Belukha โ€” mountain
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Belukha

  • Elevation4,506 m
  • 2 min read
  • 49.807ยฐ N 86.590ยฐ E
  • UNESCO World Heritage

Interesting facts

  • In 1935 a climbing instructor carried a barometer to the eastern summit and read 4,630 metres, more than 100 metres too high.
  • The height was settled only in 2012, when a satellite survey with instruments on six Altai summits at once fixed the eastern peak at 4,509 metres.
  • The 2012 surveyors set benchmark marks into the summit rocks, meant to last 200 to 300 years so future geodesists can see how the peak changes.
  • The first estimate of its height, made in 1835 by the naturalist Friedrich Gebler, came to about 11,000 feet, over a kilometre short.
  • With a prominence of about 3,345 metres, Belukha is one of the world's ultra-prominent peaks, ranked around 59th by prominence.
  • Below its icefall the Brothers Tronov Glacier moves up to 120 metres a year, far faster than the 30 to 50 metres typical of the massif.
  • The Sapozhnikov Glacier on Belukha, about 10.5 km long and covering some 13 square kilometres, is among the largest glaciers in the Altai.
  • The area has been rising since the Paleogene and is still uplifting today; micro-earthquakes are frequent and shake loose ice and avalanches.
  • Even in summer, frosts down to about minus 20 ยฐC are not unusual on the summit.
  • Belukha is one of the ten Russian peaks a mountaineer must climb to earn the title Snow Leopard of Russia.

Why it is worth it

Belukha is the highest mountain of the Altai and of Siberia, a double-headed massif of ice on the border between Russia and Kazakhstan. Its eastern summit reaches 4,509 metres and the western 4,435 metres, joined by a snow saddle at about 4,000 metres; the Altai name รœch-Sรผmer, "three-headed", and the Kazakh Kadyn-Bazhy, "the head of the Katun", both describe the same great white bulk that dominates the Katun Range. The Russian name simply means "the white one", and it is always white: the massif carries some 169 glaciers covering around 150 square kilometres.

From the Gebler (Katun) glacier on the south-western side flows the Katun River, which runs 688 km northwards before meeting the Biya to form the Ob. On the north side the mountain drops in the Akkem Wall, a near-vertical face of rock and ice that falls straight to the Akkem Glacier; at its foot lies the milky-turquoise Akkem Lake, the classic place to see the whole north face reflected on a still morning. Ice cores drilled on the Belukha glacier in 2001โ€“2003 hold a record of climate reaching back thousands of years.

The first recorded ascent was made in 1914 by the brothers Boris and Mikhail Tronov with E. A. Schneider, by the southern route to the eastern summit. Belukha has long been more than a climbers' goal: Buddhists and followers of the Altai Burkhanist faith regard it as sacred, and it has been linked to the legend of Shambhala. The massif lies within the Katun Nature Reserve and the Belukha Nature Park, part of the Golden Mountains of Altai World Heritage site, inscribed in 1998 for its complete sequence of mountain vegetation zones and its snow leopards, argali and Siberian ibex.

Most visitors never go to the top; they walk or ride with pack horses up the valleys to Akkem or the Kucherla lakes and spend days beneath the mountain. Climbing routes to the summit are graded 3A to 3B in the Russian system โ€” serious mountaineering on glacier and ice.

Getting there

Treks and climbing expeditions start from the village of Tyungur on the Katun, in the Ust-Koksa district of the Altai Republic; the district centre Ust-Koksa is the nearest town with services. The practical airport is Gorno-Altaysk (RGK), roughly 380 km and a full day's drive from Tyungur. From Tyungur the routes lead on foot or with horses up the Akkem valley to Akkem Lake, or from the village of Kucherla to the Kucherla lakes.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Russia 73The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Mountains 7The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders in Russia 13The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Russia 20The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Natural Wonders 38The Most Beautiful Mountains 91The Most Beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Sites 557The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders 580

From the encyclopaedia

Belukha Mountain (; Russian: ะ‘ะตะปัƒั…ะฐ, IPA: [bสฒษชหˆษซuxษ™], also known as Beluga Mountain, Icemount Peak, or The Three Peaks, is the highest mountain of the Altai Mountains and the highest of the South Siberian Mountains system. It is part of the Golden Mountains of Altai World Heritage Site.

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49.80694, 86.58972per Wikidata