Travel to Tungur in Altai. Mountain Altai

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

The village of Tungur in the Altai Mountains is well known to climbers, rock climbers, esotericists, yogis, bicycles and motor sportsmen; it has a well-developed tourist infrastructure. Indeed, in this village, interesting tourist routes begin to the sights of a large-scale natural park and Katunsky biosphere reserve... And most importantly, to the famous peak of Siberia - Mount Belukha, covered with an 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 located Location of the village of Tungur: Republic of Altai, Ust-Koksinsky district. The village stretches for 3 km along the left bank of the turquoise Katun, opposite the mouth of the Kucherla River, at the foot of the low Verblyuzhonok Mountain. The northern borders are protected by another height - Mount Baida, which is a spur of the Terekta ridge (it offers a beautiful view of Tungur and Belukha). Distance Novosibirsk-Tungur - 885 km; Barnaul-Tungur - 693 km; Biysk-Tungur - 541 km; Gorno-Altaysk-Tungur - 449 km; Ust-Koksa-Tungur - 59 km.

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

To the east begin places untouched by civilization, there are no settlements. And only the mountains squeeze the raging Katun in close embraces. Many old maps of Altai show highway Tungur-Inya along the left bank of the Katun (through the village of Inegen), 70 km long, 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, a complete off-road begins, the so-called "Tungur path", 20 km long to Inegen itself. At the moment, a project is being considered for the construction of a modern motorway, which will make it possible to connect Tungur directly with the Chuysky tract. But so far it will not work to drive along this route to Inegen, although in 2006 a group of extreme lovers on off-road vehicles made such a feat. Somewhere they erected temporary bridges, in some places they dragged heavy jeeps on their hands, in especially narrow sections they cut through rocks, widening the passage. Over the course of several years, the footbridges have rotted, the trail has crumbled and collapsed again. The Tungur-Inya trail is passable only for tourists on foot, on horseback, bicycles and mountain bikes.

Next to the Tungur trail is the "Stone of Health" - like a rock formation cut in half, into the break of which 6 people can easily enter. It is believed to have healing power: if you stand inside the split for at least 10 minutes, your health will improve significantly. Above the path you will meet another unique rock - "Mirror of Time", according to legends local residents astrally connected with Mount Belukha. Nearby are "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 in 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 water workers, because it belongs to the 4-5 category of complexity.

All the most interesting is concentrated south of the village of Tungur. There, wild highland lands begin, breathing with primitive power and bringing 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 meandering of the path chosen. On the way, tourists enjoy fabulous views and visit popular natural attractions: the unique Akkem Lake with silvery-white waters, beyond which the Katunsky ridge sparkles with snowy peaks; the valley of the Kucherla river and the magnificent Kucherlinskoye lake (distance from the village of Tungur - 33 km), in its mirror-like surface Belukha mountain is reflected; The Valley of Seven Lakes, interesting for its reservoirs with different shades of water. West of Tungur, the entire civilization of the Ust-Koksinsky region is concentrated - the regional center and the villages of the Uimon valley (Katanda, Multa, Zamulta, Chendek, Terekta, Verkhniy Uimon).

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

The village of Tungur is located on the left bank of the Katun, opposite the confluence of the Kucherla River, 60 km from Ust-Koksa. At the beginning of the village there is a suspension road bridge across the Katun. The village is quite large tourist centre... Tungur is the closest locality on the way to Mount Belukha and the starting point of numerous mountain, hiking, horse and water tourist routes... In the vicinity of Tungur there are several tourist bases, from which hiking trips to the Kucherlinskoye and Akkemskoye lakes, horseback riding, rafting and excursions to the foot of Belukha are organized, where a good horse trail leads, along which groups of tourists constantly go. In the village, you can rent horses for the horse route or for the delivery of goods.

At the entrance to the village of Tungur, to the right of the highway on the bank 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.

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

All camp sites have experienced instructors specializing in a specific type of tourism (rafting, horse tourism, hiking, mountaineering).

All roads in Mountain Altai go through the city of Biysk, so the description will be from this city. The route looks like this:

Distance from Biysk is about 526 km.

