afar had already been folded, the things were put on the sleds, and the reindeer herders were getting ready to move to another place. This seemed interesting to us, and we decided to come closer to talk to the locals. And not in vain! This was truly the most intinteresting camp, of all that we saw on the way. The living pictures of the life of the Nenets reindeer herders fascinated us with their exoticism and dissimilarity to the life we ??were accustomed to.
Here the men are driving the reindeer into a bunch, there – a woman is leading four stubborn, resisting reindeer to harness them to the sled.
It is interesting that sleds are used not only in winter, but also in summer. For some reason, I used to think that this was an exclusively winter means of transportation. Children sit in sleds and watch cartoons on their mobile phones: there is no network, but according to one of the owners, there is a large solar battery for charging electronics.
I'd like to watch the life of the reindeer herders for a little longer, but it's clearly time for them to finish packing and go, I don't want to disturb them... And it's time for us to move on.
The place where we set up camp that day reminded me of the nature of the Rybachy Peninsula in the Murmansk region: the same relatively low mountains covered with bright, especially in the sunlight, greenery, bright blue water in the river and an endless sky with picturesque clouds.
And again we were pleased with the rainbow, stretching right above us in its absolutely full arc.
The next day, our small company had a significant event - the birthday of one of the participants, Vasily. I think this year he got the ugliest birthday cake of his life: a sponge roll that had been through an 11-day hike across almost the entire Polar Urals would have looked completely unmarketable in city life, but against the backdrop of the tundra, for people who have been cut off from civilization for almost two weeks and have an extremely ascetic menu due to the reduced weight of their backpacks, this roll, dented by life and my butt, regularly sitting on the backpack, seemed like an exquisite delicacy.
This day promised to be long (we planned to cover at least 20 km), but, as we thought, not difficult: the mountains were almost over, there were no climbs to the passes expected, and there were fewer and fewer stone scree underfoot. We expected a moderately comfortable hike across the flat tundra, but it was not to be: the tundra turned out to be largely swampy, and even I, who had covered the entire previous distance in ordinary trekking boots, had to put on a swamp rubber suit.
In the afternoon, the swampiness, contrary to expectations (after all, we were approaching the last mountain range in the north of the Ural Mountains), only increased, in some places the swamps were impassable, and we had to go around. Despite this, we did not have time to be surprised and admire the surrounding nature, and in particular - its diversity: the hike began with a glacier, mountain lakes and sharp peaks, just a few days ago we stormed mountain passes, walked along the valleys of mountain rivers, then came out into the vast tundra, and now green swamps with endless lakes.
The sky became cloudy, only the sunset strip on the horizon was reflected in the surface of the lakes, giving a magical mystery to the landscape. Gloomy beauty.
To ease the transition to the final day, when the main goal of our journey awaited us - the summit of Konstantinov Kaless, it was decided to go through the swampy part as much as possible, without leaving it for another day. We stopped for the night at one of the lakes, after which, as it seemed to us, the swamps were already disappearing.
And so came the final walking day of our journey, the early morning was sunny, it was nice to swim in the lake.
But literally within an hour the situation changed, out of nowhere, low clouds crept in, plunging everything and everyone around into fog. Even the nearby Bolshoy Monyasey mountain, towering about 300 m from the camp, was not visible. The lakes and swamps acquired a mysterious look, generally beautiful too, but in light of the fact that today we planned to climb the northernmost peak of the Urals and survey the endless tundra stretching to the Kara Sea, the presence of fog was somewhat disappointing.
But, whatever one may say, we had no alternatives. So we packed up camp and headed further along the route. On our way there was another remarkable place that was interesting to visit – Lake Manyasey, sacred to the Nenets. Fortunately for us, already on the approach to the lake the fog cleared significantly, and the drizzle, which periodically occurred in the first half of the day, stopped. The lake turned out to be large and beautiful, the purest water beckoned to swim, but the rather cool and damp weather stopped us. We had lunch on the lake and, having rested, went on.
The landscapes changed again, now we were surrounded by rocks of various bizarre shapes, scattered across the hilly tundra, near the lake there were two mountains, Bolshoi and Maly Manyasey, and towards our goal - Konstantinov Kamen there was an ascent, reminiscent of a pass, as we understood in the process, this was already an ascent directly to the mountain, having overcome it, we had only 200 m to gain directly to the summit of the northernmost mountain of the Urals.
While we were gaining the necessary altitude, a miracle happened in nature - the fog finally cleared, the clouds almost completely disappeared, leaving only small, rare high clouds in the blue sky, illuminated by the sun. We are clearly loved by fate!
From the summit of Konstantinov Kamen we saw everything that sounded so tempting in the descriptions of travelers who had visited the summit earlier: an endless plain dotted with hundreds of lakes, and a blue stripe on the horizon, perhaps just a reflection of the sky, or perhaps the Kara Sea, located just 50 km to the north. Standing on the summit of Konstantinov Kamen, you feel like you are on the edge of something huge, fundamental. This is the final northern point of the great mountain system – the Urals, stretching across the country from south to north, and dividing the continent into Europe and Asia.
Undoubtedly, there is a share of subjectivism in this delight. I love the Urals, this is my seventh trip to the Urals and the fifth in the format of a hike. Having seen the iconic places of the Southern, Northern and Subpolar Urals, we undoubtedly wanted to see this northernmost Polar region.
We descended from the mountain, contemplating the incredibly beautiful sunset and hundreds of lakes scattered across the tundra.
Surprisingly, as soon as we left the summit, the clouds began to cover the sky again, and by the time of our final descent, the entire mountain was again plunged into fog. This is how nature showed its mercy to us – as if it had specially organized a weather window for us to climb the northernmost peak of the Urals.
We spent the night not far from the road, along which we set off the next day to the city of Vorkuta on another miracle of technology, assembled by the owner himself.
Summing up our trip, reviewing photos and remembering details, I feel enormous gratitude to the members of our small team. Tourism is a team sport (unless of course you are going on a solo hike), and the success of the event is the merit of each participant, their victory over themselves and the difficulties of the path. I thank the members of our group: Olga Prokofieva, Marina Merzlova and Vasily Khozin for this wonderful trip. This hike became unforgettable largely thanks to you.