Mount a large saddle on the map. Kislovodsk

Mount Small Saddle is a natural landmark and excellent Observation deck, which offers a beautiful view of the city of Kislovodsk. Its height is 1325 meters, in good clear weather from the top you can admire the beauty and grandeur of the mighty Elbrus. Not far from the Small is the Big Saddle - a mountain whose height reaches 1409 meters.

The Small Saddle is part of the Kislovodsky National Park, which is home to native and exotic tree species. The abundance of vegetation and the richness of the animal world allow you to enjoy the beauty of the local nature and take a break from the noisy city life. People come here who want to restore and strengthen their health, which is facilitated by the mild climate and clean air. There are several trails of health paths along the territory of the park - recreational walks and a hiking trail that will lead to the Small Saddle mountain.

Preparation for the ascent

The summit attracts many vacationers who come to Kislovodsk. Climbing the mountain is carried out all year round because nature reveals itself differently at different times of the year. In spring and summer it is nice to enjoy the greenery, flowering and aromas in the air. In autumn, the poetic charm of the elegant dressing of trees delights. The winter landscape is truly fabulous, and the air in the mountains is fresh.

To make the walk memorable and enjoyable, you need to choose comfortable clothes that will not hinder movement. Shoes must also be suitable for walking in mountainous terrain. It is important to remember that the air in the mountains can be cool even in warm weather. summer days, so it is worth taking a sweater or windbreaker with you. The local weather is often capricious, the rain can take you by surprise quite suddenly, it will not be superfluous to take an umbrella or a raincoat. A headdress will also come in handy, which will save you from scorching sun, and from the oncoming wind. In addition, it is worth taking drinking water with you and food if you wish - you can have a picnic at the top or on the way, it will allow you to restore the strength that will be required for the way back. If you do not want to take food with you, you can have a bite to eat at the food outlets located in the park.

Routes

Depending on physical fitness and availability of free time, there are several options for traveling to the top of the Small Saddle.

The fastest and least tiring option is to get to the mountain by taking the cable car most of the way. To do this, you need to reach the lower station, located near the pavilion "Temple of the Air". The ride by cable car will take about 8 minutes, the cost of the service is 200 rubles. from an adult and 120 rubles. from a child aged 5 to 10 years. From the top you have great views of the park and surroundings. The upper station is located next to the Olympic complex, from here it is about 2 km on foot to the top of the mountain. Depending on the speed, this journey takes an average of 40-60 minutes. If after the ascent there are strengths and a desire, then it is worth getting to the top of the neighboring mountain Big Saddle, which offers a breathtaking view of the surroundings of Kislovodsk. The way back can be done completely on foot or walk to the cable car and go down on it.

Another option is more energy-intensive, but at the same time more picturesque and interesting. This hiking route, which goes to the choice of health path No. 2 or No. 3 and then, not reaching their end point, goes to hiking trail.

Please note that the walking route is quite long, people who do not have health problems can overcome it. The route along the health paths to the tourist trail is about 5 km, the trail to the Small Saddle Mountain goes for almost 6 km.

Terrenkur No. 2 is easier - the angle of inclination of the path is moderate, part of the route passes through a pine forest. On a hot day, the shade from the trees saves from the scorching sun and gives coolness, and the air of the coniferous forest is not only pleasant, but also useful. The route starts from the Narzan Gallery, along its length there are such sights as the Lermontov platform, the Colonnade, the Chess House, the Royal platform, the Temple of the Air pavilion.

Terrenkur No. 3 is considered a difficult route, it has steeper climbs and is designed for fairly good physical fitness. It starts at the same point, passes by the Royal site, through the Red and Gray stones, in a certain place it connects with the second route. It is necessary, before reaching the end points of the route, at 52 stations to go to the right - to the tourist trail. She passes through picturesque places, on the way there are natural grottoes, caves and viewing platforms.

You can combine a hiking route and a cable car ride - walk to the top of the mountain, and then go down the cable car or vice versa.

How to get there

The path to the top of the Small Saddle mountain passes through the Kislovodsk National Park, the nearest stop to the beginning of the route is Colonnade. Next, you will need to go to the lower station of the cable car or overcome the path along the health path, and then along the hiking trail.

You can also get to the park by car or using taxi applications: Yandex. Taxi, Gett, Red Taxi.

View from the Small Saddle mountain: video

In my photo sketches, I often talked about the mountain, and the mountain next to it, although not so often visited, but also inhabited and no less loved, for some reason was left without attention.

