21-Aug-2017 – Hello.

For that visit I picked a secondary confluence. On the map it looked more accessible than others, so I grabbed my primitive stuff and hit the Samarskoye shosse (Samarskoye highway)at about 2 pm.

This road is a way more scenic than in my previous CP trip, as it goes through the Kalbinsky range and reaches the top at the Umysh pass (1345 m from my GPS track). Lots of serpentine stretches make this road a hard challenge for individuals with vestibular weakness.

I drove through Samarskoye village and in 38 km reached Marinogorka where I left the asphalt road along a dusty field road going through sunflower crops.

After 6.5 km of driving over hills I found a service road going under an overhead power line. This road led me very close to the CP, so I walked through shrubs about 400 m and at 6.15 pm touched the confluence point lying on the western slope of a hill range.

Terrain of the area is dissected. Hills there reach height of 700–900 m above the sea level. Rocks are mostly crystallized shale with sparse veins of quartz. Plants are represented by Rosa rugosa (beach rose) and other shrub species, Stipa and many others.

Once everything was done, I made my way back home. Even though the road surface is good, 200 km of the serpentine mountain road took 3.5 hours.

Thanks for your attention.