Home » Russia » High volcanoes, and unknown bear paths - Kamtchatka, Russia

Report from a self-supported and self-organized trip to Kamchatka - a scenic wilderness of the Russian Far East. Lots of volcanos, bears, and mosquitos...

High volcanoes, and unknown bear paths - Kamtchatka, Russia

Waltraud
2004-03-05 18:25:32

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arctor piscator, as the Kamchatka bear is called scientifically, is among the largest brown bears of the world. Noise is an effective means to chase them away, at least that is what we were told. During the day this is not a problem. We produce enough "noise" while riding to warn bears way in advance. But what about at night? Shall we snore? Or would that attract them? What about our food? Does it smell good to them? Do they like pasta, or do they prefer the pudding we have for dessert? The trees in the surrounding are not high enough to store our food safely. We agree to leave our food stores in the panniers at the bikes, and stack the unwashed pots from our meals in a pile 5 m away from the tent. If a bear will become curious, we are certain he'd be first interested in the pots and thus knock down the pile. The noise would then hopefully scare him away and also wake us up… Further reactions then need to be adjusted to the situation, and we truly hope that a visiting bear will be only curious and not aggressive or hungry. During fall the bears usually find plenty of food in nature: berries, mushrooms, and most importantly, salmon. However, this year, the salmon are somewhat late…

Rain turns dusty tracks into mud

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If there's enough calories and taste early in the day, then there will be no problems during the day. Every morning we mix ground buckwheat, oats, dry fruit, nuts, sugar, and milk powder, and then pour hot water over it to make a delicious high energy breakfast. We have immediately forgotten the hotel breakfast we had yesterday…

With such a good start for the day, we do not care about the rain that has started soon after we were back on the road. By noon we are completely wet, but luckily with the right clothes on, we are staying warm. Already in the early morning, we had reached the end of the paved road, 115 km behind Petropavlovsk. Now we are on the dusty ...