Thousands of hiking tourists rush to the mountainous Crimea every spring. Mostly they are citizens of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. In recent years has increased the flow of Poles, densely occupied for this type of travel train Lviv-Simferopol. In any case, all these Slavic brothers are attracted by amazing, almost unearthly, landscapes of mountainous Crimea, which are located in attractive proximity to the coastline of the Black Sea.
There are dozens of tourist routes in the Crimea, from simple weekend outings to multi-day category hikes, requiring a certain level of physical fitness from the participants. Fantastically original Belbek Canyon can become both the purpose of a one-day excursion — acquaintance with local beauties, and a structural element of a serious sports hike.
What is Belbek Canyon? It is one of the most interesting segments of the river valley of the same name. At the same time, the length of the Belbek River is 63 km, and the length of the canyon is only 5 km. The river stretches from the southern coast of the peninsula to the southwest, flowing into the sea on one of the beaches of the village of Lyubimovka, belonging to the resort area of Sevastopol Bay. The canyon runs through the lands of Kuibyshevo settlement and Tankovoye village, known since the times of the Crimean Khanate under the name of Biyuk-Syuren. Geographically, the canyon is confined to the Inner and Outer ridge of the Crimean Mountains.
It was formed, as well as the BCC (Big Crimean Canyon) by tectonic-erosion. At first, nummulitic and bryozoan limestones easily cracked and separated in different directions as a result of internal movements of the Earth’s crust. And after that, the initiated process of destruction and subsequent deposition of sedimentary rocks was continued by the water flow — the already mentioned Belbek River, recognized as one of the most full-flowing on the peninsula. It was she who deepened the limestone ridges by 60-70 meters and widened the distance to 300 meters between the individual massifs of limestone of Baidar yaila.
As a result of the intense work of internal and external forces of the Earth, the world has seen an amazing, fantastically beautiful space in which a narrow and relatively flat river valley is bounded by table-like mountain massifs similar to giant beasts. The beast-mountains fell asleep a long time ago, so their «skins» have been weathered. Thanks to him, almost vertical rocks-walls Belbeksky Canyon covered with a bizarre pattern formed by niches, traces of water erosion and karst sinkholes. By the way, in one of these niches was found a parking lot of Cro-Magnons. In some karst sinkholes, decorating the surface of Baidaratskaya yayla, hid from the ludolov Crimean Khanate runaway slaves Slavs, settled hermits, found shelter guerrillas. In recent years here willingly settle hippies and enlightened individuals of different religious interpretations.
Access to the tourists seeking solitude is blocked by a relic yew grove, skinny oaks and hornbeams, thickets of rose hips, Christ’s thorn and dogwood, densely covering the relatively gentle foot of the slopes of limestone massifs. Where the steepness of the cliffs approaches 90°, the kingdom of Flora gives way to Fauna — small green lizards that love to sunbathe at a height inaccessible to other living creatures. Tourists staying on holiday in Balaklava will appreciate these Belbek «palaces», built by Nature much earlier than the Khan’s palace. Especially since they look quite majestic and impressive, and are also the keepers of many human secrets and Crimean legends.