Primorsky Ridge: The Place Where the Earth and Sky Meet
© Фото: Первый Байкальский и Станислав Миков
August, 26

Primorsky Ridge: The Place Where the Earth and Sky Meet

Traveling along the Primorsky Ridge is one of the most underrated attractions of Lake Baikal: it is the best way to see the most beautiful places of the lake from a bird’s eye view.

Mountains are one of the most awe-inspiring places on the planet. It is impossible to imagine the panorama of Lake Baikal without them, no matter from what point you look at it. The mountain ridges framing the lake are all different - they differ in size and relief, but they are similar in one thing: the mesmerizing beauty of the views opening from their tops. The Primorsky Ridge stretching along the western side of the Baikal Basin in Irkutsk Oblast is peculiar due to its expressiveness, diverse surface, as well as seclusion and silence. The source of the Angara River, on the one hand, and the Ongurenskaya Valley, on the other hand, are the “extreme” points of the ridge; the distance between them makes up approximately 350 km and contains a rather narrow (30-50 km wide) ridge covered by forest. The ridge is crossed by the Baikal rivers - Goloustnaya, Bolshaya Buguldeika, Anga, and Sarma.

The watershed of the rivers Kocherikovo and Anai is also the junction of the Primorsky Ridge and the Baikalsky Ridge.

The surface relief of the Primorsky Ridge is very special and “unstable”. In the beginning, it is characterized by very small heights, up to 200 meters. But the height of the prevailing tops is gradually increasing and reaches an average of about 900 - 1000 meters. Experts stress the fact that the ridge takes on an alpine character in the northwestern part of the lake, behind the Ilga River.

The versatility of the landscape is confirmed by the very picture of this complex of ridge-forming chains that include relatively flat watersheds, impressive but smoothed peaks, steep banks, and rocky ridges… In the places where the ridge meets Baikal, steep cliffs and high, sharply defined capes protruding into the water can usually be seen. Foothills are almost absent in such places, but, as you go away from the coast, the mountains become smoothed, whereas their absolute heights increase. For example, within the Pokoinikov Cape, the ridge becomes more and more rocky; and in the northeastern end of the lake it is supplemented by pointed peaks separated from each other by a series of basin-like upper reaches of mountain streams: snow often does not melt in their valleys during the entire summer. 

If you look at the map, you can see that the Primorsky Ridge coincides with the southern line of the Baikal coast, but in the vicinity of Buguldeyka it departs from the lake for a while, returning back to the coast on the line of the Tazheranskiye Lakes. It is the place where the ridge merges into the Tazheran Plateau

All in all, we can say that the western slope of the ridge is gentle, whereas the eastern slope is a steep cliff with its rocks descending to Lake Baikal.

Interestingly, the island of Olkhon is a spur of the Primorsky Ridge; and its slopes descending to the lake are included into the Pribaikalsky National Park.

Centuries are Compacted into a Moment Here

Приморский хребет: выше – только небо@Приморский хребет: выше – только небо
Приморский хребет: выше – только небо
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov
© Photo: Stanislav Mikov

It is difficult enough to precisely define the age of the Primorsky Ridge. The fact is that the territory of the lake is truly a catastrophic region where earthquakes occurred and are still occurring, with the changes in the level of the earth’s surface, landslides. All these phenomena have literally mixed rocks of different periods; so the oldest, not the youngest, deposits often appeared on the surface. To be more precise, the oldest components of the ridge are granites, and the younger ones are quartzites, schists, sandstones, limestones, as well as marine deposits that appeared here about 700 million years ago, when the margin of the sea basin was situated on this territory.

The Sky is the Limit

The routes connected with the Primorsky Ridge are suitable for long trips and, surprisingly, are not similar to other tourist meccas of Lake Baikal. These alpine regions, located at a distance of only 8-10 kilometers from the coast, are not a place of mass inrush of tourists, and, therefore, are almost untouched by civilization.

However, the most exciting things in journey along the ridge are the views opening from its peaks.

The Peschanaya Bay is the only zone in the Baikal region with an average annual temperature above zero degrees Celsius. It can boast of unique landscapes and turquoise-colored water. The beach of the Peschanaya Bay has become almost a postcard view of the lake and we probably know why...

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The relic natural complex of Tazheran Massif bumps into the Primorsky Ridge from the north-west. The maximum width of the steppe strip going from Baikal to the Primorsky Ridge along the line of the Ulan-Nur Cape - the Moryany Bald Mountain makes up about 15 km. One of the interesting landscape objects of the Tazheran Steppe is the Tan Khan Mountain, which is not only the highest point (990 m), but also a cult, sacred place among shamanists. The name of the mountain is translated as “the god of darkness”.

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“Beauty beyond words”: this is the way tourists describe Buguldeika - another village that can be seen from the peaks of the Primorsky Ridge. The village is situated in the middle between the two most visited places on Lake Baikal - Listvyanka and Maloye More Strait; Buguldeika makes people happy with its tranquility and interesting natural objects, such as, for example, Mishkina Mountain. It was named so not in honor of the bear – the Master of the taiga (sounding similar to “Mishka”), but of a local shaman called Mishka. According to a legend, this shaman was performing rites and contacting the spirits of the mountain coming out of the gates opened therein.

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“Key to Baikal” thanks Stanislav and his “Dal Svetla” channel (its title translated as “Light Horizon”) on the Yandex.Zen platform and wishes him many new trips to Lake Baikal and its surroundings.

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