Mutnovsky Volcano

Mutnovsky is a complex of merged craters rather than a single cone, reaching 2,323 metres, and what makes it the volcano most worth walking into on Kamchatka is that you can walk into it: a breach in the wall lets a route follow a stream through the gap and onto the crater floor, where the thermal activity is at close range. Fumaroles roar out of vents under pressure loudly enough to make conversation difficult, sulphur builds into yellow chimneys and crusts, mud boils, and a glacier sits inside the same crater with meltwater running past steaming ground - ice and active fumaroles within metres of each other. Below the volcano the Opasny canyon carries the Vulkannaya river over the Dangerous waterfall, around eighty metres, and the Mutnovskaya geothermal power station uses the field. Access is off-road only, and the road is often blocked by snow into July.

What you actually see

• The breached crater - a gap that lets a walking route onto the crater floor.
• The fumaroles - vents roaring under pressure with sulphur chimneys and crusts.
• The ice and steam - a glacier inside the same crater as active thermal ground.
• The Dangerous waterfall - about eighty metres into the Opasny canyon below.

When to go

July to September; snow blocks the access road into July some years. A day, or an overnight camped near the base.

Honest expectations

Volcanic gas in the crater is genuinely hazardous and concentrations vary - a guide who reads conditions matters. Thin crusts over hot ground have injured people. The access road needs proper off-road vehicles. Weather can close the crater in cloud with no visibility.

Nearby

Gorely volcano is beside it; Vilyuchinsky is on the road from the city.