Travel across Kamchatka in search of bouldering / Climb / Mountain.RU

Check out the previous story on the Mountain.RU:
Kamchatka. Domestic volcanos. Kozelsky mud volcano, Vladimir Markov, Vladivostok
Kamchatka, Pokrovsky Oleg, France
Indescribable fingers. Kamchatka, Ganalsky ridge, Elena Safonova

Author: Shumko Alexander, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Photo: Artem Gromov

Travel across Kamchatka in search of bouldering

Part 2. Ganalskye Vostryaki
(Part 1 here)

The brief review of the area of ascent

In the center of Kamchatka peninsula in system of Great East ridge the unique area - Ganalsky mountain ridge (Ganalsky Vostryaki) is compactly located. It extends 20 km from the northwest to the southeast of and 10 km in width. The highest point of the area is Mt. Glavnaya (Main) (2062 m).

The features that define this area are Alpine structure of mountains, altitude difference of rocky sites up to 450 m. Despite of apparently not high altitudes the winter here lasts nine months. You can feel oncoming of winter with the first frosts in early September and snow covers the mountains since September, 15-20. In December - February the temperature reaches negative 45C. The area of the base camp thaws out in the beginning of June.

The main first ascents in the area have been made in summertime as the most comprehensible period for expeditions is first half of June when it's already enough warm and there are no mosquitoes and gnat that are very annoying in July. But the steadiest and clear weather is at the end of August and the beginning of September.

It is convenient to get from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by car up to the bridge over the river Vaktan Malkinsky that is on 144-th km of Milkovsky motorway. After crossing the bridge - to the right, via a forest track only about 5-6 km.

Further on foot or driving a sports utility vehicle - 5 km more to the entrance in the gorge at the left. It is the first inflow of the river Vaktan Malkinsky on your movement course. Here the road comes to the end. Further, to the left from the way you are going, in alder bushes a foot path starts. You have to go and keep the left side of a creek valley heading upwards up to the terrace. Further you have to cross a creek stream on the border of forest and bush. The ascent takes 40-50 minutes. From that place you can see a magnificent panorama of all main mountain tops: Yurchik, Glavnaya (Main), Palets (Finger), Yuzhnaya (Southern). The base camp is 3 km from here: first 300 meters along the left slope of the inflow starting from Yurchik mountain, then to cross inflow and to go in a direction of the corrie up to cedar bushes on morainic base. Here, at the right side of the gorge, under an obviously expressed pass, there is a good place for base camp.

It takes 2,5 hours to get from the city up to river Vaktan Malkinsky by car and further 3,5 - 4 hours of walking (about 10 km). It is possible to a helicopter to land in Ganalsky ridge corrie. Total time of helicopter flight is about 30 minutes.

The list of routes at Ganalsky mountain ridge:

Mt. Yuzhnaya (Southern):

via North face, center, 5B.
via Western buttress, 5B
via Western ridge 2B (descent route).

Mt. Palets (Finger):

via Southern ridge, 5À.

Mt. Glavnaya (Main):

via Northwest face, 3B.
via Southwest face, center, 5B.

But we were engaged in bouldering the most of all and having arrived in Ganaly we started searching of big boulders to try real complex problems. And I can tell that we succeeded at the first day of climbing: we sent two problems 7ñ, one 7ñ + and one more problem (very difficult). The last one I could hard send but as we did not have sufficient experience in setting boulder problems we could not estimate it. But that problem seemed more complex than the others. Perhaps, 8à?


Shumko Alexander

Gromov Artem

Climbed a little more, we returned to the base camp to have a rest and gain strength, as the next day promised new interesting lines.

Next day the weather was ideal: there were no clouds in the sky at all. One of us, Oleg Chirik, packed all his things since the morning. We were a bit fogged and asked him "Why?" He answered that in such weather he would prefer to have a good parachute jump instead of rock-climbing. In May he had been in Moscow to take a course in "Kolomna" centre of parachute jumping and now as he was authorized to make independent jumps he wanted to be in the sky in good weather.

And finally he left to jump, but we after a while left to search for new boulder problems…

Part 3 >>