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Yalta Mountain Pictures

The Yalta Mountains (often called Yalta Yayla) rise to 1500 meters above the resort town of Yalta on Crimea's South Shore. There are a number of trails up the mountains from Yalta, but the plateau is most accessible from Ay-Petri. The Ay-Petri plateau basically turns into the Yalta plateau as you head east.

Officially, the mountain area belongs to a nature reserve and is off-limits to the public. In practice, however, it is heavily visited by picnickers, hikers, mountain bikers, and government officials and rich people with special passes. If you camp on the plateau, set up your tent out of sight and avoid fires. Be prepared for windy and unpredictable weather in the mountains.

Historically, the plateau has been used as pastureland, but the Soviets began reforesting it to improve the retention of precipitation in soil, which provides water for the greater Yalta area.

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This is what most of the Yalta Yayla (plateau) looks like.	As you can see, a massive natural gas pipe is being installed across the plateau. The ditches are hard to cross with a bike!	Large units of machinery are lying around (who will steal them, right?).	On the edge of the plateau there are remains of an ancient stone wall that was probably built to keep livestock in place.
Looking north towards the Grand Canyon area. There is a trail from here that heads down.	Looking north towards Bakhchisaray	The same view from several years earlier, in April	Far below are two reservoirs.
Memorial to WWII soldiers who fought the Nazis here in the mountains.	On October 13, 1941, the Yalta partisans won a battle here against the "fascist plague."	On the north edge of the plateau, deciduous beech forests switch to pine stands.	A series of flower photos
Quite a range of colors		Memorial to three students who got caught in an autumn blizzard and froze to death	This gravel road leads for over 20 km across the plateau.
These escarpments are visible from Yalta below.	Our goal: Kemal-Egerek Mt. (1530 m above sea level)	The same view in April of another year	The final climb
On the top, with Chatyr-Dag in the distance	High mountain valley	There's Chatyr-Dag	In the opposite direction, we can clearly see Yalta.
In early May there are still snowbanks.	The "Arbor of the Winds" (Besedka vetrov) — a famous viewpoint along the old Romanov road through the mountains (now closed to the public).	Pond	A series of September sunset photos from the Yalta mountain plateau
		Some abandoned machinery, with a memorial in the lower left (someone died here).	Rocks on the Yalta mountain plateau
The limestone mountains are filled with holes, and the surface often sinks down like this.	Another memorial above Yalta...	Descending into Yalta	View of the escarpment from the south
The south slope of the mountains are pine-covered, whereas the north side is deciduous.

All photos are the original work of Rick DeLong. To learn about purchasing originals, go here. Please contact me at before using my pictures for any purpose.