Translated material
Kurai steppe, glaciers from the windows of the car
I have always been very interested in and delayed photos of cities located directly in the mountains. This is such a miracle, in my opinion, to walk along the street and contemplate steep mountain peaks, the "walls" of trees and "carpets" of frozen. Even the city of Gorno-Altaysk almost neighboring with us is much more interesting in the point of view of species from the window. But I love my city, which stands in the steppe. Yes, it is in the steppe, and many still think that since Barnaul is Altai, then the mountains, but there is no Altai-these are also endless steppes, wide lakes comparable to small "seas", you say: "exaggeration", but still it looks like. :-)
Altai is a territory of contrasts. Do you think the tall mountains can go to the steppe in an instant, and then back? Yes, we can, and confirmation of this is the alpine steppes that are located in the midst of eternal ice. Today I would like to tell you about one of these places - the Kurai steppe.
When they ask: “How can we see“ real “mountains?”, I always ask a counter question: “Are you ready to go to such mountains on foot or riding? If not, then get into the car and go to the curiosity.” This is perhaps the only place in Altai where glaciers can be seen from the car window. Not even to see, but to fully contemplate them. Through the Kurai steppe, surrounded by ridges of 4 thousand meters high, the M-52 federal highway is also known as the Chuysky Trakt. This is amazing when such places are so accessible.
The size of the steppe is 20-25 kilometers. This is a place that combines desert areas, coniferous forests, and snow-white mountains, and milky white rivers. It’s interesting to just be in Kurai, if you are an ordinary city man, then there is no need to climb far into those mountains on the horizon, just contemplate the world around, and it will certainly surprise you. More than once I met in Kurai one of the most striking and enchanting sunsets in Altai.
For photographers, I would advise me to stay longer here. In the steppe you can find many interesting points for shooting.
How to get? The Kurai steppe starts from 820 km of the Chuysky tract (M-52 highway: Novosibirsk-Tashanta). This is quite far from Barnaul and Novosibirsk. By car, this will take a full -fledged day on the way. So to speak, "from dawn to sunset." It is best to break the road to Kouya for two days, you will have a time margin and the ability to make stops in interesting places.
Where to live? It is possible to settle with local residents in the village of Kyzyltash, or at a camp site near the village of Aktash (this is not reaching the Kurai 20 km). One of the best options is a tent and away from people to the steppe. The main parking spaces on the road to the Aktr Valley and Lake Dzhangyskol. There are also good places when leaving the steppe towards the village of Kosh-Agach. It should be borne in mind that the movement along the steppe will withstand the passenger car, but the sorties outside the steppe into the mountains are only on the all -wheel drive car.
I will return to the beginning of the post and the topic of cities in the mountains. Purely visually, having discarded all the climatic conditions, this is probably the very place where I would like to see our city. :-) Let it be my crazy, in some way a bad and completely non-ecological thought.