Karmadon gorge is one of the most famous in North Ossetia. It is definitely worth coming here to see the beauty of the mountainous regions of Ossetia. However, the fame of this gorge is associated with tragic events. On September 20, 2002, the Kolka glacier descended. The village of Upper Karmadon was buried under a mass of ice and snow, 125 people died, including the film crew of Sergei Bodrov.
The length of the Karmadon gorge is 17 kilometers. It begins at the foot of the mountains Jimara (4780 m), Pastukhova (4312 m), Mailikhoh (4597 m) and Peak Tsarakhova (4239 m). Two huge glaciers Kolka and Maili descend the slopes of these mountains. The Genaldon River originates from these glaciers, so the gorge is sometimes called Genaldonskoe.
Translated from the Ossetian language, the word Karmadon means Warm Water. In the upper reaches of the Karmadon gorge, mineral water sources with a high content of iodine and boron were discovered in the 19th century. This water is very helpful in the treatment of thyroid diseases. A large sanatorium building was built here, and the construction of houses for service personnel began. However, the development of the Karmadon Gorge as a balneological resort in Russia was prevented by the unpredictable "nature" of the Kolka glacier.
It accumulates between Pastukhov Mountain and Tsarakhov Peak on a steep slope. This glacier belongs to the pulsating category. This means that under the influence of various natural factors, there may be a sharp increase in the movement of the glacier. In the 20th century, the Kolka Glacier descended in 1902 and 1969. The same decendings were recorded in the 19th century. During all these glacier descendings, people died.
According to the forecast of scientists, the next descent of the Kolka glacier was supposed to occur in the 2030s, but it happened much earlier. The reasons why it happened may be a critical accumulation of snow and ice mass of the glacier on the slope for several years. If several summers were warm and winters were less snowy, then the volume of ice would normalize. However, at one moment, a giant chunk of ice (about 8 million cubic meters of ice) broke off from the slope of Mount Jimara due to the action of warm fumaroles. Then it fell from above on the masses of the Kolka glacier and provoked their collapse.
Masses of ice in the tens of millions of tons descended down the Karmadon gorge at a speed of 200 km per hour. It was impossible to survive in this situation. It hit the narrow gorge of the Karmadon gorge, some of the ice masses filled the gorge itself, but did not go further. If this narrow gorge had not been in the Karmadon Gorge, then the snow masses could reached the villages of Saniba and Gizel. They are located 15 kilometers from Karmadon and several thousand people live there.
After the disaster, the gorge was filled with ice masses to a height of 200 meters. Nowadays they have all melted away and now it’s possible to drive along the bottom of the gorge again by car. People come here to see the site of Russia`s largest glaciological disaster. A small memorial to Sergei Bodrov and other people who died in this disaster has been erected near one of the destroyed tunnels.
There is a hiking trail from the village of Karmadon to the Kolka Glacier, where you can climb to the lower tongues of the glacier. The Kolka Glacier is safe for the next 50 years, although such natural events are completely unpredictable. The length of this route is 13 kilometers, the climb is 1 kilometer. The height above sea level in the Karmadon gorge is insignificant, about 1200 meters.
