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🗓 November 6, 2007
Here and further - a short story, rather a “report”, about the days spent in Crimea last summer... We decided to divide the 2 weeks we had into two parts: active recreation (namely, hiking in the mountains) - the first half, and take a car for the second half of the time. We found the route and guide on the website outdoorukraine.com. I immediately liked the site and the routes on it, considering that the site is actually supported by one person, who is also one of those who leads to the mountains (Kirill). Everything is accessible and understandable, especially for those who are going to the mountains for the first time.
According to the calculations of one of the participants in our “expedition”, Dmitry, during these 5 days in the mountains we covered 75 km, multiplied by the mountain coefficient for Crimea - 1.2 = 90 km. Although it seemed to us that it was 50-55 km, it seems that the equipment must be trusted...
The route for people in good physical shape, and especially for men, is not difficult, but for those who are in the mountains for the first time it is not easy...
It’s bad that the website didn’t mention that the route included paths over cliffs and similar things - we had children in our group, for example. However, they adapt to everything faster:))
Mountains, day one
Along the route that we had chosen in advance (called “Water and Stones”) - sorry, no one claimed copyright:)) we had to start our hike from the village of Perevalnoye, which we safely reached by trolleybus from the Simferopol railway station. From the village along the so-called Donkey Trail we began climbing to the Chatyr-Dag plateau, which, as I understand it, consists of two plateaus - lower and upper.
The first climb was not easy for many in the group, although now I don’t remember that it was particularly difficult along the trail (all the tests were ahead!!:))),
Chatyr-Dag translated means “Tent-Mountain”, which is clearly visible in the bottom picture. Something like a quadrangular tent.
There are always stunning clouds in the mountains, and in general the plateau above is always very beautiful... (probably because it’s closer to the sky:)...
You’re also always surprised when books depict rays cutting through clouds: it turns out that it’s all for real...
As a result, we got to the Emine-Bair-Khosar cave, about which in the next post...
Cave Emine-Bair-Khosar
Having reached the cave, we put our backpacks in some utility room for speleologists:) and went down. Our guide’s main profession is a speleologist, and for most of the year he works in the Marble Cave, which, if I’m not mistaken, is located not far from this same plateau. So he led a tour of the cave himself. In general, you need to walk on the plateau carefully, the limestone under your feet is cut into caves and pits, and you can simply not notice the next hole and successfully fall through. This is what the average plateau surface looks like.
I had been to a cave in Crimea before, but it was very tiny compared to Emine-Bair-Khosar. This one consists of huge halls in which structures made of stalactites and stalagmites resemble church organs. Below, the temperature is at least 20 degrees less than on the surface (that is, + 10 instead of + 30), and there is slippery stone underfoot. In general, it’s much better up there, where the sun is. In the photo on the right (it seems that it is made up of two, but this is not so) at the top is the natural entrance to the cave, through which it was found at one time, at the bottom is what remains of the goat that fell into this hole:) and is now viewed by tourists.
Below are two more photographs - a thing called Monomakh's Cap (more like a jellyfish) and an example of one of the stalagmite "towers".
Mountains day two
After spending the night after exploring the cave in a small forest not far from it (and making sure that in Crimea night comes at 9 pm and suddenly), we set off to conquer the upper plateau of Chatyr Dag.
The climb was not very steep, and the weather was wonderful (on the first day, for the first and only time, we encountered light rain). The photographs show the boundaries of the plateau.
Our goal was the peak of Eklizi-Burun, the highest point during our journey. In addition to the stone with the mark, there were two mysterious stones at the top, which I initially mistook for white tombstones, but it turned out they had been placed quite recently. Once upon a time there was a Greek church on this place, from which the foundation now remains... and pilgrims visit the mountain, who placed these stones with strange signs. It’s unclear what the signs are, but they look like this.
From the top there is a stunning view of the plain below, Alushta and the surrounding mountains:))). Besides, it was from here that we saw the sea for the first time!!! Blue Lake is the Alushta reservoir. Well, as it turned out later, Alushta looks much more attractive from above than from below... or from the middle:).
In general, we crawled, and it was worth it:) (quote not mine;).