GPS coordinates: 50.160435, 86.30967

In Biysk, after the bridge over Biya, we drive straight without turning anywhere. The historical part of the Chuisky tract will begin behind Biysk. The road is an excellent asphalt, and right behind Biysk there is a 4-lane road. True, not for long, after 20 km the usual two-lane will become, but still of excellent quality. Approximately 150 km after Biysk, there will be a fork in front of the village of Ust-Sema. We leave along the main right along the M-52 highway to Tashantu. We cross the Katun on a new bridge. We rise to the Seminsky pass. Although this is the highest pass on the Chuysky tract, it is not technically difficult, you can easily overcome it in any car at any time of the year. The cover on the pass, as well as on the entire Chuysky tract, is excellent asphalt. After the descent from Seminsky, there will be a fork. Chuisky tract goes straight. We need to go to the right following the signs for Ust-Koksa and Ust-Kan. After Ust-Koksa, the Uimon steppe begins. In 60 km there will be the village of Tungur.

At the beginning of the village there is a suspension road bridge across the Katun. The village is a fairly large tourist center. Tungur is the closest settlement on the way to Mount Belukha and the starting point of numerous mountain, hiking, horse and water tourist routes. In the vicinity of Tungur there are several tourist bases, from which hiking trips to the Kucherlinskoye and Akkemskoye lakes, horseback riding, rafting and travel to the foot of the Belukha, which can be reached on foot, passing the Kuzuyak pass and further ascending up the Akkem river, are organized. Or on horseback and on foot - up the river. Kucherla and through the Karatyurek pass to the Akkem lake and the foot of the Belukha. In the village, you can rent horses for the horse route or for the 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 bank 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, mobile communications.

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

All camp sites have experienced instructors specializing in a specific type of tourism (rafting, horse tourism, hiking, mountaineering).

Many times I have seen a photograph with the same subject - Mountain Lake, in which the sky is reflected, further a pair of dark mountains, similar to the gates, and behind them is 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), highest point Siberia, the sacred mountain of many peoples, and according to Roerich - North Kailash. And if autotraveling along the Altai highways is the prerogative of Novosibirsk and other regions in the neighborhood, then people go to the mountains and rivers of Altai from all ends of the immense, and even when I was in school, the head of our tourist club took groups here. The place in the photo turned out to be Lake Akkem, the most famous trekking attraction in the Golden Mountains. And even though I myself am not a hiker (which I had to make sure of once again), the experienced Olga rode with me, and a 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), Akkem Lake 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 Belovodye. Behind it is the small Katandinskaya steppe, the owners of which were the Cossacks of the Bikatunskaya line of the Siberian army under the tsar, under whose protection Vasily Radlov was the first of their archaeologists to dig in 1865 And outside of all dimensions there is the village of Tungur, whose name could be translated as Zabubennoe: in Altai tungur is a shaman tambourine. Beyond Tungur there are sparsely populated mountains without roads, after passing 70 kilometers, you can jump out. Downstream view, almost all footage from Tungur was filmed on the way back, when we left here - and this is not so easy, because there is no regular transport here, officially its passage is prohibited due to the emergency bridge in Katanda, and an unofficial minibus "for locals only" periodically they are also fined - I suspect that approximately when they are caught transporting tourists.

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

There is also a Round House in Tyungur - an obvious Uimon trend:

And the harsh rusty clamshells reminding that the locals do not live by tourism alone. I saw Altaians in Tyungur, but it seemed to me that it was mainly a Russian village.

And beyond Katunya - squirrel and the highest Katun ridge in Altai, from which the Katun itself flows in an intricate spiral. This, as I understand it, is the Kucherlinskaya valley, and they usually walk up it, and down the Akkem valley. But such a trip, with the Kara-Turek pass dividing the valleys, took ten days, or even a couple of weeks, which I did not have. In principle, the idea of ​​combining 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 in the trekking part) cargo, there was really little time for trekking, and we already had time waste.

