alekseyklimov
Observer
The summer was rich with business trips and so, right after two ATV adventures in the Caucasus, I’m landing at the airport of Gorno-Altaisk where I’m greeted by two car transporters with Terranavtika campers...
The capital of the Altai Republic cannot provide any special entertainment to a sophisticated guest from Moscow, so it was decided to enjoy jetlag and other acclimatizations in the north of Lake Teletskoye. So we meet guests from the plane, have breakfast, a short briefing and go - thankfully Artybash is not far.
I myself have never been to the north of Lake Teletskoye and these views are new to me. The infrastructure is pretty good here, by the way, and in season can be almost like Sochi, but the only thing that can get an off-road tourist here is the opportunity to board a barge to the south coast.
It’s better to do this in a large group, like ours. Since there is no regular transfer between the coasts and the ferry will only go at full capacity and since the transfer price tag is not cheap, you will either wait for a long time or not even get across at all.
Our plan was to load the campers and the escort “Sable” onto the barge early in the morning, and to go separately on a speed boat, which will take us along all the tourist waterfalls located on the shores of the lake.
And then catch up with the cars immediately before disembarking.
They say that the summer of 2019 was especially rainy in Altai, but we were incredibly lucky and on our dates this continuous rainy season had a window, which gave us all welcome heat!
The waters of the lake are filled with large and small motor boats, which constantly scurry back and forth unloading and loading tourists to/from the shore.
On the shore, other people sell the tourists tickets that let them see the waterfalls. At the waterfalls there’s already a line of people who want to take a spectacular selfie.
Selfies of our group were substantially different because we all had put on branded T-shirts with Terranavtika logo on the shoulder and the Altai trip emblem on the chest. That was a terrific idea, by the way, that everyone in the group including myself loved.
But the waterfalls came to an end and here comes the barge with the cars. I may be wrong but i takes the barge about 7 hours to get from one coast to the other. You’ll have to take that into account if you want to go with your car and not separately, like us.
I was in the south of Teletskoe lake in the summer of 2013 and the Chulyshman really burst its banks then and even flooded part of the road from Katu-Yaryk.
As a guide, my first and foremost task is to find a place on the shore for the camp and then get 300 litres of water. In this case, we have a crystal-clear lake, from where we can quickly fill our gigantic tank, using hoses and a powerful pump, feeding directly from the 220-volt network.
This time I have an opportunity to use photos from Vlad’s drone, who travels with us as a camera man for the third time.
Actually, this barrier beach is the main resort destination on the south coast.
And so, without further ado, we set up camp on a vacant spot.
The evening will bring us windless calm, wonderful pink sunsets and a fantastic view of Teletskoye.
The shore is full of dry snag and so, in addition to all the above, we had a warm and old-school source of fire.
to be continued...
