Volcanoes - mystical giants that came for a lie-down down to our planet thousands of years ago and fell asleep. Sometimes they wake up, get angry and spitting with lava. They make you want to bow down to show your respect.
About
They have a saying here in Kamchatka: “You haven’t seen this land if you didn’t have a chance to see it from a top of a volcano”. It’s true - when you climb those hills you really start feeling its grandeur and beauty. The volcanoes are the vertebrae of Kamchatka. It’s like they are helping Kamchatka remain in its ancient form. Out of 150 volcanoes here we got to conquer just two, all because of a drastic change of weather. If you don’t want to repeat our mistakes come to Kamchatka in August, or at the very least in the beginning of September. Just like real explorers we climbed to the top of Gorely through tough winds and snowstorms - all of it just to take a peek at its blue lakes. Sadly, we had to turn back half way and go back down because even professional guides weren’t able to go any further.
The Mutnovsky volcano

One of the most active volcanoes in Kamchatka. In the last hundred years it erupted 10 times! Mutnovsky consists of four cones and new craters form almost every 15 years.

This volcanoe has a serious case of insomnia. When the sky is clear you can see how it’s constantly releasing steam into the air. Along with the rest of the volcanoes in Kamchatka it has been proclaimed a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

In the north-east crater of the volcano all the bubbling and boiling never stops. Here are the seething fumaroles - cracks through which the volcanic gas rises, erupting hot springs, rising streams of steam and boiling mud pots. By the way, all these processes create this haze around the crater, the temperature of which once surpassed a mark of 540 degrees. Of course, the glaciers from time to time descend under the influence of such hot vapour and form small lakes.

In fact, Mutnovsky is a real artist's palette. Here you can see millions of mixed natural shades, a variety of colours and their diversity is hard to imagine even for an art genius: glaciers - blue, the land - ocher, sulphur - yellow, mud pots - red and black, and rock - a rich orange hue.

Ice cave Mutnovsky

This unique phenomenon is called the "backbone" of Kamchatka. The tunnels stretch along the volcano. They are created through a complex long-term processes: Mountain Glacier, heated by lava and geysers, turns into water and flows down the slopes forming an intricate maze of incredible beauty.

In good weather, the sun shines through the thin ice walls, and the hollow arches light up with all the colours of the rainbow. Amazing fact: the primary colours that the human eye picks up in the cave are yellow, blue and green. But when you start to take pictures, the photographs appear suddenly with red and pink highlights.

Gorely and Blue Lake

The volcano, which is often called the spine due to its elongated shape. Great-grandfather Gorely appeared on Earth 40,000 years ago! The diameter of its base is 30 kilometres! Over time, the peak of this stone "monster" collapsed under its own weight, forming a caldera, where for millennia to come was collected layers of new lava.

At first glance, this volcano doesn’t seem that interesting at all: it is only 1829 meters high, doesn’t have a peak pointing to the sky, and therefore it does not look very picturesque. However, give Gorely a chance to open up, take a step towards it, and, believe me, it will not disappoint you. You will only feel its true force if you look inside those craters. And when you look there... the most beautiful mountain lakes that you have ever seen will appear to you - the bottomless blue "eyes" of the volcano. It seems like Gorely is gazing at the sky. By the way, every single crater of this volcano has its own primitive name: Active, Deep, Cylinder, and Bowl.

The surface is covered in black volcanic ash, and this harness gives it a really severe and even frightening appearance. In fact, Gorely in comparison to its "brothers" is absolutely harmless, because over the past 150 years, it has erupted only 7 times, which by the standards of Kamchatka, is considered a trifle.

Waterfall Ravine Opasny

Frankly, such a fierce and unfriendly name belongs not to the waterfall but the gorge where it falls. And all because of the fact that the edge of this mountain canyon is very fragile and occasionally crashes down. Really dangerous!

The waterfall itself possesses no threat. The Mutny River falls from a height of 80 meters, and then subsides and peacefully stretches to the ocean. However, despite this Opasny Ravine from year to year is included to the list of the most risky places on Earth.

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