Photographs of Kamchatka, Siberia, Iceland, Greenland, Scandinavia, Alps, other hiking places

Since my first visit in 1996, when we hiked from the Mutnovsky down to the village Ozernovsky in the south, I've come to Kamchatka three more times. In 1999 we made a 23 day hike from Kirganik to the hot springs in Nalychevo via the Uzon Caldera and the Karymsky Volcano. Then, two years later in 2001 we visited the area of the Kliuchevskoi, the most impressive volcanic group on the peninsula. Finally, in 2002 before our trip to Onekotan we paid a comparably short visit to the Opala volcano.

Onekotan Island

In 2002 we joined a scientific botanical expedition organized by the Institute of Biology and Pedology in Vladivostok, which was targeted to research the vegetation on the remote island of Onekotan. It took us some bureaucratic efforts to get a permit from the Federal Security Service, the Border Police, and a long helicopter flight to our destination.

Kodar

The Kodar mountain range some 500 km east of Lake Baikal was the area of choice in Summer 2003. The Kodar offers steep alpine mountains and is therefore popular among alpine climbers. It is easy accessible from the BAM railway, although it requires several days of traveling by airplane and train. The highest point of the range is Peak BAM at 3,072 m. BAM stands for Baikal Amur Magistral and was build during Soviet time, a railway parallel to the well-known Trans-Siberian Railway.

Baikal

This area is well-known to me from several visits in the past. The year 2000 did not offer enough time for a long hike and we decided for a comparably short round trip within the Baikal mountains.

East Sayan

The Sayan Mountains cover a big area in Siberia. We paid its eastern part a visit, traveling via Irkutsk and a long 500 km drive to the village of Shasnur. From there it was still a long walk to the main attractions, the hot springs and volcanoes.

Polar Ural and Subpolar Ural

By train it takes only one and a half days from Moscow to get to the northern Ural. We made a hike from the deserted town of Halmer-Yu through the mountains northeast of Vorkuta, called the Polar Ural. And in 2005 we completed a tour through the Subpolar Ural, south from the arctic circle, using the small town of Inta as a starting point.

The Altai is much alike the Alps, but still untouched by civilization. I have made two tours in the Katun Range and there are still many other beautiful places left.

The island is still regarded as something that is too far away from civilization, exotic, too unforgiving, and, last not least, too cold to just fly over and spend some time in its wilderness. While this is partly true, the same applies for other wild stretches on this planet. Greenland offers some fine tours for the experienced hiker.

This interesting island had been on my list for a long time, but I hesitated over the thought of asphalt roads, all-terrain vehicles and the many tourists. Nevertheless, it was a great hike along the most popular (and most crowded) route from Skogar to Landmannalaugar. A short stop at the tourist traps of Geysir and Gullfoss completed my first look at Iceland. A next visit will take me to a wilder spot of Iceland.

While traveling around in faraway places such as Greenland or Kamchatka, I didn't found it attractive to visit Scandinavia. Compared to the aforementioned places it seemed too civilized, not exotic enough. However, away from the considerably higher density of visitors, it hosts arctic landscapes with all their beauty, climatic roughness, and stands its ground against any other "wonder" on our planet. The first tour in Norway was to cross the Hardangervidda from south to north. No regrets, so far.

The island is famous for normal tourism, not for backpacking. On the other side it hosts a great landscape for hiking. And the 3,718 m high volcano Teide inside a 17 km wide caldera is something that nobody should miss to take a look at. So never mind the hotel and the rental car, it all serves only a purpose.

Thinking about a suitable target for a Christmas vacation, Madeira came in our mind. With its southern location and mountainous character it looks like a playing ground from the hiker's perspective. Yet the promises made in the travel guides about "hiking in Madeira is possible all year round" are somewhat misleading. The upper mountains indeed receive their dosage of rain, fog, and storm during winter, turning an supposedly easy walk into a tough experience.

The Balearic Islands are not a prime target for hiking activities. Here are some saliva-producing photographs for the natural-born hiker, photographs that demonstrate what the Balearics may offer during the dark time of the year, when days are short and wet, and when there is no good place to go to in the middle of Europe.

Why always travel so far? Here are the Alps in the center of Europe, and I feel that I should go more often to the probably most famous mountains in the world. A trip to Italy inspired me to add a special page about the Alps. And there are other mountains beside the Alps that might be worth a few photographs, too.

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