My visit to the Valley of Death

THE Kamchatka Peninsula , IN RUSSIA’S Far East , may be a volcanic winter wonderland. Snow blankets a sequence of eruptive mountains here that shower the land with molten fireworks. it's as beautiful because it is biodiverse, with a myriad of aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial species.

But there’s lethal trouble during this chilly paradise. In one among its smaller valleys, animals wander in but not out.
When the snow melts, various critters, from hares to birds, appear in search of food and water. Many die soon thereafter. Predatory scavengers such as wolverines spot an easy dinner; they slink or swoop into the valley—only to die themselves. From lynxes to foxes, eagles to bears, this 1.2-mile-long trough has claimed innumerable victims.

But the killer here is a phantom. The dead, whose corpses are naturally refrigerated and preserved, show no traces of external injuries or diseases that would be responsible for their expirations.
Vladimir Leonov, a volcanologist at Russia’s Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (IVS) who’s recognized by his colleagues because the site’s discoverer, identified the explanation for death when he first found the location , in 1975: It’s the results of a volcanic phenomenon—a common gas that almost most are conversant in .

But while the forensic science has long been clear, unconfirmed stories about the place still abound. Some claim, as an example , that animal corpses are regularly faraway from the valley—though nobody can say by whom. Another mystery dates back to the mid-1970s. Viktor Deryagin, a student of Leonov’s who helped his instructor discover the valley, says that Soviet military officials, alerted to the valley’s existence, arrived during a helicopter, took some strange samples, and quickly departed. What did they gather and conclude?

Welcome to the Valley of Death, a site that is still as darkly enchanting—and as lethal—as it had been when it had been discovered 44 years ago.
Fewer than 350,000 people survive the Kamchatka Peninsula . Large portions of the region lack roads. If they existed, you'll drive for a whole day and still be walled in by volcanoes. Many of the volcanoes here, like Tolbachik and Sheveluch, are hyperactive, and regularly limn the land in fresh coats of lava paint. Most of Kamchatka is an icy volcanic wilderness—a UNESCO World Heritage Site whose geological curiosities and extraordinary aesthetics compel scientific visitors from round the world.

Janine Krippner, a volcanologist at the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, recalls lying on a cooled Kamchatkan lava flow, hearing nothing but the tiny bursts of volcanic gas sneaking out of the bottom as birds flew overhead. During her most up-to-date visit, she stood near a freshly chilled lava flow that was still 176° Fahrenheit—hot enough to toast her necklace from several feet away.

“There’s just no place love it ,” she says.
With persistence and permission, many places on the peninsula are often accessed. that has the Kronotsky State Natural Biosphere Reserve, which contains the relatively youthful (4,800 years old) Kikhpinych volcano. At its feet is that the lichen-covered Valley of Geysers, whose bubbling pits shoot pillars of steam many feet into the azure sky. Discovered in 1941 by geologist Tatyana Ustinova and a scientific observer named Anisifor Krupenin, it remains a site of scientific intrigue that's also hospitable tourists.
But the Valley of Death—a comparatively quiet and diminutive crevasse, suffering from the frozen remains of animals and located near an upper sliver of the Geyzernaya river within the reserve—is one place that's strictly off-limits.

Leonov died in 2016, at age 66, but his son, Andrey Leonov—a researcher at the S.I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology—is well versed in his father’s adventures. So is his father’s one-time student Deryagin. Deryagin left academia way back , worked in construction, and is now retired. After Andrey tracked him down on Russian social media, Deryagin recounted previously untold details about his scientific adventure with Leonov four decades ago. Together, both men tell a unprecedented tale of the site’s discovery.