Backpacking Into the Mutnovsky Kamchatka Camp

Personally, I like hiking over angular boulders like the ones in this picture. However, we also had to go through quite a bit of deep mud to get to the Mutnovsky camp. Carrying a full backpack through deep mud is quite labor intensive. A number of got our boots swamped during the hike in. I don't think Jones's boots were ever completely dry again. Kamchatka is kind of an odd place, weather wise. I think we actually had more mud than is typical, and I think the excess mud was due to a drought. The rain normally dissolves the snow, and the large flow is able to strip away much of the surface silt. However, in this drought year with little summer rain, the snow melt slowly seeps into the ground and saturates the sediment, causing thick and widespread mud.