Belukha is clearly visible from the hills above Tungur, primarily Mount Baida. 12 kilometers down the Katun, almost opposite the mouth of the Akkem, there is the mouth of the Turgunda River, where a whole "magnificent seven" kezer-tash ("stone warriors") of Turkic times have survived. But it takes a day to go there, and to hire 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 over the Katun, not the first and not the last along its stream, 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 itself is on the left bank, then beyond the Katun there are its camp sites. On the way "there" we spent the night at the camp site "Bely Krechet", which was served by two boys who looked like brothers. They were not service workers, but the classic "enchanted by Altai" who helped brothers in mind to 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 luggage room - from day to day the "White Krechet" was closed for the winter. The neighboring tourist base "Bayry" was already closed - and this was in early September! All year round, only Vysotnik works here, combining the functions of a camp site and a forest hotel. The "high-altitude man" holds both of these valleys, organizing various transfers. On Akkem he has a "branch", which is simply called "Upper Vysotnik" here, and we also had to get to know him.

We spent the night on the Vysotnik 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 should either not sweat or take walrus: 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 remained to set up a tent or spend the night in a hotel from the frame above. Rooms with conveniences there cost 1,500 rubles per person, without conveniences - 1,200 rubles. 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 absence of fiber optics in Tyungur. It is also forbidden to eat and keep food in the rooms, but who will control this? The rest of the "Vysotnik" was good - a cozy area, polite staff, excellent food in the cafe (but expensive), tourist office attentive to customers, which helped us out on the way "there". And you don't have to check in here to use the luggage room while hiking in the mountains.

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

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

Helicopter tours are very popular fun 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 Belukha flight costs 70 thousand rubles overboard, and this particular R66 flew from with an intermediate landing (apparently for refueling) in Tyungur. The shot shows the entire cabin of the helicopter, which is 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 delivery - to drop off tourists on the Akkem Lake or pick them up from there, in both cases showing Belukha. A more well-known transfer option for those who are too lazy to walk on foot is a horse, but the price is comparable to a helicopter: firstly, a tourist with a load is carried not by one, but by two mares (one for themselves, the second for a backpack); secondly, an instructor will lead the caravan, whose horse is paid separately at the same rate; thirdly, you pay separately for the return journey at the same rates for each horse. That is, the calculation formula is as follows: the number of horses = (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 get from 15 to 22 thousand rubles , of which half to a third would be spent on the return of the instructor.
The easiest way to simplify the transfer is to take a "shishige" (cargo GAZ-66) to Three Birches. The fact is that Akkem flows into the Katun 15 kilometers below Tungur (map), and in order to reach it, one has 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 individual tourists for 1100 rubles (100 rubles - the commission of "Vysotnik") are hooked up on fairly frequent occasions. And in the evening, when we left for the "White Gyrfalcon", we were told that there were no opportunities for tomorrow, and the maximum that they could offer was to take part 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 did not forget about our wish, called me. To pay or not pay 2200 for two, Olga and I did not even have a question. At 11 in the morning, 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 mainly Russian, then Kucherla is an almost purely Altai village. And many houses of Kucherla have chaks - traditional Altai hitching posts. Because the horse here is not a luxury, but a means of transportation and earning:

Somewhere in Kucherla a "shishiga" was waiting for us. On the Kuzuyakskaya road, you can meet them like that, but according to other tourists, they take strictly 1000 per person from any point and do not bargain.

By wooden bridge"Shishiga" crossed the Kucherla River, which is even more turquoise than the Katun. The Kucherlinskaya valley, in comparison with the Akkem valley, is considered more picturesque and gentle, but also longer, and the beauty of the high-mountain lakes and the almost kilometer-long Myushtuaira glacier-icefall, to which it leads, are 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 pile of logs - the bridge was washed away by a flood several years ago, but since then a new one has been built, also made of wood.

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

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

Tungur and Kucherla can be seen stretched along their rivers:

And this is already a descent beyond Kuzuyak, and the deep valley of Akkem is clearly visible going into the distance. 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 saw hayfields and fences.

