Days 4 and 5: Travel to Kola Peninsula, Hiking Geographers' Pass

Day 4 (Friday, August 4): Travel Day (travelling: Igor, Travis, Brian, Kayla)

This day was mostly taken up by travel from Moscow to Kirovsk, our destination for the next few days. The flight from Moscow to Apatity was on a very small plane (about 60 person capacity) and took approximately two hours. Once we arrived, we drove from Apatity to Kirovsk, which is located at the foot of the Khibiny Mountains. The Khibiny Mountains are remnants of an ancient mountain range that was once much taller. The area is extremely mineralogically rich, mainly with apatite ores (origin of the name of Apatity).

When we arrived at our hotel in Kirovsk, we had dinner with Oksana and Vladimir, both from the Polar Alpine Botanical Garden and Institute in the Murmansk region. Oksana is Head of Ecological Therapy and Educational Programs, and Vladimir is the Director of the Garden. We felt very welcome and experienced true northern hospitality.


Day 5: Visit to Polar Alpine Garden and Hiking Geographers' Pass

Today we visited the Polar Alpine Botanical Garden and Institute in the morning, and the rest of the day was a long, exhilarating mountain hike (estimated to be about 7 miles of mountainous terrain). We saw lots of cute little alpine plants and some pretty amazing views along the way of our hike.

The Polar Alpine Garden has quite a few trial beds and tests a lot of plants for suitability of growth in their alpine environment. These plants are often sold as ornamentals to residents of the Peninsula, and seeds are collected for sharing as part of their index seminum. Photos of their trial nurseries:

One of the interesting phenomena we were told about is that sometimes the cultivated exotics will grow abnormally large. This is simply called the phenomena of northern gigantism. Some people theorize it could be due to the polar day (i.e. lots more sunlight than normal during summer), but it hasn't been confirmed. It's a very local phenomenon and only appears in cultivated non-natives.

After our tour of a portion of the Garden, we had lunch and then set off on our hike up to Geographers' Pass of the Khibiny Mountains. Here are just some of the many plants and views from along the way:

Crossing an alpine river by foot (photo by Igor)

Botanizing with Igor and our guide, Katia.

The view we were greeted by just after conquering the pass. Great place to enjoy some hot tea or coffee!

The tiniest plant, which we found right after we conquered the pass. Uncertain on identification, but may be a type of Arabidopsis.

Sibbaldia procumens

Veronica alpina (very pretty in my opinion)

Salix polaris, just one of several types of Salix in the area

We were all pretty tired by the end of the day. Tomorrow we will do another shorter hike nearby.