Volcanoes & Geysers

This route has two summit days and three connecting days, and it opens with a volcano: the cone of Mount Hatis stands 2,528 metres high barely thirty kilometres east of Yerevan, near enough to sleep back in the city the same evening. After that the line runs south — Jermuk at 2,080 metres, Sisian at 1,600, and there the luggage stays put for two nights, because the day in between has no kilometres to spare for a change of bed. That day climbs to 3,300 metres, into the caldera above Ughtasar, and comes back down the same evening. Difficulty 3 of 5: two days are trunk road, two carry short hard pieces of terrain, and one is almost nothing but track.

The first day asks the fewest hours at the wheel and is still the dress rehearsal for everything that follows. Barely thirty kilometres of asphalt cross the Kotayk highland to the village of Kaputan, and there the surface ends. What comes next are gravel and earth tracks up into the pastures at the foot of the cone: unmade, scoured out in places, with stretches of loose rock in between. Low range, at least 22 centimetres of ground clearance and a lowered tyre pressure are not a recommendation here but a requirement; off-road factor 4 of 5. Above the meadows every wheel track stops — the cone itself is steep scree and rock steps and is climbed on foot, two to three hours to the top. After rain the loam on the lower sections softens and turns the same track into much heavier going.

The second part belongs to water. From Yerevan it is 123 kilometres of trunk road to Yeghegnadzor and a good fifty more up to the spa town; at its edge a track sets off towards the geysers, which lie at around 2,100 metres. What lies on it is coarse gravel with deeply cut channels, plus several drives through streams and one river, at their fullest in early summer — factor 4 of 5, and the wheel track runs right up to the spring. The next day the road drops out of Jermuk into the valley, swings east, crosses a pass of 2,344 metres on the border of two provinces and sinks to the 1,600 metres of Sisian. From there the stone rows of Zorats Karer are four kilometres of made-up approach away, the Shaki waterfall seven, with a few hundred metres of gravel at the end.

The fourth day is the reason this tour is run as an expedition. Out of Ishkhanasar a highland track rises over seventeen kilometres by some 1,400 metres into the caldera at 3,300 metres: loose scree, rock steps, meltwater fords, and patches of snow up top well into the summer. Off-road factor 5 of 5, and nobody drives it with a single vehicle. It is dependably open from mid-July to the end of August, and with luck into September; if your dates fall earlier or later within the June-to-October season, an adapted stage around Sisian takes its place. Day five is then the way home over two passes: the 2,344 metres once more, then the bends up to the Vardenyats pass at 2,410 metres, with the Selim caravanserai standing just below the top of it, after that down to Lake Sevan at 1,900 and the last sixty-odd kilometres to Yerevan. Your bed follows the comfort class rather than the place: Signature means a spa hotel, Expedition a guesthouse, Frontier a wild camp. Drive yourself and you have the lead guide in front of you on the two track days; the rest of the distance you cover alone.