Manpupuner Rock Formations

Manpupuner - the name is Mansi and is usually rendered as the little mountain of the idols - is a line of seven pillars standing on a bare plateau in the northern Urals, between thirty and forty-two metres tall, six of them along the cliff edge and one, about thirty-four metres, standing apart; in 2008 they were voted one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. They are what is left of a mountain: hard sericite-quartzite schists that resisted two hundred million years of frost, wind and water while everything softer around them wore away. The Mansi, the indigenous people of these mountains, held the site sacred and traditionally did not climb the plateau. It is inside the Pechoro-Ilychsky nature reserve, a UNESCO site as part of the Virgin Komi Forests, and access is deliberately hard: a permit from the reserve, and then either a helicopter charter, which is expensive and weather-dependent, or a trek of several days each way through taiga and swamp with river crossings. The Dyatlov Pass, which draws its own visitors, is south along the same range.

The landscape

• The seven pillars - quartzite remnants up to forty-two metres on a bare plateau.
• The erosion - two hundred million years that removed the mountain around them.
• The Mansi significance - a sacred site the indigenous people did not climb.
• The access barrier - permits, and then a helicopter or a multi-day trek.

When to go

July to September for trekking; winter snowmobile routes exist. Five days to two weeks on foot, or a long day by helicopter. Permits must be arranged months ahead.

What to expect

Permits are limited and compulsory; going without one is illegal. Helicopter charters are expensive and cancelled by weather regularly. The trek is genuinely hard - swamp, river crossings, bears and no rescue. There are no facilities on the plateau.

Nearby

The Virgin Komi Forests surround it; Yugyd Va national park is north.

Key facts