Belukha mountain
Belukha Mountain (region Ust-Koksa) (4506 m) is the highest peak of Altay Mountains and in the whole Siberia. Belukha is a Queen of Altay. No one can remain indifferent when seeing this Beauty. It is fantastic, graceful and ambitious and involves a storm of emotions in everyone's heart. It is the Russians who gave Belukha this name because of the abundance of the snow cover. Belukha Mountain is very popular among the toursists all over the world. A lot of horseback riding vacations, trekking and climbing tours and sightseeing tours take place every year to Belukha Mountain.
Altaians used to call it "Kadym-Bazha" or "Katyn-Bash" which means "Peak or Katun head" and "Ak-Su-Ryu" which means "White Water".
At the first half of the XIX-th century a traveller Fridrich Gebler opened the first Altay glaciers near the head of the Katun river. One of them is called Gebler Glacier. Gebler made one more discovery - he determined that Belukha's peaks are the highest in the whole Altay. Later the height was determined as 4506 m above the sea level.
The first climbing took place in 1914 when the Trunovs brothers climbed on the peak of Belukha. In their honor one of the largest glaciers is called. Since then a lot of other alpinists climbed on Belukha. Despite Belukha is considered relatively not high it is still severe and inaccessible for climbing. It might be because of the severe climate arround Belukha: it is always cold here, windy and the rocks are covered with thin ice glaze. Besides Belukha region is located on the border of 7-8 point seismic activity. Earhtquakes are quite often here and as a result the break of the ice cover and avalanching often take place.
Belukha Mountain is surrounded by the glaciers. From the north there comes Akkem glacier, from the norht-east there is Iedygem glacier - the largest out of all Belukha's companions. From the south-west ther are Gebler and Small Berel glaciers, from the south - Big Berel and Black glaciers, from the west - the multi-stepped icefall-glacier of the Trunovs brothers (Kucherla glacier). The total square of Belukha glaciers is 70 square meters. They give the start to the Katun river and its tributaries. There are also the lakes in Belukha surroundings - the largest are Big Kucherla lake ('Kucherlinskoe lake') and Lower Ak-Kem Lake.
From the ancient times Belukha mountain was considered sacred. People thought it to be the shelter of awful powers an were afraid of even taking a look at Belukha. They said that everyone who ventured upon climbing on it would loose his eye-sight. Nowadays one can find the explanation of these legends: a lot of first bravehearts who tried to climb up the glaciers without the sun-glasses got blind because of the burning reflected light.
Even nowadays many people believe that Belukha Mountain is a place energetically connected with the space. They are sure that this "hub of the universe" called so because of the distance from all the oceans can give them health and freshness power. It might be true because when one looks at Belukha and sees its scenery, so charming and spellbinding, then one begins to undestand the reason why for thousands of years people living here can not tear their eyes from Belukha's sparkling peaks.
Choose the following tours to visit Belukha mountain:
