  A semiclassical method for the calculation of tunneling exponent in systems
with many degrees of freedom is developed. We find that corresponding classical
solution as function of energy form several branches joint by bifurcation
points. A regularization technique is proposed, which enables one to choose
physically relevant branches of solutions everywhere in the classically
forbidden region and also in the allowed region. At relatively high energy the
physical branch describes tunneling via creation of a classical state, close to
the top of the barrier. The method is checked against exact solutions of the
Schrodinger equation in a quantum mechanical system of two degrees of freedom.
