The Kyshtym Mountain Node

Description

West of Kyshtym lies a combination rare for the Southern Urals: a mountain, a lake at its foot and a cave on its slope form a single natural complex of three protected monuments. The points sit within a few kilometres of each other, so the route is built as a loop — from the town outskirts up Sugomak, along the crest to Egoza, and down to the cave; in one day you collect the entire Kyshtym node. From Yekaterinburg it is about a hundred and fifty kilometres, from Chelyabinsk about ninety. Sugomak Mountain reaches 590.8 metres; the trail starts right at the western edge of town, and the climb takes forty to sixty minutes. The summit is rocky, the slopes covered with mixed forest with rare plants; from the top you can see Lake Sugomak at the foot and Kyshtym itself. Nearby are the Maryiny Slyozy spring and the bare-rock outlier Golaya Sopka, about fifty metres high. Along the crest, in two or three hours, you can cross to Egoza — the highest point of the surroundings (607.7 metres). The name is a Russian reworking of the Bashkir for “entrance to the intermontane valley”. In winter a ski centre operates on the slope, in summer the slopes are used for walks; from the summit open panoramas of Kyshtym and the Sugomak and Iryash lakes. The descent leads to Sugomak Cave — the only cavity in the Urals washed out by water in marble. The studied part stretches for a hundred and twenty-three metres and consists of three grottoes linked by narrow passages: the first is partly lit from outside and accessible even to children, the second is reached through a narrow slot with a torch, and the third begins with a vertical shaft about six metres deep — only cavers have descended there. In late winter and early spring the first grotto is decorated with snow crystals and ice stalagmites.