Day #1: From Ekaterinburg to Zyuratkul National Park
5 o’clock, a gloomy, drizzling afternoon, in a small parking lot surrounded by grey Soviet building blocks downtown Ekaterinburg, I met my friend Olga. We got into the car and started driving through the jammed, wet streets of the big city. At two different spots, we stopped and picked up our other two companions: Tanya and Nadya. The car was now complete with passengers, and the trunk with provisions for our imminent 3-day trip. Our destination was one I was dreaming of ever since I became acquainted with the world’s geography: the remote, mystical border of Europe and Asia: one of the earth’s most ancient mountain ranges: the mighty Ural Mountains: and more specifically, the Zyuratkul National Park.
It took us a couple of hours to escape Ekaterinburg’s heavily jammed streets. But then we were on the open road driving straight south. For a great part of the day, we didn’t see much other than a line of asphalt and a strip of grey sky between the endless pine and birch treetops. It was only by dusk time when the forest opened up a little and we were able to wonder at the first Ural peaks surrounding us. And then the forest briefly disappeared altogether as we drove past a mining factory, its chimneys fuming madly, which was responsible for having lunaformed its environs. Then it was night when we reached Zlatoust city. Its lights looked like a fleet of small vessels amid a vast dark ocean. The night kept progressing. Only by about 1 am did we finally reached our destination.
Sibirka was a tiny traditional village in a green meadow cleared up amidst a vast expanse of surrounding forest. There we were supposed to go to a hut some more friends we were expecting to arrive had booked, and camp in their yard. But we couldn’t find it and there was no signal to make a call. The alternative plan was quickly formulated. We spotted a nice clearing in the middle of the village and pitched the tent. It was freezing cold. We were fast to make some sandwiches to eat, and we tightly perched inside the tent. The curtain fell for today
Day #2: Climbing to the Uvan Mountain
Early next morning, we were roused by two villagers who visited us independently – each one for a different reason – almost simultaneously. The first was a man, who came to kindly ask us to leave, acting for his bull who’d been enraged to find someone encroaching upon his ‘breakfast pasture’. The second was a woman who, seeing us sleeping out in the cold, kindly offered us to move in an empty hut of hers during our sojourn. The issue was resolved. Everyone, we and the bull alike, received ample satisfaction. We were ready to proceed with our day.
We moved into the woman’s cute hut, whose walls were made by tree trunks. We left all we didn’t need there and moved over to the hut our friends were renting. There they were… Kolya and Masha together with their one-year-old daughter, and Olya. We had a good Russian breakfast with kasha (porridge) and salo (pork fat), and we were ready to set off for our day’s adventure. Destination: Uvan Peak.
Masha and the baby would remain in the village. The rest of us needed to be divided into two groups to be driven by Olga to the national park’s station. I and Tanya picked the first ride. Soon after we left the village, we had to stop at the park’s gate and obtain the ticket. It cost ₽100 – Usually, I’m not very happy about paying entry fees in national parks, but for such a price I was given no reason to complain. Olga dropped us off at the station and headed back to fetch the others. While waiting for them, we got to check out some baby reindeer held in a pen there.
All of us were gathered. We started on our hike. Despite the inauspicious forecast and the previously ominous morning sky, we were accompanied by brilliant, warm sunshine which, luckily, was to remain for all the rest of the day. We took the muddy path leading straight west from the station. The path ground soon turned dry, so that we had an easy and pleasant way through the fragrant forest for this first part of the trip. Tanya also proved herself quite an expert in the local flora: I got to taste lots of different leaves and grasses along the way.
At some point, we left for a while the path and ascended the slope to the south, so to reach the first peak of the day. From there we got some first glimpses of the enveloping vastness, as well as a clear view of Uvan Peak. Back down on the path, we continued a little further and we soon left it again at 54.8070/58.9327, heading straight up to Uvan. There was a sketchy trail for a while, and then bush until we reached the base of the mountain’s rocky peak. I found the morphology of the mountain rather unique. The entire peak was basically a heap of bulky rocks: as if thrown there by some ancient giant quarrymen. The contemplation of the hundreds of millions of years these rocks have been standing there in exactly the same, unaltered formation caused my soul to shudder.
