Kamchatka - Facts, figures, and my preconceptions

I first heard about Kamchatka sitting in a bar in Krasnaya Polyana. Sacha and Ivan from Croatia, and Tony and I were discussing the idea of going there after the thrill of our first heliboarding trip in Russia. An elderly gentleman lent over and spoke to us. "Until 10 years ago not even Russians were allowed into Kamchatka" he told us. "Kamchatka is controlled by the Russian military and only members of the military or those born in Kamchatka and fishing the Bering sea were allowed there." he explained. With the dismantling of the former Soviet Union access to Kamchatka has improved and there are daily flights, all of 13 hours across 9 time zones, from Moscow into Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (totalling 7500 m or 4690 miles!!!). When last I looked one could also fly into Kamchatka (PKC) from Vladivostock, Magadan, Chabarovsk, Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and internationally from Seoul and Anchorage. The only other access is via sea, either on freight or fishing boats. We managed to score a great deal on getting there from Moscow. Our flight cost Euro 130 for a one way ticket (I am fly out to Vladivostok and catching a train back to Europe after calling curtains on Winter 07/08).

In the two years that the Kamchatka has rolled off my lips, the large majority of people that have any conception of where it is are those that have at some time in their lives played the game of Risk. For those that don't know much about Kamchatka, I have outlined more of what I have learned about it below. I clearly have some preconceptions of what to expect and I think it will be interesting for me to document my expectations prior to my arrival. This is what I know and/or suspect.Kamchatka, a world heritage sight, is also called the Land of Fire and Ice and is a 1250km long volcanic peninsula on the Pacific rim that's stretches 1000 kilometres to the northeast of Japan. I have been told that it is a territory that Japan once laid claim to and there remains a low-level diplomatic dispute over the sovereignty of this territory (a refreshing change from a recent trip to Gulmarg in Kashmir).

There are over 300 volcanoes, of which about 30 are active, with the highest called Klyuchevskaya Sopka being 4750 meters above see level. During the winter, snow stretches from the top of these volcanoes down to see leave and it is possible to board onto the beach. I am looking forward to that.

The main industry in Kamchatka remains the fishing industry but due to its unique and unspoilt nature, tourism to this area is growing. I think I read a few years back that there was no GSM (cellphone) network but I understand that has changed, and finding an ATM isn't too difficult either.

I did read this crazy story about two guys that walked across the Beiring straight from Alaska and, upon their arrival, were detained and imprisoned for immigration violations. Its crazy stuff. Take a look at it.

The population is approximately 400'000 with more than half of those living in the main city, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Until 1990, no foreigners or nonresident Russians were allowed to visit. In 1991, the Russian Federation was established as an independent republic and Kamchatka was opened for visiting by foreign guests.

The main industry is the fishing industry, and there is a greater variety of Salmonid (trout, salmon etc) than anywhere else in the world. I have already made notes on the pictures I want to take of the fish markets.

In terms of skiing and snowboarding terrain, I expect it to be a lot more mellow than Krasnaya Polyana. I think that the geology of volcanoes means that it will not have incredibly steap pitches. I hope I am proved otherwise. I am looking forward to a challenge after Gulmarg.

A 100 day season - its a fulltime job

This trip to Kamchatka should crown what has been the best season of my life so far. I had planned on getting 100 days on my board and the season started well with plenty of snow in Europe. From mid December through to late January I went through a 32 day period where I spent all but four days on my board. By the time the Burton European Open rolled into Laax in late January, my body was aching and rather than riding the mountain hard, I found myself happily sitting in Cafe No Name watching the likes of Kevin Pearce and Shaun White, rather than riding the mountain myself. Some of the enjoyment was lost in my boarding and I soon came to terms with focusing on having as much fun as possible, rather than notching up days and after my knee started to hurt, I took a two week break in early Feb. By the time I reached Gulmarg in Kashmir on 12 February, I had about 45 days under my belt.

I had planned on spending 6 weeks of boarding in the Pir Pingal range in the foothills of the Himalayas but Spring arrived about 2 weeks earlier than I had anticipated and I made an unscheduled trip to Kerala in Southern India for what I thought would be a little sunshine. With only about 65 days on my board, I can comfortably conclude that Winter 07/08 is going to fall short of a 100 day season... but there is no doubt that I have had more fun than ever before.

To add to this positive message, I am today also the proud holder of a Russian Visa. This has been stressing me out somewhat and with changes to the Visa regulations in October 2007 now stipulating that Visa's can only be issued to citizen's or residents of the country in which you apply, I was rather concerned that as an Irish citizen, with Swiss residency, currently in New Zealand, I was going to struggle. The rules allow for some discretion and fortunately for me, my basic Russian clearly curried favour with the embassy staff and I now hold my visa. Spaseeba.

I also got an email from Nikolay of Vertikaly Mir today. "Since your group arrive one day early, I would like to inform you that you can have heliskiing day even on 26th which are normally the day of your arrival. If the weather is good, i recommend you to join the other group for this day, if you want. Like this you have more chance for skiing." Brilliant, I potentially have one more day of powder before I call curtains on the best season yet!

What is more, I got an email from the guys at Option Snowboards on Friday and it looks like they are finally doing something about my Option Freeplus 165 which started delaminating after 20 days of riding. Admittedly I think that there has been a breakdown in communication between the shop at which I bought my board and the Swiss distributor for Option because the people at Option in Canada have always been super helpful. Lets see if Casoar in Vevey, Switzerland come through on this one.

