Russian Volcanoes

by leekierdorf

Volcanoes! Lots of volcanoes! You can ski down some. You can climb down into a crater and examine a green acid lake. You can warm your toes on a toasty beach on a chilly day or swim in a warm clear lake on an icy day. These are the volcanoes of the Russia Far East in Kamchatka.

Avachachinsky


This mile high volcano was really active in 1991. But now you can ski down it.

avachinskaja-kamchatka

Vilyuchinsky

The beautiful waterfall is well worth seeing but is a giant icicle in the winter.

Vilyuchinsky-waterfall

Klyuchevskoy

Maybe it’s the biggest in the world at 16,000 ft. It is fantastic with cracked sides and lava streams and the top is covered with ice. The eruption of 1978 filled the crater with lava. Strong eruptions shook it again in 1993 but it’s much tamer now.

klyuchevskaja-kamchatka

Tolbachik

This was really going nuts all through 1975 raising ash columns up to 9 miles high. 3 billion tons of lava spread for 3 miles. Observers dodged volcano bombs, large hunks of flying hot rock that explode on impact, as they tried to keep their notebooks from catching fire. It finally quieted down leaving an amazing turquoise lake.

tolbachik-kamchatka

Gorelovskaya

Since this one is only 40 miles from the city, you can go and look down into the caldera and see this green lake.

goreliy-kamchatka

Uzon

One part has a hot, sulfurous lake. But below you can see Lake Dalnee, full of fresh, pure water.

Dalnee-Lake

Semyachik

Look down 650 feet to it’s green, warm, opaque lake full of sulfuric and hydrochloric acids. Some brave the descent to stand on its flaky black beach and watch the emerald, poisonous waves. Stay too long and you may start coughing.

semyachek-troitsky-kamchatka

Karymsky

This one ended the last millennium with two years of explosions, kicking up ash and tossing exploding rocks. Karymskoe lake, 4 miles away from the volcano, had giant waves of boiling water. It turned Lake Karymskoe from an ultrafresh water body in to the world’s biggest natural tank of acid water.

karymsky-kamchatka

Ksudach

The thermal springs of Lake Shtubelya form its “Hot beach” with it’s warmed sand. The river Talaya, flowing out of caldera, forms a waterfall.

ksudach-strubelja-kamchatka

Unforgetable

These “steamy lands” crack, smack, whistle, puff and pant as though they are alive. Lake Bannoyeis stays hot all winter with a bottom of molten sulfur.

See several Kamchatka volcanoes erupting in news video

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