2 days of hiking in Taganai, Southern Urals
In 2015 I made a post about hiking in Taganai National Park in winter http://askural.com/2015/02/national-park-taganai/
A year later a young couple from the United States Pravit and Rebecca sent a request do arrange a two-day tour to Taganai in summer time. Luckily, our local guide Ilia who knows Taganai as good as his home town, was available for the dates of the tour and I was able to join to take more photos of the Southern Urals.
You can book this tour here: http://yekaterinburg4u.ru/en/tours/taganai
Ilia provided our guests with all the equipment, tents, sleeping bags and rucksacks. He even brought woolen socks for everyone which was very smart because the night was chilly to say the least (-1 C). Propely equipped we started our walk 8km till the first peak Mt. Perya (1034)
In summer time Taganai looks as beautiful as in winter. We were lucky because both days were sunny. We could see the town of Zlatoust in Chelyabinsk Region and even a southern ridge of the Urals.
You can see Zlatoust in the back, the nearest town to Taganai
Compare the same place in summer and in winter...
Another great thing was that because of negative temperature at night there were no mosquitoes, none of them for two days! Those who live in the Urals or in the similar climate zone will understand what a luxury it is.
In the evening we got to the tourist shelter.
Ilia is cooking dinner
Tourists can rent a room in the ranger’s house but our American guests chose camping in tents. Recently, a Russian banya has been built at the tourist shelter, so we asked the ranger to prepare it for us. I didn’t take pictures in the steam bath though because it was dark, steamy and just you know, we forgot to take towels with!
The next morning we climbed Mt. Otkliknoy Greben (1155m).
There’s something like a terrace at the top of it. So we stayed there for an hour to relax and to enjoy complete silence – no other people, no noise, no even birds singing or wind blowing. It was a perfect retreat.
And again, compare the same place in winter time
In case you wondered how much snow we have in winter. Enough, as you can see
On the way back we stopped at the unique stone river. The river is 6km long, 300-500m wide. 9-tonn rocks are piled in 4 layers at the depth of 6m. The Taganai Stone River is the world largest deposit of aventurine.
The Taganai Stone River is the world largest deposit of aventurine.
Considering the distance from Yekaterinburg (takes about 5hrs by car to get to Taganai), a one day tour to Taganai is too hectic but possible too.
Book a two or three day hiking tour to Taganai here: http://yekaterinburg4u.ru/en/tours/taganai
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About the Project
AskUral.com is the blog dedicated to my lovely region known as the Urals or the Ural Mountains in Russia.
My name is Luba Suslyakova. I am based in Yekaterinburg (Russia), and I would love to share useful information about my area as much as possible and be your travel adviser.
Just keep asking me via the contact form and I will come back to you with answers!