Russell's Blog

We were picked up by a mini-bus taxi from our apartment in Petropavlovsk, only to have to turn around to retrieve a forgotten jacket whose owner shall remain nameless. From there, we drove to Kronotsky Nature Preserve, and met up with a bunch of other people including Shpilenok, the director of the preserve, a Russian TV station crew, and some photographers. Also aboard was a group of people that included the granddaughters of Tatiana Ustinova, the woman who discovered the Valley of the Geysers with Anisifor Krupenin in 1941.

The discovery of the valley is an adventure all unto itself -- beginning with a dogsled trip that got off track and ending up with the discovery of first hydrothermal site in Russia. Tatiana, who eventually settled in Vancouver, passed away recently. Her family was aboard our helicopter on a visit in her memory to Geyser Valley. Her valley, one could say.

Frank spent much of our time in Petropavlovsk regaling us with stories of helicopters left over from Russia's war in Afghanistan and held together with bits of string. If our helicopter was that old, it has been lovingly maintained.

Our ride to Uzon touching down at the airfield.

I was expecting the ride itself to be exciting, but there is none of the rush and acceleration of an airplane takeoff; when a helicopter takes off, it gets very, very loud, and rises with all the grace and charm of a freight elevator. The excitement came entirely from the view out the portal, which we could open. Kronotsky Nature Preserve is spectacularly beautiful from any angle; as interesting as it was to see it from the air, I kept wishing we would land so I could get out and have a look around.

The view from the helicopter portal as we entered Kronotsky Nature Preserve.

I lost track of how many volcanoes we passed. The most exciting was Karimsky, which happened to erupt just as I snapped a picture of it!

Karymsky Volcano erupting as we fly nearby.

Actually, I didn't take this picture. There was a photographer sitting next to me using the same portal, and I had asked him to snap a few shots of Karimsky -- which was not erupting at the time -- because he had a better angle from were he was sitting. He snapped one shot of the volcano and gasped, and then dropped my camera in his lap and grabbed his own.

Karymsky Volcano erupting as we fly nearby.

Eruption of Karymsky Volcano continues as we fly over an inland delta.

We touched down in Uzon Caldera a few minutes later, and immediately ran into some confusion over accommodations. There are two buildings in Uzon Caldera; a ranger station, and the research station. The structures are each about the size of a modest single family home. There was already a team from Winigradsky Institute staying at the research station (the director, actually), as well as the ranger and an entomologist. Meanwhile, the ranger station is being renovated, and the work crew is staying there.

Our ride continuing on to Geyser Vally. The family of Tatiana Ustinova were aboard.

The helicopter crew had been told that we would be staying at the ranger station for some reason, and so the earlier flight had delivered all of our food and lab equipment to the landing pad nearest the ranger station. The ranger station is about a kilometer away from the research station, and so we had to schlep all thirteen boxes of lab equipment and four heavy boxes of food.

Shifting our food and lab equipment from the ranger station to the research station. It was a long and exhausting job.

Once installed at the research station, Sarah, Bo and I organized our gear and luggage, and Frank and Albert -- dead tired, like the rest of us -- went upstairs bearing gifts to make friends with the other research team.

We rehydrated some freeze-dried pasta primavera, to which Sara and I added tofu. I was too hungry to notice what everyone else ate, but I think sausage was involved. Then we passed out.