Honkasalo Island on the Ladoga lake
Honkasalo Island is the main destination for everyone who wants to see the most beautiful places of the Ladoga Skerries Nature Reserve. By boat, you can sail into deep bays that cut into granite rocks for dozens of meters and form picturesque bays among granite rocks overgrown with pine forest.
Honkasalo Island is quite large. It stretches for 5 kilometers in length from south to north. The width reaches 1 kilometer. On the southwestern part of Honkasalo Island is Mount Vakhtimyaki. Its height reaches 80 meters. It offers beautiful views of a significant part of northern Ladoga. In good weather, you can even see the Island of Valaam and the domes of the Transfiguration Cathedral of the Valaam Monastery. Mount Vakhtimyaki is often called "The Roof of Ladoga".
In Finnish, Honkasalo means "Pine wilds": Honka - Pine, Salo - Forest wilds. If you have time, then a walk around the island will be a pleasure. Despite the name, the forest is dominated by spruce trees, and the surface of the stones is covered with a thick layer of colorful moss. Granite boulders are visible everywhere.
The most beautiful skerries on Honkasalo Island are located on the southern tip of the island at Cape Honkasalonnokka. This place is considered a must-visit for all tourists who take a motor boat tour of the Ladoga Skerries Nature Reserve. The locals call this place "communist committee’s campsite", since in Soviet times, wooden stationary toilets were built here and high-ranking guests were often brought here. There are also ruins of Finnish military fortifications. So, in general, at all times this place was the most visited.
Near Cape Honkasalonnokka, there are two tiny rocky islands, Kivisaari and Laivasaari. After a walk on Honkasalo on a motor boat, you must sail along the channels between these islands. Here you will see very picturesque landscapes of the Ladoga Skerries Reserve. After that, you need to go by boat to the small island of Kaarnetsaari to see the famous split rock of the Crow`s Gate.
