Kamchatka!

July 1, 2012 5:28 PM

Kamchatka. This place looks amazing, particularly from the snowboard touring/heliboarding angle, combined with some of my favorite things - Volcanos! Bears! Remote wilderness! Hot springs! Have you been there? Got any advice? Tell me your story - logistics? Budget/cost of travel? Best time for great snow? Reputable heli/guide company? Is there a time of the year when you can both hike and tour? Generally speaking, I want this combined with this if it is possible. Help a Siberia newb with no language skills start to plan an adventure? Thanks in advance!
posted by chuke to travel & transportation around Kamchatka, Russian Federation (9 answers total)

I have nothing firsthand to recount, but I can recommend a great fishing documentary, filmed on Kamchatka, Eastern Rises. You might find some inspiration there.
posted by lakersfan1222 at 6:02 PM on July 1, 2012

Maybe it would be cool to go the same time as the winter Olympics? 2014?
posted by bquarters at 6:35 PM on July 1, 2012

I, too, have no firsthand experience.

The only thing I remember about Kamchatka is reading somewhere that one of the indigenous tribes was notorious for being completely unafraid of death.

From A History Of The Peoples of Siberia:

"Like the Koraks and Chukchis, the Itelmens scorned death, so that when losing a battle, they would kill their own wives and children and court death for themselves in a suicidal way rather than fall into enemy hands alive."

To answer your question -- if this askme doesn't pan out, perhaps the Thorn Tree Forums might be more productive.

Good luck and have a great time!
posted by jason's_planet at 6:45 PM on July 1, 2012

Maybe it would be cool to go the same time as the winter Olympics? 2014?

Wait, what? Why? Kamchatka is thousands and thousands of miles away, on the other side of the continent from Sochi. I'd be surprised if anyone out there really cares to any significant degree about 2014. Russia's far east is increasingly remote, marginalized, and depressed. And the inhabited areas of Kamchatka are even more remote than, say, Vladivostok, which at least has some contact with other East Asian nations.

I wish you the best of luck in your search, but I suspect that Kamchatka is poorly equipped to receive and entertain tourists, especially foreign ones. Its main exports are basically natural gas, coal, and fish. The areas gets about 10,000 tourists a year, although there's some interest in developing the sector. Access by air is expensive and time-consuming, and there are few places to stay. Fortunately, there are several volcanoes directly near the largest city (Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka) with some mountain-climbing and skiing facilities. There are also some tour operators who'll take you out to see other things, like geysers, but it's still very unofficial, small-scale, and unpredictable.
posted by Nomyte at 7:30 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Definitely not interested in the Olympics or any Olympic complications. I am aware that Kamchatka is not a tourist destination. It does have a nascent snow tourism industry, but I expect to have to live as do the locals. Would love to hear from folks with some experience with local, day to day and travel logistics.
posted by chuke at 9:00 PM on July 1, 2012

My former coworker did a fly fishing trip in Kamchatka several years ago. It involved flights via Alaska to Petropavlosk, then a terrifying helicopter ride with mid-flight repair out to a fishing camp along a magnificent trout stream with some of the biggest, dumbest trout in the world. I'm sure it cost a fair bit (there's not exactly a lot of seat sales to Petro), but I don't think it was super-crazy; he was a government worker after all.

I don't know what kind of backcountry outdoor experience and skillset you have, but there's backcountry and then there's backcountry. If you get in trouble alone, I'm sure Kamchatka's not so much the kind of place where it's hard to get help as much as the kind of place where no one will ever find your body.

So I'd recommend finding some sort of guide service and making inquiries that way. I don't think it'll be cheap; remote resource towns rarely are. Russian is the obvious language; a little bit goes a long way, and once you learn to read Cyrillic writing you'll find a lot of loan words to/from English (as opposed to, say, French, where they tend to make up their own words).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:54 PM on July 1, 2012

You might have better luck on a Russia-specific forum, e.g. Expat.ru. I did a quick google search and found this thread, with a couple of tour guide recommendations: http://expat.ru/forum/showthread.php?t=74062
posted by Cimrmanova at 2:41 AM on July 2, 2012

I was looking for my favorite Kamchatka factoid from geology class, which I didn't find, but I did find this trip itinerary that might have some useful details for you. The website it is on appears to have a number of guided trip options and trip itineraries.
posted by slidell at 8:03 AM on July 2, 2012

"there's backcountry and then there's backcountry"

Yeah, I didn't bother listing qualifications. One of us is a Wilderness First Responder, the other has extensive experience traveling in remote Mongolia, India and various Canadian locales. We have advanced avalanche training and significant winter backcountry hours. We can puzzle this stuff out, but the Metafilter crowd is often good at surprising me with interesting answers to questions I didn't ask.
posted by chuke at 9:19 AM on July 2, 2012