Day three. Climbing Demerdzhi.
After climbing Eklizi-Burun, nothing more remarkable happened on the second day, except for the sudden desire of part of the group to leave the route under the pretext of their inability to withstand further hardships of the journey:). But we dissuaded them and moved on together.
Having descended a relatively gentle but treacherous slope (there are many small stones that get under your feet and you begin to slide), crossing the highway near Alushta at the bottom, we began to climb the slopes of Mount Demerdzhi, through a beech forest. The forest was beautiful, tall (although after 2 days it bored me to hell:)).
We got to the parking lot quite quickly: on this day - under the slopes of Demerdzhi, in the Man clearing - we specially photographed the camp from the side so that it could be seen under what rocks we were located;).
In the morning we were visited by three beautiful guests who decided to have breakfast in the same clearing. At first they didn’t pay much attention to the tourists, but then they decided to get acquainted, which frightened part of the group packing their belongings.
Now I have a suspicion that they were herding horses in the morning from one of the equestrian routes to Demerdzhi (they offer such in Alushta and other nearby villages) - there are options for several hours, for half a day and with an overnight stay in tents. If we hadn’t gone to the Valley of Ghosts on foot that day, I would have loved to ride there on horseback - an amazingly beautiful route:), as you can see in the photographs below. Of course, the paths are steep, but horses are smart animals, and they go there more often than we do.
After packing up camp, we suddenly climbed up a 45-degree slope through the forest. Through a bunch of twigs, fallen trees, and over leaves that slide under your feet. Having rested under some coniferous trees, we looked with fear at the group from the nearest pioneer camp, who, in swimsuits and practically without water, were climbing up the rocks with us.
As a result, we came to a site (halfway up the climb to Demerdzhi - Kuznets Mountain), with a view of Alushta from a different side than we saw it for the first time, and with radially laid out stones - it is not clear who laid them out.
For lunch we settled under the trees before the climb leading to the famous Valley of Ghosts. In half an hour, several cars passed up it (we looked at them partly with envy, partly with contempt - even such a mixture is possible:) and a group of people on horseback. Part of the group (about half) went to the Valley, the rest stayed to sunbathe.
Day three. Valley of Ghosts
The path to the Valley lay through a mountain plateau. Walking without backpacks was not bad - we took only one small backpack with water for everyone, which later turned out to be a big mistake. The plateau has completely unusual vegetation, and there are also interesting phenomena, for example, these.
We were later told that these "stripes" were due to some arrangement of magnetic or force fields within the rocks, but no one seems to be able to give an exact explanation.
At the end of the plateau we reached the first chaos of large stones - from it began a narrow path along the mountainside into the Valley itself. To the right of the path on the slope there were a variety of stone piles, and to the left there was an excellent view of the seashore and the mountain road from Alushta to the east (the next week we drove along it several times to the east of Crimea and back to Alushta - it was especially unpleasant to drive a car along this road at night - brrr).
The Valley of Ghosts itself is, in fact, an area with a bunch of stones and rocks of unusual shape, which was formed after the collapse of part of the Demerdzhi slope (a village located under the slope died under the stones). Several legends are associated with the formation of the Valley, and the most famous is this one, about a blacksmith and a girl. Here is the rock that is mentioned in the legend - it seems that it is also called “Catherine’s Head” (and not Mary’s for some reason).
All the stones in the Valley consist of rocks that attract electricity during a thunderstorm, so it is extremely undesirable to be here at this time... there have been cases of people dying in these places, including some going missing. This is probably where the name comes from, and even in the twilight these stones should look quite bizarre.
The heat was intense, and we spent most of the time in the Valley itself in the shade of one of the largest stones;). And then... on the way back we drank the rest of the water, and then we felt like participants in an extreme tour. But it was a joy to run back to camp - to the water:)). True, my legs somehow refused to run...
Those who went to the Valley walked an extra 10 kilometers that day.
In the evening we stopped for the night in a nice place among the rocks; nearby there was a spring with several “pools” where you could collect water (in the upper one) and swim (in the lower one). Even the fact that at the bottom there was a pile of silt and leeches did not stop us.