My last Friday on the forest steppe started with rain, closing down our excavation for the day after just 30 minutes. Instead, we drove back to Stepnoye to visit its tiny museum and then cleaned ceramics and bones for the rest of the day. The rain was constantly on and off, but by dinner time it had finally stopped, and the sun appeared.
I had one place in particular that I wanted to see before leaving Stepnoye, Utinyy Nos mountain at 291 meters, and I decided that that evening would be perfect for the hike up there. Tolya had inspired me to go a few days earlier when he showed me a picture of himself on the summit of the mountain, overlooking the village and the river valley. I just knew that I couldn’t miss it.
I asked the others if they wanted to join as I felt sure it wasn’t something they would want to miss, but only Eva felt up for the long-ish hike.
We started around 7 PM and headed out of the village along streets we’d never walked before.
It didn’t take us long to reach the outskirts of the village, where we could see the mountain. It looked close by and easy to get to, but little did we know, it would take several river crossings to get there.
The Uy River is somewhat complex in this area as it bends a lot, and for some reason we just couldn’t figure out how to only cross it once. So we bit the bullet and walked across the river. Stupidly, we had decided to walk over in our shoes which obviously got drenched along with our socks and trousers. For the next crossing, we had our shoes in our hands and walked across in our socks. Don’t ask me why we didn’t do that to begin with…
When we had finally crossed the same river twice, we were right by the foot of the low mountain, by a wooden farm. We still had our shoes in our hands, so we climbed the rocky mountain in socks – a first for the both of us! Thankfully, it was an easy climb, and the view was worth every silly effort.
It was incredible. We could see all of Stepnoye and the surrounding forest steppe with the Ural Mountains in the distant background. No doubt the prettiest place I’ve seen on this trip! And to experience it with Eva made it all the more magical. The two of us clicked instantly from the beginning, and meeting her has honestly been one of my favourite things about Russia!
After a little photoshoot on the summit, we headed back down the mountain to the village. We decided to walk a different way in the hopes of only having to cross the river once, not twice.
But silly as we are, we could not figure out how to do this, so we got just as soaked on the way back as on the way there as we had to cross it twice again… Oh well, we tried. We laughed so hard about our incredibly fun adventure as we approached the village and moments later, the house.
I’m so happy that I got to do some hiking on this trip as it has mostly been about work. This hike was absolutely amazing, and one I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Thanks to Eva (and her silly ideas).
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