Roads
The metalled road here is a luxury only the south of Kamchatka can boast, but even there to get to the foot of any volcano you go in an expedition truck. The only transportation artery linking the south with the northernmost civilization outpost, the small town of Ust-Kamchatsk (north-east of Klyuchevskoi, on the cost of Pasific), is a gravel road, long, dusty, dreary. At least I felt like that at the end of our 9hr' drive from Esso village to Paratunka. I am sure in bad weather it would have been just desolate. Well, "dura road sed road"... All the other roads here are only for tractors, expedition trucks and mountain bikes.
Helicopter, expedition truck, snowmobile and mountain bike
For approaches they use either expedition trucks or helicopters. To the southern group of volcanoes and to the Geyser Valley they fly from Elizovo; to Klyuchevskoi - from Esso. But for its dependence on weather, helicopter would be much more preferable, sparing you long truck drives. Contrary to all the other Kamchatka prices it is fairly cheap, comparing $2000 an hour in the Caucasus with 600-700 here. An expedition truck is a heavy army four-wheel drive truck with a bus cabin instead of a body. Can go practically everywhere, except thick taiga and marches.
A snowmobile can easily tug 2-3 skiers and carry their rucksacks. With this machine (powerful Russian "Buran", not "Yamaha") fantastic ski-touring routes, lightning fast and bold, can be arranged.
High tundras and volcanic plateaux is a paradise for mountain bikers, provided they have good maps and navigating skills. For instance, on a bike you can get from Kozyrevsk to the hut under Bezymyany volcano in the center of the Klyuchevskoi Group.
Prices
The main problem in organizing Kamchatka trips is their expensiveness. It starts from the in and out flight. This summer the return fare from Moscow was $535 (8.5hr). Two companies, Aeroflot and Domodedovo fly there every day. Probably the cheapest would be to fly with Aeroflot straight from Europe (especially if your group is big enough to get a group discount).
The nearest airport on the mainland is Khabarovsk ($140-150; 2hr; every other day). I mention it, because it is a good point to take a Trans-Siberian train on the way back from Kamchatka and go west at least as far as Irkutsk. It is just 2 days' passage, costing peanuts, but believe me (I was shuttling in a mail train from Moscow to Vladivostok and Khabarovsk for 25 years) nowhere in the world you will see so much wilderness, Baikal Lake including, from a train window. From Irkutsk you can take a short trip to the Baikal shore (just 3hr in a suburban train), then fly to Moscow.
Even though $535 do not seem an excessive price for 8.5hr flight, the other side of Kamchatka trips should be borne in mind - the higher cost of living on this island. Not many people in the West have ever heard about the "northern" and "remoteness" factors, which used to be added to wages and salaries of people living in northern- and easternmost parts of Russia. With all the Russian financial jolts of the last decade this has not changed at all. High prices in places where practically all the goods are brought in by ship or plane entail higher salaries. It means that a good guide, speaking reasonably good English, whom in the Caucasus I hire for $20-25 a day, in Kamchatka will demand 45-50. A Master of Sports in climbing (they used to think a lot of themselves), will certainly charge more.
The same with transportation and accommodation. A "three stars", which in Moscow, just a few stops away from the city center, you can find for $15, in Petropavlovsk (PPK) will not be cheaper than 40, whatever the service. And there are just two of them in PPK. An expedition truck (not a minibus) bringing you from PPK to Klyuchevskoi Group and back will cost you from several hundred to a thousand dollars.
Zones
For several decades Kamchatka was a Soviet military outpost in Far East, not salmon, crab or tourism, but missile surveillance stations and nuclear submarine bases being its pivot. Even Soviet citizens had to produce a serious reason to get a permit for visiting the peninsula and any foreigner could only dream about that. The place was so sensitive for the Soviet military, that in 1983 they did not hesitate to bring down a South Korean jet with all its passengers. It had deviated too much and was flying over Kamchatka.
Now you can go there with an ordinary tourist visa, yet the tourist traffic in some areas is still controlled and for them you must have a permit, issued by the Federal Security Service (former KGB). Normally they deal with local tour-operators and do not create problems, but going there on your own, please, have this in mind. Even unwilling "trespassing" may result not only in a fine, which is a small sum, but in much worse thing, i.e. you may have serious problems when getting a Russian visa the next time.
Esso
Driving back down to the Town (as they simply call PPK here) from Klyuchevskoi Group, it is not a bad idea to turn right fairly soon after Kozyrevsk and call at Esso village. Thanks to its ethnographic museum/souvenir shop with items made by the local craftsmen, the place is said to be the center of Kamchatka aboriginal life. Also they call it a Kamchatka Switzerland and envy its inhabitants, their hothouses (heated by free volcanic waters) with grapes and water melons in winter. Yet my deepest impression there happened to be not all those wonders, not even the fast and good telephone connection with the outer world, but the small private hotel, run by a lovable couple of elderly workaholics. The welcome a tired, dirty and craving for normal food traveler gets there is astounding. In that home you will be a friend, lost long ago and found at last. I do not add to this free hot baths and cheap calls to Europe and America. It is address: Esso, Zelyonaya, 10.
Kronotsky Reserve
A piece of information (and advice) for those who are going to draw the line of their route across the Reserve but have a limited amount of money assigned for the whole trip. It is the "price-list" of the Kronotsky Reserve's office, i.e. how much they charge for letting tourists in. In May of 2000 it was changed and now looks like this:
- Right of staying on the territory - $45 a day per person.
- Guide assigned by the Reserve (you cannot walk there without him) - gets $60 a day
Group over 10 gets 2 guides, each getting $60 a day.
- Porter, carrying 10kg, gets $5 an hour.
- Interpreter gets $50 a day.
- Group over 10 have to add 10% to the royalties of $45 a day per person
Advice now. If you keen on seeing a lot of volcanic steam, geysers, cauldrons with bubbling mud and all that, pay $180-200 and go from PPK on a day helicopter excursion to the Valley. If what you want is beauty and wilderness, the real thing, - there is no need to pay this crazy money. It is absolutely not a problem to find all this outside the Reserve, probably except Kronotsky lake with its namesake volcano...But even of that I am not 100% sure.
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Quite naturally people in the West would think a national part or reserve will differ noticeably from the surrounding areas and would want to go inside. In most cases they are right, but not when it comes to Kronotsky Reserve. Those who know it has the status of a "specially guarded territory" and of one of the sites of World Natural Heritage at that, would imagine armed rangers, radios, patrol jeeps and helicopters. Nothing of the kind, except radios. In the first place the reserve is practically not guarded, and, as a matter of fact, does not need it. Sitting in the middle of a total wilderness, it is guarded only by its vast stretches, the absence of paths, not to mention roads, and by bushes of Elfin Cedar. Any trek through the Reserve is a tough affair, but the thing is the Reserve and the neighboring territories do not differ. I for one, when leaving the confines of the former, did not notice the border. That is why the only poaching possible here is with a helicopter. And only by helicopter you can go to the Geyser Valley. Judging from its civilized, groomed look (helicopter pad, chalets, wooden walks, railings), one may get a false impression the rest of the Reserve is about like that. No way. It is as wild as nearly all Kamchatka territory. And there is a lot of much wilder places. The local guide who was working with my group once pointed at the blue Sredinny Range looming across the vast Kamchatka valley and said: "There are valleys there, which have seen no people, probably except Koryak hunters, who might visit them, but not often anyway"
