On the vast expanses of the north-eastern territory of Russia, between Yakutia and the Khabarovsk Territory, the Suntar-Khayat mountain range stretches. Covered from the northwest by the Verkhoyansk ridge, and from the north-east by the Chersky ridge, for centuries it remained unconquered and uncharted. The name Suntar-Hayat in translation means "mountains of Suntara". Local legends tell about the powerful shaman Shuntar, who possessed great knowledge, but was not distinguished by a meek disposition. No one even wanted to inadvertently incur her anger. People did not want to disturb the mistress in her possessions.
Ancient superstitions are a thing of the past. However, to this day, distant and inaccessible mountains keep many secrets and mysteries. They attract geologists, climbers, travelers, photographers and biologists. And none of them returned disappointed.
Treasure of Siberia
If you go along the Khandyg highway, which connects Yakutsk with Magadan, then with the naked eye you can see the majestic, snow-covered peaks of Suntar-Khayat. The highest point of this ridge reaches nearly 3, 000 meters. And the length of this mountain system is 450 kilometers. By the way, the main peaks and glaciers are located at a distance of 100 kilometers from this same road. And there are simply no other ways.
However, it was the remoteness from the usual and often overloaded communication lines connecting industrial areas that made it possible to preserve the pristine landscape and a sense of true unity with nature. There are still clean rivers flowing from which it’s not scary to get drunk, mountain forests grow that are not disfigured by bald spots, there are rare local residents engaged in reindeer husbandry.
Yakutia and the Khabarovsk Territory, and this is exactly where Suntar-Khayat is located, are rich in minerals. First of all, these are deposits of ore containing silver, copper, tungsten, tin, indium and bismuth. In addition, the region is rich in deposits of gold and precious stones. The search and development of such deposits served as a driving force for the development of the region and the study of mountains. But first things first.
The history of the discovery of the ridge
It was 1639. Cossack Ivan Moskvitin with a detachment of 39 people, having crossed the mountain range, reaches the shore of the Sea of Okhotsk and sets up a winter house there. It became the first Russian settlement on the Pacific coast. The purpose of the expedition was to collect furs, search for new lands and - most importantly - to determine the position of Mount Chirkol, where, according to rumors, there were rich deposits of silver ore. The Cossack did not find the mountain, but it was very important that now a starting point appeared for further research.
But the mountains reluctantly allowed strangers to themselves. Years and decades passed, more and more expeditions were organized, however, the places where the Suntar-Khayat ridge is located continued to be a white spot on the maps. For the first time this area was documented in 1944 by airbrushing. Then the next geological research expedition was sent under the leadership of V. M. Zavadovsky.
The main purpose of this expedition was not the minerals of Suntar Hayat. Scientists had to make an accurate map of the area and describe the relief in detail. Nevertheless, the return was marked by sensational news: the tops of the ridge are covered with glaciers.
Glacier exploration
As early as 1881, the honored geologist and climatologist A.I. Voeikov scientifically substantiated the impossibility of the presence of glaciers in Eastern Siberia. He built his conclusions on the fact that in this area the temperature is very low in winter, but the total annual precipitation is minimal. In 1938, L. S. Berg supported this assertion in his work, Fundamentals of Climatology.
And now, after only six years, the Zavodovsky expedition brings evidence that glaciers exist. Three years later, information was already collected about 208 glaciers covering the Suntar-Khayat ridge. The description is made according to the data collected by aerial photography. The total area of glaciers, according to geologists, amounted to 201.6 square kilometers. And their total volume reached 12 cubic kilometers.
So on the maps appeared reliable information about the mountains of Suntar-Hayat. The photographs, which were classified and cataloged, helped to determine that the main ice masses, as expected, are concentrated at the highest points: on the peaks of Mus Khai, Berill, Vaskovsky, Obruchev and Rakovsky. All of them have a height of more than 2700 meters above sea level. One of the glaciers is named after the Soviet doctor of geographical sciences, who made a great contribution to Russian geomorphology and regional physical geography. This is the Soloviev Glacier. Suntar-Khayat - a ridge in Yakutia that keeps the memory of a Russian scientist. But there are many of their own legends.
