!!!Kambalnoe Lake

by Dmitry Moiseenko and Stas Sedov,
members of the [AirPano Team|Geography/About/Consortium/AirPano,_Team] that is a member of the [global-geography Consortium|Geography/About/Consortium]. \\

10 September 2015

with kind permission of [AirPano|http://www.AirPano.com]

The idea of visiting Kambalnoe Lake and meeting bears there occurred to
us in the autumn of 2013, while we were near the Valley of Geysers. At
that time we were photographing the most famous places of Kronotsky
Nature Reserve, such as the Kurile Lake, the Valley, the Uzon Caldera.
Kamchatka was not a region we knew well at that moment, with the only
exception of two-days flight over the erupting Tolbachik volcano. We had
a good look at the panoramas with bears of the Kurile Lake and we
noticed that all the bears are quite young and curious, and sometimes
even small bear-cubs managed to get into shot. But where were all the
huge adult bears that as we had heard could reach 4 meters height while
standing?

[{Image src='01_Kambalnoe_Lake.jpg' caption='Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='423'}]

We spoke to the animal inspector and complained that local bears were
not that big and threatening at all. The inspector showed us a picture
on his iPhone demonstrating a dozen of such huge bears pasturing near
the rifts of some river. And that was the first time we heard the name
‘Kambalnoe'.

[{Image src='02_Bear in the Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Bear in the Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='600'}]

Two years have passed since then and the idea to reach Kambalnoe lake
finally came true. For our purposes we chose the middle of July.
According to our estimations the snow should have melted by then,
letting the bears have fun near the rifts. We bought the tickets in the
very beginning of April. But it is Kamchatka! The local weather decided
to postpone summer for one more month. We were keeping an eye on the
Igor Shpilenok's blog, a famous photographer who had settled in a small
hut on the bank of the lake in March in order to get news from
Kambalnoe. The photos from his blog were foggy and overcast, and even in
June the lake was covered with ice. However, the bears had already
appeared on the elfin wood formations, while the fish was trying to get
through the Kambal river firn.

[{Image src='03_Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia.jpg' caption='Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='489'}]

On the very first day of our arrival in Petropavlovsk, were we were
warned that the weather is unpredictable throughout Kamchatka. The
distance between the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk is only 40
kilometers and the temperature in both water bodies can vary up to
several Celsius degrees, provoking strong winds, fogs and cloudiness...
The chance to witness the sunny and truly ‘summer' weather was very
vague. It was not enough just to get to the Kambalnoe Lake, the way back
was a hard task as well.

[{Image src='04_Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia.jpg' caption='Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='578'}]

The first thing we did on arrival was get acquainted with our guide and
animal inspector Igor Shpilenok. At the place we found two tidy huts
with a toilet stall standing 5 meters away from them. One detail caught
our attention revealing all the exotic characters of this place: in the
toilet we found a hand flare, which can be used for scarring the bears
of. Igor warned us that we should be always careful, even when we leave
to get fresh water from the river near the huts. Moreover, you had
better not leave the hut without a rifle. Actually, we were not willing
to leave the hut at all: the temperature was around 10C?, the wind was
strong and made the clouds fly furiously in different directions.

[{Image src='05_Kamchatka, Russia.jpg' caption='Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='590'}]

The bears that we intended to take photos of could not be found near the
lake, but were catching fish on the river several kilometers away from
our huts. In the morning we set off to seek our ‘actors'. At last, the
sun came out! It became not just warm, but truly hot. According to Igor
Shpilenok, it was the first warm day in  the month. But there was a
disadvantage as well — a lot of mosquitoes and midges appeared.

[{Image src='06_Bear in the Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Bear in the Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='573'}]

Five kilometers down the river we found the first group of bears. We
counted six of them. They seemed to be counting us too. Statistics
indicate that bears practically never attack a group of three or more
people, especially if they stand or walk near each other. Moreover, the
smell of three sweaty people can not be compared to the smell of fresh
fish, so quite soon the bears forgot about us. Some more bears wandered
in the bushes that surrounded us, so we decided to start our work at the
moment when there would be at least ten of them within our view. So we
sat down and were ready to wait for the bears to gather. But no such
luck! All our plans were spoiled by the appearance of a pale-brown
female bear, to whom we gave the name of Blondie. At once almost all of
the bears sniffed the air and lost any interest in the fish: about five
of them followed Blondie and disappeared with her in the bushes...
"Well, that's it. Now we have to wait for a long time and, actually,
there is a chance that they will never
return", — Igor told us. Having spent an hour to realise that the bears
are not interested in food anymore, we launched our drone to
photograph... only three bears. While we were taking photos of those who
stayed indifferent to the female charm, Blondie appeared in the bushes
right on the other side of the river and grinned. In a minute, her
partner came out of the bushes too and they began making love.