My mind is already on next season, on Gulmarg, on Jason's invitation to Japan, on Richard and Nicole's invitation to Whistler and the promise I made in Casa Veglia to Dave that I would enter next year's BEO slopestyle in Laax. My mind even toys with the idea of cutting short a European summer and heading to Chile or back to New Zealand for more. I think I am getting ahead of myself. For the time being let me focus on getting everything out of the snowcapped volcanoes of Kamchatka. It promises to be better than Krasnaya Polyana and even if it only equals Gulmarg, I will have nothing to complain about. My first possible day back on my board is only 15 days away and counting....

Krasnaya Polyana

Having decided not to go to Kazakhstan, I successfully managed to organise a heliboarding trip in the Caucus mountains in only 6 days. On Monday Tony and I decided to go, by Tuesday morning we had our tickets to Moscow which I booked on ebookers (I had trouble with the Aeroflot site all of Monday night) and queued forever outside the Russian embassy in Bern and paid through our noses for a same day visa, and by Saturday night we were walking around Red square, drinking beer and being lead aimlessly into the Russian night.

Russian night clubs are great. The women are beautiful. Many of the clubs have face control. If you aren't pretty, handsome or rich enough to make it irrelevant, you aren't allowed in. I think that only really applies to locals. How else would I explain the fact that both Tony and I got in without a hitch. Well, I am just being silly because if you have ever seen either of us you would know that we are both super good looking... I would even venture as far as to say that we are blue steel good looking! I wonder how we will cope when we are back in Moscow with Andrew and Colleen in a few weeks en route to Kamchatka?

We really couldn't have organised things nearly this well if it hadn't been for Matt from Waytorussia.com. He was super well organised and we got an excellent deal. Matt, our hotel in Moscow wasn't great. It was part of the Olympic village way back when, but the reality was that we headed into the heart of Moscow and enjoyed the sites, sounds, and drinks, the moment we settled in. I was last in Moscow as a young 15 year old. In 12 years it had changed dramatically. I don't think that does it justice.... but then this blog is about snowboarding and not about the fall of Communism so I will move on.

Traveler's Wisdom Note #2: before traveling in a country, check to see when the clocks change. This, as well as avoiding too much drink the night before, can prevent unnecessarily missed flights.

(Travel Wisdom Note 1. - travel with a trophy to breeze through airport hassles).

It was only upon arrival in our hotel in Krasnaya Polyana on Saturday evening that I noticed that the clocks showed a different time to that of Moscow and on asking the cute receptionist (Christina, clearly distinguishable from Julia) whether we were in a different time zone to Moscow, did I learn that the clocks had moved an hour forward the previous night.

Having run into Dave Downing upon our arrival at Shermetyevo in Moscow, we ran into Jake Burton Carpenter and a crew of his in Krasnaya Polyana on our first night. They too were dining at Mark Testut's fine French restaurant which seemed so out of place in KP. We had a chat to Jeff from Jersey, one of the camera men and learned that they were shooting for the film "For Right or Wrong". We got the low down on the weather and the forecast for the next few days, and were told that we would be certain to see them in the coming days. KP is not a big place. Well it wasn't then. It seems like it is set to go with the 2014 winter Olympics being awarded to Sochi last year. Loads of money was getting pumped into the place when we were there in March 2006.

Krasnaya Polyana was my first heliboarding experience. Having come to snowboarding quite late in my life, and having ridden a lot of the same terrain in Switzerland for the preceding couple of years, I think I was always going to be easily pleased. I am certain that I would go back there, but I would choose to go earlier in the season, and I would attempt to fill the Mi8, which has a capacity of as many as 16 customers, with better riders. The last thing you want is to be taken down easy runs all day because you have some rich Oil Oligarch with his 10 year old son that wants gentle rolling terrain, and he is prepared to pay for whatever it is that he wants. Very quickly epic heliboarding in Russia isn't so cheap and a Russian military helicopter can become a glorified chairlift.

Luckily that didn't happen to us... very often. Our guides were brilliant. They let us skip the runs that we didn't think looked like the goods and we didn't pay for that. On other runs, one of the guides would take one route with the less experienced skiers and Nikolay, the other guide, would take us down more challenging runs.

I think I could have asked for better snow from top to bottom (there we freeze-thaw conditions that you noticed on some of the runs with bigger vertical drops), but that is my fault for only going at the end of March. Every run offered us fresh tracks, and the terrain was endless, with Domba and Mt Elbrus at 5700 meters visible in the distance. We had the opportunity to spot brown bears from the helicopter while we scouted out terrain. The terrain was awesome and untouched and at each drop site, runs to the North East would lead you into Georgia and those to the South West would keep you in the safety of Russian territory with a Russian Ministry of Defence mi8 waiting to pick you up at the bottom of each descent.

Later discussions with Nikolay lead me to learn about Kamchatka and the Russian far east. Heli operations are generally run by Vertikalny Mir in Krasnaya Polyana from January through to March and then in April they head through to Kamchatka. Any earlier in Kamchatka I am told, doesn't guarantee you much flying time as the storms are too frequent. Nikolay and I also spoke about Kazakhstan and he confirmed some of the horrors stories I had earlier heard about. He told me that the snow in Kazakhstan had always been renowned for being very fast and in the former Soviet Union, it had been the place where speed skiing records would always be set. As well as having these strange characteristics, he told me that the snow has a propensity to avalanche at really low pitches of as low as 15%. I don't know how true all of this it is, but on the authority of the guide that I entrusted with my life for the previous week, I was happy to let my imagination turn to new destinations where I could explore my passion.

And thus was the seed planted for my trip to Kamchatka in April 2007 before my knee injury precipitated a postponement to April 2008.