I will try to correct this omission and devote several subsequent posts to detailed photo stories about the Small Saddle (hereinafter - MS).

The road to the MS starts immediately from the top of the Red Sun.

The gazebo, which is visible in the photo, meets those who have risen on the lower peak of the MS - it just so happened that in the Caucasus the mountains are "traditionally two-headed" (just kidding)

The MS is famous for the fact that on its "saddle" there is an upper station of the cable car and, further, at an altitude of 1250 m above sea level. - Olympic sports and training complex (more precisely, its upper base).

In total, the height of the MS (upper peak) is 1325m, and from there wonderful views of Kislovodsk, the Dzhinalsky Range, the pasture range of the Bechasyn Plateau, indented by numerous "velvet" canyons, and, of course, Elbrus, which from the MS is visible almost from the base, open up.

But everything is in order.
Today we will just start the hike and take our time to look at everything around.

* Ascent to the mountain Small Saddle *

The straight road leading to the MC from Red Sun is quite steep at first and not easy to walk in the heat (you go from shade to shade).

In the photo, the angle of elevation seems to be more gradual, but remember those pines that start immediately after the open area - the next photo is from them.

* View of the top of the Red Sun from the pines from the previous photo. *

Further you can see part of Kislovodsk, waves of mountain ranges. On the "penultimate" ridge, the Beautiful (Red) mound sticks out in a triangle, behind it (to the right) rises Rim-mountain (where an ancient human settlement was found), and even further - the Borgustansky ridge goes beyond the horizon.

We were looking to the West. And now let's turn our heads to the left, to the South - there we are kept company, amiably sparkling with snow, not just anyone, but the main deity of the Caucasus:

* From this height, Elbrus is visible somewhere half its height *

And not far from us, aerial trams of the cable car run (there are two of them, red and yellow):

* View from the slope of the Small Saddle to the pasture range of the Bechasyn Plateau and Elbrus *

From time to time along the road there are such drains for water:

*Road for the brook*

Gradually, the straight road turns into a serpentine, rising along the rocks:

* Serpentine *

I admired the masonry of the wall (made of the same red sandstone as the path that runs along the health path):

* Red sandstone wall *

In the same place, on the side of this path, for the first time in my life I saw a white "watch" (the ones that I had seen before were always pink):

* Field carnation or simply "watch" *

"Watch" because if you take the flower by the receptacle with your thumb and forefinger and make them move like winding a mechanical watch, then the flower petals will rotate like clock hands. Such is the sad experience of childhood.

But let's digress from the wall and the plants near it and see what happens on the opposite side of the path. And there already the yellow tram enters the gorge, having overcome it, it will reach the upper station of the cable car.

* cable car to the Olympic complex *

Big saddle, Small saddle, Kislovodsk hills, so affectionately called in Kislovodsk uplands of the Dzhinalsky ridge coming close to the resort from the east. Although these slides cannot be called children's - their altitude marks are 1325 meters above sea level at the Small Saddle and 1409 meters at the Big.

Kislovodsk hills have always been especially revered by vacationers. Another guide to Kislovodsk, published in 1915 by Grigory Moskvich, indicated that to the saddle mountain you can ride in a carriage. Now the crews have replaced buses and cars, and even faster, a suspended cable car trailer.

But since we decided to travel on foot with you, then let's not deviate from our rules. After all, the speed of achieving the goal deprives us of all the charm of communication with nature, the opportunity to breathe in the healing mountain air and admire the unique landscapes of Pyatigorye.

Walk in the Kislovodsk parks. Narzanskaya gallery.

Let's not break our traditions and go for a walk in the Kislovodsk parks on our own two feet. And we will begin our journey from the Narzan Gallery, the remarkable creation of Samuel Upton.

The Narzan gallery was built in the late Gothic style, and is very similar to the old castles of good old England, where the architect who built this wonderful creation came from. The gallery is not only an architectural decoration of Kislovodsk Park, it is also the first starting point for most walks and excursions around Kislovodsk. It is here that the zero mark of all the routes of therapeutic walking - health paths - is located.

Map of therapeutic walking routes - health paths of Kislovodsk, click to enlarge.

Our route will pass through the famous Kislovodsk park, first along the riverbed, where the first tree plantings were made almost two hundred years ago. Some of these giants have survived to this day. And how many magnificent paintings created by nature and beautiful creations of human hands you will meet on the way and cannot be counted.