It took some good scrambling, and we were soon standing on the top of Uvan Mountain. The view was splendid! The station and the tiny Sibirka village with a narrow lane cut through the forest to connect them was the only manmade thing to be seen around. Zyuratkul lake was visible in the distance… and, interrupted by rocky peaks here and there, endless expanses of pristine forest, taking delicate coloration patterns from the birches’ light-green and the conifers’ darker tints, while large patches of shadow were cast on them by the slow-traveling, over-hovering clouds. What an immense wilderness! What a crude style of creation!
We continued west from Uvan and conquered the two succeeding peaks: Srednyaya Kalagaza plus one more unknown to me to name. The last one was my favorite due to the tall, narrow, cockscomb-like rock formation adorning its top. We headed down again and climbed the Malyy Uvan peak, located to the south of the main one. The sun was now lower, and the views were as splendid as before but colored more warmly. We moved some way to the east along the ridge, where there was still some nice scrambling to do, and got back down to the path.
We were finally back in the village by late evening. After a good dinner and some wine, now I’m sitting in a wooden chair in our cute little hut, a warm fire burning in the fireplace by my side, my feet resting inside a bucket of steaming water… and I’m dozing off.
Day #3: Bolshoy and Sredny Nurgush Peaks
A grey, dismal sky appeared over the village of Sibirka as the sun made it over to that one half of the globe’s surface. We were all up preparing for our second venturing to Zyuratkul’s peaks, towards a different direction this time.
We got into the car, all the six of us this time, and drove to the ranger station once again. We were lucky to encounter a kind woman at the national park’s entrance who, notwithstanding the rule saying that once you left the park’s area you are obliged to pay the ticket anew, granted us entry with our previous day’s tickets. We parked the car by the end of the road and got onto the long muddy path leading eastward to Nurgush.
It was quite a long way. And the detours we had to take so as to bypass the numerous ponds and streamlets interfering with the path made it even longer. The sky was as portentous as it gets. We were expecting the stormy predictions of the forecast to come true at any moment; and we were well prepared for it. However, apart from a few drops here and there, no serious rain fell. It’s happened to me many times in the past to run into trouble due to inaccurate forecasts. But this is one of the few times I remember an inaccurate forecast being a positive event. I finally feel justified.
At about noontime, we’d made it to the point 54.8085/59.1008, right in between the Bolshoy (big) and the Sredny (middle) Nurgysh peaks. There starts the trail to the former, which was our first goal.
Apparently, this is by far the most popular destination in the whole park. We had encountered a few other hikers during our previous day’s adventures, but here the trail was rather flooded by crowds resembling devotees on a pilgrimage. That’s probably so because Bolshoy Nurgush happens to be the highest peak in the park, as well as one of the few accessible by hiking alone: no climbing or scrambling involved. Also, it happened to be especially many visitors on this particular day due to – a thing I learned only later – it being the national day of Russia.
The first part of the trail was quite steep. Completing the ascent, we found ourselves on a wide yellow plateau, through which the trail continued smoothly to the top. A heavy hailfall took place concurrently with our crossing this alien landscape. I couldn’t stop wondering at my surroundings in awe. When we were just a couple of hundreds of meters away from the top, we decided to make a break. The hailfall then gave out abruptly, and no sooner than it did so, the entire cloud moved away revealing a large patch of blue sky with the sun throned gloriously right in its middle. This first sunshine for the day was an unexpected boon. It accompanied us for all the while it took to reach the mountaintop and marvel at the astounding views over the lake of Zyuratkul and the surrounding woody immensity. And then, as we started on our way back, the clouds cast once again their grave shadows over us and the mountain.
Back to the spot between the mountains by afternoon, we stopped for lunch beside a cool little brook. We enjoyed a few more minutes of sunshine while preparing the food, but then, while eating, the cloud contents finally found their way to the ground in the form of heavy rain. We hastily covered all our stuff and continued lunching under the thick foliage of a fir.
The plan now was to head to the top of Sredny Nurgush. To be honest, I felt initially a little reluctant to do that. The rain had stopped, but the possibility for it to start again seemed more probable than not. Furthermore, even in case it would not rain, the sky didn’t seem to be in the mood to open up at any time soon. If we were going to the peak, it meant that we would make it back to the village only by around midnight. To take up such a long venture without given the chance to see some nice views made me skeptical of whether I wanted to do this.
