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Valley of Geysers

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Events / All about visit

The Valley of Geysers in Kamchatka is one of the most spectacular places on the planet. Famous across the world, the valley is hidden from sight in a hard-to-access canyon in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve along the Geizernaya River, a tributary of the Shumnaya River.

The valley, which stretches five kilometers along the canyon, was not discovered until after the establishment of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve. Only in March 1941, the geologist Tatyana Ustinova, moving from the ocean up the Shumnaya River, accidentally came across a warm spring which unexpectedly threw out a jet of hot water and steam ten metres high. This geyser, which was the first one humans ever saw on the peninsula, was given the name Pervenets (first-born). This is how a new unique natural site was discovered. In 2010, the ashes of Tatyana Ustinova, who died at the age of 93 in Vancouver, Canada, were buried in the Valley of Geysers.

There are more than 200 springs in the valley of the Geizernaya River, including about 30 large geysers. Some of them erupt every 10 or 12 minutes, while others only once in several hours. The largest geyser, named Velikan (Giant), spews up to 30 tonnes of hot water during eruption.

Geysers hold a special place among hot water springs. They have alternating periods of dormancy and turbulent activity according to a pattern that varies with the geyser. Each geyser has its personal name, individual character and its own cone - a unique structure made of geyserite layers which has a distinct design and colour, ranging from pastel pink to smoke blue to black. Geyser names emphasise their individual characteristics: there are triple, cone, sugar, pearl, gates of hell, fissure, and horizontal geysers.

Triple geysers and sugar geysers have the most picturesque cones. The emerald-green grass makes a sharp contrast with the clay slopes formed by Kikhpinych Volcano's magma, which has transformed over thousands of years into clay under the influence of hot water, sulfuric acid, tuff and lava. Due to small admixtures of the oxides and salts of titanium, copper and iron, cones take on new colours of carmine-red, violet, bright yellow and snow white.

The valley owes its gorgeous forms and colours not only to the strange cliffs and steep slopes, vegetation, gushes of water and steam, waterfalls and geyserite cones, but also to thermophilic algae and bacteria which develop anywhere with even a drop of water. Geyser water differs little from river water in chemical composition: it is slightly alkaline, sodium chloride water with a calcium sulphate admixture and has low salinity - about 2 grams per litre. Geyser water is good for drinking.

One of the strongest impressions that is made on visitors to the valley is the sound produced there: the powerful noise of the Geizernaya River and the roar of erupting geysers are punctuated with the sloshing of mud lakes, the groans and sighs of steam in the cones, the wailing of the wind in the brushwood and the squeak of swaying trees.

The first attempts to explain how geysers function were made in the early 19^th century. Russians scholars such as Tatyana Ustinova, Sofia Naboko, Henry Steinberg and others had a remarkable influence on the research of geysers. The continuous ejection of water by a geyser requires a rare combination of several natural conditions, such as the underground supply of heat (the interior of Kikhpinych Volcano), plenty of water (to be chiefly absorbed from the atmosphere) and a ramified system of cracks and fissures which connect the source of heat with the earth's surface.

Prior to a geyser's eruption, cold water starts filling its vertical channel (fissures). Then the water is intensively heated in the lower section of the stone tube until it, owing to convection temperatures, reaches the boiling point. The resulting evaporation reduces the weight of the water column, and a mixture of steam and water is spewed out of the cone. Following this, cold water again starts filling the geyser's empty channel through the fissures on its sides and the cycle repeats.

Apart from Kamchatka, large geysers can only be found in Iceland, Yellowstone National Park in the United States, and New Zealand. California, Japan and Tibet each have a few geysers, but they are much smaller in size. However, Kamchatka's Valley of Geysers stands apart because of its beauty, grandeur and the variety of gushing springs and geothermal phenomena concentrated in this relatively small space.

Since its discovery in 1941, the Valley of Geysers has survived two natural disasters, which have changed the landscape of the nature reserve for good. The first blow was dealt at the Valley of Geysers on October 4, 1981, when Hurricane Elsa hit Kamchatka and caused heavy rains, which raised the water level in the Geizernaya River by several metres. The swollen stream of mud and rocks dragged three-metre long boulders along the river bed, smashing everything that got in its way. Many springs disappeared, Geyser Bolshaya Pech (Large Oven) ceased to exist and Geyser Malakhitovy Grot (Malachite Grotto) was seriously damaged.

Twenty-six years later, on June 3, 2007, a landslide buried almost two-thirds of the Valley of Geysers under a huge mass of snow, mud, broken trees and giant boulders.

Contrary to all predictions, the Valley of Geysers, scarred and flooded as it was, began to slowly revive. Geyser Bolshoi (Large), which had been submerged for almost three months, came back to life; other springs have also reverted to their former eruptive activities. A warm emerald-green lake of amazing beauty was formed at the bottom of the canyon; the lake is saturated with minerals of a thermal spring. Hidden under the surface of the lake, Geyser Maly (Small) provided a new surprise: it might be the first time on record that it started erupting deep underwater, driving thermal whirlwinds up to the surface. Animals have returned to their habitats and plants started growing over the boulders left by the landslide.

Harmful human activities, including vandalism by tourists, still remain a serious problem for the Valley of Geysers. In order to conserve the valley's primeval landscape, unorganised tourism was prohibited in 1977. Today, the valley has minimal tourist infrastructure, which is designed to accept tourists who mainly arrive by helicopter.

In 2008, this exceptional place was rightly acknowledged as one of Russia's seven wonders.