Legend of the Guardian of the Mountains
Not always the most formidable and highest peaks are covered with legends. Among the Yakuts and Evenks there are many tales of Mount Alton. This is a relatively small peak, rising 1542 meters above sea level (for comparison, Mount Mus-Shaya reaches 2959 meters, which is almost twice as much). Legend has it that in the very heart of the mountain there is a magical lake. In the center of this amazing underground pond is a throne carved from a single piece of jasper of amazing beauty. And on the throne sits Elder Alton - the stern guardian of the mountains. The magical water of the lake grants him immortality. This water can heal a person from any ailment. But no mortal dares to approach Lake Altona. Yes, and climb the mountain, not given to everyone. Only great shamans communicating with the world of spirits come there to listen to the will of their ancestors.
In time immemorial, when the world was still young, there was a lot of game in the forests, and the rivers were full of fish, a brave Evenk youth lived. He was young, strong, handsome, and respected in his father’s house. The young man showed himself to be a brave and successful hunter. He never returned to the family fire without prey.
Once during a hunt a young man heard singing in the distance. As if a brook gurgled merrily, as if the wind whispered softly, as if the Sun itself had given its warmth to this amazing voice. The young hunter, forgetting everything, followed the wondrous sounds. The voice belonged to a beautiful girl, in whom the hunter fell in love without memory, as soon as he saw. His feelings turned out to be mutual and soon the young people were already preparing for the wedding.
But then misfortune happens. The beloved hunter becomes ill and begins to weaken before his eyes. Neither grass, nor conspiracies, nor rituals of shamans can save her. In desperation, the hunter turns to the oldest member of the tribe. And the old man tells him how to get to the magical lake of the keeper of the mountains. He warns him of the danger. Guardian Alton does not tolerate intruders. Only twice a year, during the autumn and spring equinoxes, he leaves his throne and at night rises to the summit of Mount Suntar-Hayat.
A young hunter, fast as a mountain chamois and resolute as a snow leopard, sets off. How long, how short it is, but in the end it reaches the mountain, finds the entrance to the cave, waits for the night and penetrates the lake for the precious moisture for its beloved.
But the young man failed to hide from the gaze of Alton. Angry, the elder brought down a rockfall, which blocked the entrance to the cave leading to the lake, so that it was not mortal for mortals to join its waters. And the adamant mountain keeper forever made the young hunter his squire.
Mount Alton
And today Mount Alton is notorious among the local population. Hunters claim that even wild animals bypass the inhospitable mountain. Not far from the mountain, flying over the ridge of Suntar-Khayat, whose geographical position was already well studied by then, a helicopter crashed. The crash claimed the lives of three people. Some tourists also paid for their lives by stepping on the treacherous slopes of Alton. All this only fueled old beliefs. However, similar statistics are not uncommon in other places. And simple coincidences are most often only used to confirm what are deeply convinced without them.
The attitude to the mountain and its surroundings is reflected in the names. On the spur itself there is a rock called the Devil's Finger. Near the foot there is a place known as Devil's Cemetery. There are bones of deer, weathered and whitened from time to time. Apparently, animals go here when they feel the approach of death.
Under the Devil's finger on the vertical section of the slope you can see the entrance to the cave. According to legend, there begins a long tunnel, at the end of which there is a lake with healing water. But you can get into the cave only with special climbing equipment. And although they did not find the miraculous lake, they found, nearby the mountain, the Volchiy stream and several keys that hit the ground. The water in them, of course, is not magical, but definitely healing. With regular bathing, minerals leached from the bowels of Suntar Hayat help cure many skin diseases and even relieve aches in bones.
The role of rivers in the relief of Suntar Hayat
The Suntar-Khayat ridge is a watershed of the Hunt, Indigirka and Aldan. There are many beautiful and full-flowing rivers in this territory. The most developed river system of tributaries is Indigirka. The rivers Kongor, Aghayakan, Suntar, Azeikan and Kuidusun flow into it. The waters of Tyra, East Khandygi and Yudoma are collected in Aldan. And Okhota, Delkyu-Okhotsk, Ulbeya, Urak, Kukhtuy and Ketanda flow into the Sea of Okhotsk.