Nadya and Olya decided to head back straight away. The other three were resolute to head up once again. After all, I decided to join the ascending group. It absolutely was the right decision. Sredny Nurgush was to be my favorite peak of the entire trip.
There isn’t any trail leading up. This, together with the late time given, meant that we’d most likely be the only ones on the mountain. And it was exactly so; we didn’t meet a soul. We opened our way uphills pushing through shrub, jumping over brooks, and scrambling over rocks. Then we were on a little, heavenly, grassy plateau when the miracle happened. As if the mountain spirits were doing us a favor, the clouds in the west were pushed aside to make room for the day’s concluding sunlight to reach us. Satiated with warmth, we got to rapidly jump from one rock to the next making for the peak. This peak was a heap of unusually massive rocks, compared to the ones of the rest of the peaks. It took a good deal of concentration to climb up the most dangerous parts. But it is worth it! Standing on the crown rock and beholding the sunset over that wild natural grandeur was an experience bound to forever remain carved deep inside my memory.
Accompanied by a mellow twilight and a serene quietude, we headed down again. Through a slowly befalling darkness, we covered the long way back to the car. And finally, after 15 hours and 30 km, just a little before midnight, we were back to our warm and cozy hut in Sibirka.
Day #4: Golaya Sopka and Turgoyak Lake
Yet another sun rose above the village of Sibirka in the Ural Mountains. We packed all our stuff and tidied up the hut thoroughly, so that the good lady who kindly allowed us to stay there would find it in good condition. Today was the day we were bound to return to Ekaterinburg. Though we still had a good half day to spare. We were in need of a plan.
From up the other peaks, we could see a nicely shaped, conical, rocky peak to the north of Lake Zyuratkul. We checked the map for it. It had a well suiting its shape name: Golaya Sopka (naked knoll). We had a plan.
We drove back to the main road and all around the National Park. Then down south again towards the village of Zyuratkul on the north shore of the lake. On the way, we encountered another entrance post to the National Park. That one clerk there wasn’t as kind as the woman of the previous day, and he made us pay the tickets anew. We parked both the cars and took a pleasant stroll along the shore of the lake. There was a nice little beach there, where some few holiday-makers spent idle hours fishing and chilling out. Then off to yet another peak we set.
There is an 8-km-long trail leading to Golaya Sopka from Zyuratkul village. The first half of it is paved with planks. All the eight of us, together with Masha and the baby this time, we started striding along it. All along the way, the views of the lake under the capricious sky were spectacular. It took us a couple of hours to make it to the base of the conical peak. The five of us undertook this climb, too, for the top. Another absolutely amazing view we enjoyed from there; the last one for this trip. The lake looked so picturesque right beneath us. The sky was shared almost equally by blue patches and speedy clouds traveling through it: some of them white and stable, others black and enraged.
We were back to the cars by early afternoon. We bid farewell to the other four of the group who would leave in their car, and the rest of us started on our long way back to the city. Before we make it there, though, we’d reserved yet another nice stop for the day.
We drove past the city of Zlatoust. The view of it from the hills left me bewildered. It was a complete city given its wide area, but it was composed of one-, or two- at most, storey village houses. I’ve never seen such a large conglomeration of houses. We continued ahead and soon reached our dinner destination: Lake Turgoyak.
There was a nice wooden kiosk by the side of the cliff where we’d stopped. If you didn’t pay attention to the trash piles the locals had discarded there, but only to the splendid view of the lake instead, it made an ideal spot to dine. We had just started to enjoy our dinner and the enveloping serenity… when the serenity got interrupted for good. A car appeared all of a sudden, driving crazily up the road, bumpkin-pop Russian music resounding in maximum volume out of its speakers. Three local plastered blokes showed up out of it, and made it straight for the kiosk, carrying a bottle of vodka and a big black plastic bag full of beers. We were back in civilization.
They offered me a beer and settled with us for some time, incessantly shouting barely comprehensible stuff; fortunately, not for long. They got back into the car, turned the music on, and drove away. The peace was reinstated throughout the environs; though not in my conscience about the concern of their safety as well… I didn’t notice who of the three drove the car, but whoever, the odds didn’t seem to be favoring them for making it unharmed. Anyway, I wish they’re well and sound.
We took a short hike down to the lakeshore. We marveled at another beautiful sunset. The girls had a quick dip. We got back into the car and took the highway. In the late evening, we were back in the city’s dark streets.
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