High Aragats
Up the flank of Armenia's highest mountain to a fortress in the clouds and a lake still frozen in June — by way of thirty-nine stone letters.
Duration
8 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Easy to moderate — high altitude, 3,200 m
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingThe Kari Lake road is usually open from mid-June to early October and is closed by snow the rest of the year. Outside that window we run the tour to Amberd only, at a reduced price.
At Artashavan, on the slopes of Aragats: thirty-nine carved basalt and tufa letters, erected in 2005 for the 1,600th anniversary of the alphabet Mesrop Mashtots created around 405. They are not in alphabetical order — they are strewn across the meadow, so finding your own initial means walking the whole hillside with the mountain at your back.
A pass through the village below the astrophysical observatory founded in 1946 by Viktor Ambartsumian. Its First Byurakan Survey, which identified some 1,500 galaxies with ultraviolet excess, was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2011.
A fortress on a spur between two gorges at 2,300 metres — "fortress in the clouds". The walls are seventh-century Kamsarakan, thickened by the Pahlavuni princes in the tenth; the church of Vahramashen was finished in 1026. There is a bathhouse with Roman-style under-floor heating and a four-kilometre terracotta pipeline from mountain springs. The Mongols destroyed it in 1236. In 2024 Europa Nostra named it one of Europe's seven most endangered heritage sites.
The road climbs to about 3,190 metres and stops at a glacial lake ringed by black scree, frozen for eight or nine months of the year. You can leave a Yerevan café at 35°C and be standing on snow two hours later. The huts on the shore belong to the Aragats Cosmic Ray Research Station, working continuously since 1943. This is also the trailhead for the summits — the northern peak, at 4,090 metres, is the highest point in Armenia.
Back in Yerevan by about 18:00.
In the price
Not included
Stops in the order we visit them. Distances are indicative, not a driving route.
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Want it privately?
Your own vehicle and guide, your own start time, and the freedom to linger where it is worth lingering.