[{Image src='07_Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia.jpg' caption='Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='447'}]

Igor told us that polygamy is their lifestyle. In the mating season the
number of males prevails the number of females. And the point is that
during the period of cubs upbringing, which can take up to 3 years,
female bears do not arrange ‘romantic dates'. Moreover, they keep all
the male bears at distance because grown-up bears are cannibals and can
eat the young cubs. Therefore, the suspicions of mother-bears are
reasonable, so is the unusual interest of the males towards some
‘vacant' females.

[{Image src='08_Bears in the Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Bears in the Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='557'}]

As for the weather, we turned out to be extremely lucky! All the days,
except the last one, the sun was shining through the thin layer of
clouds, the snowflakes were melting, bushed were getting green, the
flowers were blooming. During our stay even one starry night occurred,
so I made up my mind to step three meters away from the hut in order to
test my new Nikon D810A, which is perfectly suitable for
astrophotography. (My conclusion is: due to the higher IR range
sensitivity one can catch more stars in a shot, even the Milky Way looks
more saturated. But the noise at higher ISO remained the same as in the
previous model.)

[{Image src='09_Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='455'}]

The south of Kamchatka was finally waking up after a long winter. The
distance we walked daily was 10-12 kilometers with the vertical drop of
150 meters (I was using my tracker on  my smartphone). Our way usually
started at the cordon of Kambalnoe Lake and led to the river cordon
called ‘Modules'. Somehow the animals were attracted to this exact
place.

In a day we got used to seeing bears: when you find around 20-30 of them
every day, the sense of caution gets dull and you are not afraid of them
anymore. In between the drone flights, we could watch their behavior.
Surprisingly, all of them have their own character. For example, little
bears liked splashing, jumping, putting their nose and even eyes down
into the water and watching red salmons. Efficiency of these actions was
quite low, but still they managed to catch some fish in such a way. More
mature bears were not in a hurry and took their time. They just sat on a
stone with a blank expression, then suddenly their paws flapped on the
water, the next moment the fish was pinned on their claws. We even
watched a bear who was not catching fish himself but rudely took the
food from others.

[{Image src='10_Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia.jpg' caption='Kambalnoe Lake, Kamchatka, Russia' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='601'}]

We also managed to create some beautiful landscape panoramas: due to low
clouds covering the earth, we could fly over the fogs and got not only
beautiful views of the lake, but also a unique shot with both the Sea of
Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean in one frame.

And of course, we couldn't do without some technical troubles. On our
second day the power module of our satellite internet device broke down
leaving us without any connection to the world. We had left the currency
rates, political news, "likes" in Instagram and Facebook in some other
life. But Igor Shpilenok suffered more than we did: he could not post
the photographs in his blog and reply to comments. All we were left to
do was get in touch with our main base in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky by
the radio once a day.

[{Image src='11_Bears in the Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Bears in the Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='408'}]

The morning we were scheduled to leave was rainy, the clouds were
constantly either rising or going down. Definitely, the weather was
non-flying. Using our radio we reported bad weather conditions several
times. Though the helicopter in Petropavlovsk was already waiting for a
permission to take off, we began to doubt that we would ever reach
civilization. But this is Kamchatka! On our probably fifth radio session
the sun came out and the blue sky appeared. Thus, we happily reported to
Petropavlovsk— Kamchatsky. No matter that the sky was soon covered with
clouds again, the helicopter was on its way to us! Having escaped the
clouds coming from both Kambalnaya river and the Sea of Okhotsk, the
Mi-8 helicopter finally landed. The pilot meaningfully looked at us and
told all what he thought of such weather conditions. We felt a bit
ashamed of bringing the pilot here and a bit sad at the thought that we
were leaving both Igor and the bears, who had become so dear to us. But
at the same time, we felt happy to be in
time for our catamaran heading for Kuril Islands in a day... But that's
another story.

[{Image src='12_Kambalnaya river.jpg' caption='Kambalnaya river' alt='' width='900' popup='false' height='471'}]

\\ \\
[19 Panoramas of Kambalnoe_Lake|Geography/Asia/Russia/Pictures/Panoramas_of_Kambalnoe_Lake]










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