Yudoma

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The Yudoma River (Russian: Юдома) is a river in eastern Siberia in the Yudoma-Maya Highland near the Okhotsk Coast. It joins the Maya River which joins the Aldan River which joins the Lena River which flows into the Arctic Ocean. Its northern headwaters are in the Suntar-Khayata Range. To the east is the Yudoma Range and then the Okhota River, to the south the Maya River and to the northwest, the Allakh-Yun River, another branch of the Maya.

Its length in 765 km and its basin is 43,700 km² (about the size of Switzerland). Its source is 1,020 meters above sea level and its mouth, 190 meters. It is fed by snowmelt and summer rains. It is frozen from mid October to late May. At its mouth the minimum water flow is 3.7 m³/s in march and the maximum 1081 m³/s in June. At its mouth it is 300m wide and four meters deep. The lower 270km are considered navigable.

The area is largely unsettled and there is hardly any infrastructure. The only significant settlement is Yugorenok.

The river flows south for about 200km west of the Yudoma Range and then flows southwest about 325 km (straight-line distance) to its mouth on the Maya. It starts about 30 km south of Mus-Khaya Mountain, the highest point in the Suntar-Khayata Range. It is formed from the junction of two rivers, one of which flows from a glacier. At the 'corner' began the long Okhotsk Portage which ran east-southeast to the Okhota River. About 50km further was Yudoma Cross from which the Yudoma Portage led southeast to the Urak River and a longer horse track led to Urak Landing. North of Yudoma Cross a horse track led to Yakutsk. Near here the border between the Sakha Republic and Khabarovsk Krai joins the Yudoma and follows it to its mouth. About 30km west of Yudoma Cross (straight line distance) is the gold-extracting town of Yugorenok which is reached by a 300-mile dirt road running south from Eldikan on the Aldan River.

The Yudoma was one of the river routes to the Okhotsk Coast. Because of its rapids and swift current there was a great deal of tracking (see portage). Rapids and cataracts blocked the larger boats that were used on the Maya. Some 50 miles below Yudoma Cross a cataract was bypassed by a crude canal which was dry at low water. In 1737 Stepan Krasheninnikov took three days to go downstream from Yudoma Cross to the Maya, whereas it took five to six weeks to make the same trip upstream.

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