The way back was much more difficult - the weather turned bad, it rained for two days in a row, and the roads were scattered from all sides, but this time there was no opportunity. Therefore, we walked on foot, and only the wild rose hips, which grew abundantly on the "Akkemsk" side of the pass, weakened our efforts - we collected it for future use, and brewed it in tea for a few days after the hike.

It is convenient to cut the zigzags of the wide "shishizhny" track along narrow and steeper paths. On the slopes, the mud, fastened by roots, is not so slippery, but in the lowlands there can be very nasty swamps. These trails are not so much for pedestrians as for horsemen, who sometimes came across us:

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

It was not imposing tourists with a misanthrope instructor who rode here, but stern Altaians with guns, and there were much more horses than riders, and each horse hung something that most of all resembled a sack of potatoes. Having caught up, the leader shouted to us: "Jump on the redhead! 1000 rubles to Kucherla!"

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

Let's go back to the sunny start of the hike. At some point, an ail appeared from the bushes - there was a small camp site, where the "shishiga" materials were transported, apparently for preservation for the winter. They drove us another half a kilometer forward across a wide meadow and landed on this clearing, popularly known as the Three Birches. However, there are more than three birches here, and I don’t know which ones gave the name to the glade.

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

So, we drove 22 kilometers. As the further journey showed, we would not have passed them in a day: I simply do not know how to walk in the mountains, and Olga lost her strength and skill in three years without hiking. In addition, she was used to walking with a large group, and therefore, no matter how lighter her backpack, she still collected more on the road than she could carry. I could unload it (and in the end carried more than 30 kilograms), but in purely tourist matters - to put up a tent, cook food - there was little benefit from me, except to collect firewood for a chipboard 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 amount in a straight line, that is, in fact, 1.5-2 times more. MChS 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 went down 2 days to Tungur.

And we could have walked even more slowly, but the Akkem trail is not a wild taiga, but a park. Probably, the Chuisky tract looked about the same in the "vychnaya" era - at least a meter wide and with carefully sawn trunks of trees that fell on the road. On most of the trail there are solid kanmi and roots, and if on the descent they get in the way, then on the ascent they help a lot, forming a kind of stairs, and it is not slippery to go here in any weather.

On the right, streams flow in steep rocky channels:

On the left, from behind the trees, a wall sometimes appears and the noise of the fierce 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, and even more often - Polyany. They have been developed so thoroughly by tourists that others on Maps.me have been marked as campsites. Many have some sauces, jars of salt or sugar, bottles of water left on them - take them and use them 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 (and most likely even earlier) other tourists will pass by, and if they do not 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 chips in most of the meadows have been selected almost clean, and it takes a whole hour to collect them for one cooking around the far area of ​​the meadow.

The main landmark on the local trails is horse manure. If you have not seen him for quite a long time, then, apparently, you managed to go to the wrong place. But, contrary to expectations, there is not much garbage - somewhere there may be one piece of paper or a tin can lying around, but I have never seen spontaneous dumps along the entire path. The piece of iron, which looked either like a home-made stove, or like a burbulator for a whole hippie camp, was the largest sample of local litter, and even this, perhaps, not rubbish, but a "working" sieve for pine nuts. And the point is not the creativity of tourists (one cattle company per month is enough to clog the entire path to the state of a gadyushnik), it is just that in Altai they understand that they need to clean up, and volunteers and instructors follow the cleanliness along the Akkem path. They say that not the last reason is that garbage attracts bears, problems with which no one really needs here. But if you meet Goga, remember that he is a Human!

In fact, there are not many interesting things on the trail. Forest and forest, dense and humid, and not so much remind of mountains beautiful views how many sinusoid is in vertical plane, which is the trail.

The only thing that pleases the eye is the living creatures - for example, the nutcracker. I didn't know they had such a funny appearance:

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

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

The section of the trail behind Three Birches turned out to be the most difficult - constant steep ascents, sometimes giving way to mocking descents: if the general direction is up, then each descent promised a new ascent. In addition, Olya did not immediately realize that her carrying capacity had decreased, and 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 hike. 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 in a day, and at dusk we got up for the night among the boulders under a kurumnik near the Akkemskaya Pad stream. Until the end of the trip, I called this place the Devil's Glade, because on the basis of fatigue and dejection, very modest results, here I had an epic quarrel with Olga.