These are the playful streams of the Olkhovka River, and the bizarre outlines of its stone bed, and the domes formed by trees along its banks, and the flower beds full of flowers.

Mirror pond in Kislovodsk park.

On the opposite bank of Olkhovka, be sure to visit the Mirror Pond with the famous glass jet . I advise everyone to stop for a while and admire this architectural toy up close, as well as an elegant bridge with beautiful name « Ladies whim ". This bridge is known to every adult by stickers on the sparkling wine of the same name, it is located in the park of Kislovodsk, thrown over Olkhovka, but who of you knew about it?

Bridge "Lady's Caprice" - Kislovodsk, photo.

After the bridge, turn left, this is where the ascent to the first low and fully cultivated more than a century ago begins. It was here that at that time it was broken and new park, later called the Middle, after the breakdown of the Mountain Park began above it in the 30s of the 20th century.

Now, together with the Lower Park near Olkhovka, they make up a single unique green area of more than 1,300 hectares - a wonderful example of landscape gardening art and an ideal park recreation area. Here, more than 300 species of trees and shrubs and 800 species of herbaceous plants grow in the alleys.

Kislovodsk Valley of Roses.

Kislovodsk park

An unforgettable sight is the Rose Valley located in the park, when thousands of its bushes are covered with flowers of the most fantastic colors. The life-giving breath of trees and herbs, combined with amazingly clean air, gives health to all those who have arrived in the city for treatment or simply come to admire the beauty of the Kislovodsk Hills. Personally, I think that from all medical parks Caucasian Mineralnye Vody Kislovodsk park is the most curative. They pass through the squares of the park zone, along the paths of which we will follow further on our virtual walking tour.

I have been spinning summer photos from Kislovodsk for a long time, and in the end I realized that I would never post them, so I decided to close my eyes and post them as they are.

In July 2011, during the two weeks I was there, only a few sunny and clear days fell, the rest of the time it rained constantly. But surprisingly, it was last year that I still managed to stomp to the Upper Saddle and even see Elbrus from these angles for the first time. In 2010, despite the dry and hot summer at the same time, I was not lucky to reach the Upper Col - already on the approaches to it, freezing rain drove back, falling instantly as if from a huge heavenly vat, nor Elbrus to see - always hiding in a haze .

This time, I practically did not photograph the busiest tourist areas on Kurortny Boulevard and in the lower part of the park - although these are beautiful, but already beaten places, yes, I had them before. Running quickly past them, each time I hurried up and up, to the most sparsely populated, but the most interesting part of this huge park for me (the largest in Europe - more than 1350 hectares, 200 years of history, more than 100 km of health paths).

1. The sandy road winds through the coniferous forest, the rise here is almost not felt, the air is dizzying and silence.

2. In the rain, these paths become quite slippery, so you have to be careful going down them.

3. Blocks hang overhead, on which petrified snakes and lizards seem to bask in the sun.

4-5. But the park is full of not only stone animals, but also real ones that love nuts and seeds, for example.

7-8. Or feathered-winged, singing-chirping in different voices to the accompaniment of silence.

9. If you got here, it means that you have walked 5.8 km from the Narzan Gallery (the beginning of the park), overcame an elevation difference of 245 meters and are on Mount Red Sun, just in front of the monument to M.Yu. Lermontov, looking out from behind your back Elbrus on the horizon.

10. If you look a little to the right from this place, you will see an overview of the lower part of the park. In the foreground are rocks, now also famous for the fact that just over there from that flat stone a little further from the place where the guy with the camera is standing, timag82 did shooting his circular panorama as I understand it. I admit, the place is scary, I decided to do the most - to sit on the stone, where the guy is standing, to take a picture.

11. However, the abyss below does not scare many at all, they climb like true stuntmen, without any insurance.

12. From this place further to the Blue Stones the road will go up rather steeply and the untrained will have to breathe a little more often and deeper than usual. Well, or according to the smart principle, it won’t go uphill, you can go down, reach the cable car station (in the summer it works all the time if there is no rain) and drive up in a few minutes. Once I also joined the smart company to take a picture of the Blue Stones from this angle:

13. And here you can see a piece of a winding path, lost in pine forest, for those who decided to overcome the rise on their own.