The presence of so many rivers could not but affect the formation of the relief. Rivers cut deep young gorges all over the ridge. If you look from space, this area looks as if a huge giant crushed the mountains for some reason, like a sheet of paper. A terrestrial observer can enjoy the picturesque view of the waters running through broken canyons and tearing down noisy and iridescent waterfalls.
However, only a select few can contemplate such beauty. Because to overcome these rivers is not easy. Crossings through them are fraught with many dangers. The rapid current, frequent shivers (shallow areas with randomly scattered boulders along the bottom) and rifts (shallow, shaft-shaped areas with a loose bottom) seriously complicate the task. In addition, the water level in rivers often fluctuates sharply. This is due to the fact that they feed not only due to precipitation, but also due to the melting of the ice sheet and taryn (layered ice freezing in the valley over the winter).
Labyngkyr Lake
There are many lakes in the region where Suntar Hayat is located. Most often, they owe their origin to glaciers. The vast majority of these are small ponds enclosed in a frame of talus. A pleasant exception in this regard is Lake Labyngkyr. Climbing to a height of more than a thousand meters above sea level, it is spread over 14 kilometers in length and approximately four kilometers in width. Its depth is also considerable - in places it reaches 53 meters. The water is amazingly clean. In the northern part, water transparency is about ten meters.
There are a lot of fish in the lake - grayling, pike, lenok, swamp, char, whitefish, malma and others. The largest fish is burbot. But fishing is not very developed here. It is believed that over the past two decades, only sixty kilograms of fish have been caught from the lake. And this is not surprising. The terrain here is difficult to access, and in winter it’s better not to meddle here. After all, the area in which Lake Labyngkyr is located is the coldest in the Northern Hemisphere.
The water in Labyngkyr is always cold. Even in the hottest summer season, its temperature does not rise above nine degrees. Surprisingly, this lake freezes much later than the rest. While the neighboring lakes are already quietly trucked, Labingkyr is barely covered with coastal crust of ice. Even in severe sixty-degree frosts, it is dangerous to ride along this reservoir. The machine can suddenly fail at any moment and go under water.
Flora of Suntar Hayat
A variety of vegetation at the end of summer paints the entire district, flowing with amazing colors along the Suntar-Khayat ridge. Gold, purple, turquoise, green and orange scales - all this against the background of majestic dark peaks with snow-white caps that support the blue of the sky, creates a fantastic picture.
The flora itself has a pronounced vertical zonality. From 2000 meters and above begins the high mountain desert. Nothing grows there. The mountain tundra is located in the range from 1400 to 2000 meters above sea level. At the uppermost borders, only mosses and lichens are kept, which extract nutrients from ancient moraines (sediments accumulated by glaciers). Further, lower on the slopes, alpine poppies, golden rhododendrons and rare low-growing dwarf willows begin to boldly appear with rare islands.
Even lower, already a continuous strip, stands a cedar elfin. He boldly rises above the earth a meter and a half. Among the elfinch, Middendorff birches and Daurian larch are already found. Well, the lower terraces of the slopes, starting from about 1, 500 meters above sea level, are covered with real deciduous forest.
Representatives of the fauna
The taiga fauna is rich and diverse. There are moose and herds of wild reindeer. The Suntar-Khayat ridge is the focus of the range of a rare snow sheep. This is a rare species with an isolated habitat. At present, the bighorn sheep is under the protection of the law on the conservation of rare animals.
In forests and even on stony placers high in the tundra live large gray hares and white hare. Red and black squirrels, as well as brisk flying squirrels, find refuge in mountain and flat deciduous forests. Chipmunks scurrying through thickets of bushes are found everywhere. Next to them lives a rather rare species of Kamchatka groundhog. There is a large population of eurasque (American long-tailed gopher) in this area.