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

And I didn’t know then that it was Belukha itself together with the round Delone 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 the Katun itself means "Lady", and then Belukha is simply the Main of the Main. According to the Altai belief, its peak is a channel that sanctifies our world with the heavenly, and approaching sacred grief even shamans were forbidden. I started with photographs of Belukha. Well, the entire Belukha massif is known by the Altai as Uch-Sumer (Three-headed), and its third element is the Western Belukha (4435m), noticeable on the opening, the second highest peak of 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 in 1835 first explored the mountain), from which the Katun begins, and the steep northern slope is the Akkem wall, from which Akkem itself breaks out with a roar. "Ak" in all Turkic languages ​​means "white", "whom" is a river in the ancient Turkic language. Akkem is really not turquoise, but white throughout:

And a sign on a stone by the path reminds of his frantic temper:

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 rapids 40 kilometers long. Here, look - the slope of the channel is visible to the naked eye! In the distance, behind the trees, is the western peak of Belukha:

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

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

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

In the mountains in September it is -15, and eezi (spirits of the mountains) were kind to us - although the nights were cold, and it was flooded with rain on the way, but still the temperature never dropped below 5-7 degrees.

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

Sod sheds 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 opposite the Tekelu waterfall, to which, apparently, most tourists reach from Three Birches in a day. Nearby, the waterfall, they say, is very beautiful, but there are no bridges over Akkem here, and how the ford attempt can end is shown in photo # 39a. Moreover, I am sure that there the river carried away much stronger and more experienced people than we are. Therefore, they usually go to Tekelushka with a separate radial from above:

Beyond 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:

After passing a couple of kilometers beyond Tekelushka, 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 to the goal. Well, I chose the glades not least because of the views that opened from the coast of Akkem - for example, in all its glory Zapadnaya Belukha before sunset ... do you see the FACE on the slope?

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

In the morning at the same place. The title frame of the post is also removed from here. The colors are still unreal:

And other tourists were walking towards us all the time, and their geography was not at all the same as that of those we met on the roads - almost no one from Novosibirsk or Barnaul, but every other time Moscow or St. Petersburg, and also Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Arkhangelsk, Cesky-Budeyovitsy. ... Only once, on the way back, we came across tourists to overtake: although we were moving slowly, the flow upward had practically dried up (especially since they often go up Kucherla), and those who followed us followed more quickly only a little faster and in about the same mode of halts and overnight stays. The oncoming ones appeared every one or two hours on the way up, several times a day on the way down, and we invariably greeted, exchanged questions about the further path, and went on. On the curtain walls, letting the group pass, I got off the path, and the last person passing by invariably gave me his hand - like on winter roads, where one slides into the snow, and the other, having passed, pulls it out.

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

And consistently every other day the Akkem gorge was heard the crackle of a low-flying helicopter - first up the valley, and 20 minutes later and down. By the way, this is not a "Robinson", but also an American "Bell-407" (or another "Bell"), that is, not only "Vysotnik" conducts a flyby of Belukha:

The forest gradually thinned out all the days of the ascent, the birches and aspens became smaller, and on the third day larch became the main tree. At some point, we ran into a gate for horses (so as not to go down at night grazing), which could be opened only after a little thought. But when I closed them behind me, I felt that the target was very close.

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

P.S.
Well, if someone from experienced tourists my story seemed funny or pathetic - laugh and feel sorry for your health. I’m not a hiker, and although Olga and I were three weeks that summer, I didn’t get much experience. Olga asked why I am always in such a hurry and 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 hike with a heavy backpack is stressful for me, and the goal is always unconditionally more important than the path before her. Therefore, if I will still undertake such trips, it will also be in "park" conditions and for no more than a few days, for example, to Seydozero or Ergaki.

Altai-2017
... Trip overview etc. Katu-Yaryk, Pazyryk, Mikhalych outpost.