14. In good weather, for those who were not too lazy to get up early, if the gray-haired volcano has a mood, then he can reward the afflicted with the contemplation of his two-headed cap. After 10-11 days, as a rule, it is already covered with a barely noticeable haze and it hides. If you walked, it means that a distance of 5.5 km will be rewound to this point on your speedometer and the difference in heights overcome from the beginning of the path will be some insignificant 350 m (absolute height 1167 m).

15. From here to Elbrus is about 65 kilometers, far away ... But if Elbrus does not go to you, then you can approach it at least a little, even if only for a few kilometers. To do this, from the Olympic complex, you need to go deep along a narrow path where no human foot has set foot and only rare tourists decide to send them on that path, into the dense forest (almost no joke).

There is only one path, it doesn’t turn anywhere, it doesn’t offer to choose right-on-nale-directly, but just goes to itself and goes across rough terrain right to the Small Saddle. Sometimes, with a wild crunch amid the deafening silence, a maniac can jump out onto the path, or rather a maniac in the guise of a horned ruminant artiodactyl - do not be alarmed, they do not touch anyone, they are just curious who else is grazing here. I really got scared and out of fear I missed with autofocus, well, nothing, the horns seem to be visible.

16. Closer to the goal, the forest parted, the alpine meadows and a view of the horizon.

17. Riders on the Dzhinal Ridge.

18. And here is Elbrus from the Small Saddle (in zoom), we are at an altitude of 1332 m, 7.5 km have been covered behind our shoulders, the elevation difference of our path was 515 m. Well, now we can rest on our laurels.

19. However, as the ancient Chinese said, “to see the great, move away from it at some distance,” perhaps you should heed their advice and climb the Big Saddle - there, the second hat on the right is not covered with forest.

20. It is only some 2 kilometers from the Small Saddle, this highest point Kislovodsk environs (1410 m), the elevation difference from the lowest mark of the city - the Narzan Gallery is 593 m.

21. And here it is a red flag with a triangulation sign - the height is taken!

22. The city is somewhere far away and below, in optical zoom.

23. And actually here it is - a dormant volcano. A bonus to it from this height is also the view of the Main Caucasian Range.

24. Coming back, I notice a rock that seems to me like a sphinx, or at least the petrified muzzle of a dog.

Well, at the end of a few familiar views of the city.
25. Bridge "Lady's Caprice" over the river Olkhovka.

26. View from Mount Sosnovaya to St. Nicholas Cathedral.

27. Memorial to those who died in the Great Patriotic War.

28-29. Resort boulevard. Another thing I like about Kislovodsk is that even a gloomy rainy day here seems bright and sunny due to the abundance of bright flowers and flower beds.

View of Elbrus

On Saturday, we set off in the direction of the Dzhinal Range as a friendly company.

It was decided to get to the village of Narzanny and from there go along the Olkhovka gorge to Dzhinal. However, this was not destined to come true. The bus, which left at 8.10, had just left, and we were advised to get to the Zarya sanatorium and from there go towards Dzhinal.

It seems the road goes to Jinal ...

At first, the path seemed to be clear, a good asphalt road led exactly to the FSB dachas, then it turned right and ended. On the beaten road we climbed a hillock, passed a small forest and ended up, as it turned out later, in the village of Narzanny. But even from there we were not destined to get out, since we went straight along the road, which clearly fell into a private house.

There us local explained how to get to the Small Saddle. We started going back. Not reaching the desired turn, we returned again to check another turn, and got to the gate of the nursery, the road through which just leads to Dzhinal. However, the guard told us that there was no road, and we went towards the sanatoriums.

Somewhere out there Jinal

Twenty minutes later the turn was found. Having passed by the horse farm, (the horse farm must be bypassed on the right) we got to the health path.

If someone has enough time and does not want to lose extra strength, then do not follow the route that I will describe below. Just walk along the path. So it's easier.

So, having passed the bridge, the view opens up the slope of the spur, which leads to the Small Saddle. You have to climb up the slope. In many places we go along not bold paths. Once you have to climb a small rock. Herbs all around, down the slope ending in a cliff. At this time of the year it is quite hot here, there are many biting insects, but a cool breeze saves.

As a result, we approached the top of the Small Saddle from the northwest.

There are very beautiful views from the Small Saddle. Here you can stand to rest and take pictures. It's not that long before the Big Saddle. You can easily determine where to go, by the abundance of people who go there in droves 🙂 From the Big Saddle and nearby standing peaks, opens beautiful view to the valley of the Yutsa river and the Dzhinalsky ridge, which we never got to.