A motorbike trip to Lake Baikal.

In winter the sensible tend to go on vacation somewhere to the warm sea. To the Maldives or to the Canary Islands, for example. Well, one can also climb the mountains to ski down a dazzlingly white slope and stop at a small restaurant, order a couple of yummy Bavarian sausages and, while slowly sipping hot mulled wine through a straw, smile and speak out— "Isn't it great, huh? Well, this life is a success!"

Can anyone argue with that? No way! Personally, sometimes I don't mindlying on the warm sand at all, so that a gentle sea wave would tickle the soles of my feet. I can even keep this way for half an hour or even an hour, but no more.
And then... the soul yearns for adventure, and the body seeks for adrenaline charge!

And here we are already driving, sailing and flying to a place, where an ordinary man would never think of heading for in winter.
Lake Baikal. February. Frost. Snow. Ice. And motorbikes. Just a wonderful combination, isn't it?
Today is February 20, 2017. And our experienced Toyota with a residential module and two light enduro motorbikes on a trailer is taking us along the dry asphalt road, straight as an arrow, towards new adventures!

Our crew consists of three people who together plowed the Mongolian steppes and sand dunes of the Gobi Desert half a year ago. And we have five days of journey and hundreds of kilometers of an unexplored route across the endless icy expanses of Lake Baikal ahead!

A few minutes before sunset we had gone out on the ice. The beauty was just unbelievable! I squeezed everything out of my iPhone 6s+ and my photography skills.

Now it is the morning of February 21. It's cold, the temperature is -18°C. I have never ridden a motorbike in such cold weather before!

After breakfast we left a small cozy hotel, which was on Olkhon island, warmed up our "iron horses" and started towards the rising sun along the sparkling snow and crystal clear ice surface of Lake Baikal.

We did a small photo shoot at the famous Burkhan cape, the Sacred Shaman rock, and then went over the horizon to the northwest.

And here we hang out at Lake Baikal! Fire!!!

We kept going across the centre of the lake. In fact, we were able to see the coast with the snow-capped mountains to the left and right. However, there were about 25…30 km in each direction, so one would walk this distance all day long, despite the fact it seemed to be quite close. The ice was about 1 m thick.

This year Baikal appears to be more difficult to move along than usual. There are vast fields of reared ice, cracks and bumps, so it takes a long time to find the paths, which can help you to round the raised walls of the ice stockade. It is very cold. At night the frost reaches -20°C and during the day it is about -15°C. After an hour of riding a motorbike there, your fingers lose sensitivity, the throttle becomes hard to manage and your face freezes.

In the morning motorbikes can be started only by "lighting them up" with the help of the car, since the battery charge runs out completely during the cold night. The suspension turns rigid, so you keep riding as if you were sitting on a wooden stool. The ability to hold on the ice has proved to be excellent, but in the snow-covered areas the spikes have nothing to hook on, therefore you need to control your motorbike carefully.

On the first day we passed about 135 km and it took us a lot of time to pack things together and resurrect our equipment. The night caught us somewhere in the centre of Lake Baikal, so we stopped near the steep shore at Cape Ryty. We made a campfire right on the ice and prepared dinner. We found two serious problems: first, the plastic canister in the trailer cracked and almost twenty litres of gasoline leaked out (and there were several hundred kilometers to the nearest gas station left). Second, a bottle of whiskey shattered in my bag. :( It wouldn't take less time to get to the nearest store either, like… two days?

Spending a night on Lake Baikal was an amazing and unusual experience! We enjoyed the frosty starry black sky and the yellow moon, which was slightly reflected on the thin plates of ice that had reared near the shore. The complete silence was occasionally broken only by a dull roar, which was similar to the sound of a gunshot.

Baikal does not sleep. This is its spirit that sighs, coughs and hums from time to time. The huge masses of ice move, crawl over each other, crack… Fantastic!!!

22.02.2017
Sunrise. The sun is playing, reflecting millions of sparkling stars in each piece of ice. The night was cold and the temperature exceeded -20°C. Our motorbikes must have got frozen completely.

I crawled out of the warm Toyota cabin and wanted to get some water from the hole drilled yesterday. But it didn't work out because the ice had frozen 20-25 cm thicker during the night. It's so cold!!!

After washing our faces with snow and drinking hot tea, we started mending our “iron horses”. Today we have to overcome more than 200 km along the ice up to the Cape Kotelnikovsky. If all the things go properly, there we will stay overnight at a campsite that provides hot water, a shower and a warm bed… Sounds like a dream!

DO NOT LOOK AT THIS PHOTO IF YOU ARE FAINT OF HEART!! 18+

And this is an incredibly beautiful, amazing and vibrant Lake Baikal!

Our expedition to Lake Baikal has come to an end. We have covered about a 800 km distance, 660 km of which were ridden by motorbikes. The route turned out to be quite complicated and very interesting.

The collapses of ice frequently made changes in our route. Anyway, initially there had been no accurate plan of the expedition. We had only a general idea. The weather conditions, severe frost and, in this regard, problems with equipment also affected our average speed of traveling. But, despite all these facts, we have managed to reach Severobaikalsk, cross Lake Baikal twice, visit three places where hot thermal waters come to the surface and even take a kind of bath there.

In addition, we explored the karst caves, dived into the cold waters of Lake Baikal, spent several nights right on the ice, visited a lot of amazing places and experienced a lot of unique phenomena of nature!

Lake Baikal is as beautiful in winter as in summer. Moreover, in winter you can visit even more interesting sights, getting to them by the ice. And the experience of riding a motorbike along the frozen surface is precious!

All in all, the adventure was a success, since the reality has met our expectations and even exceeded them! Thanks a lot to Dmitry and Veronika Yaskins for the organization and help. Everything was great! We will definitely return for another trip to Lake Baikal and then to Mongolia and... the Baikal–Amur Mainline still waits for us to come for a visit! :)

Lake Baikal is just a fairy tale! Or a different planet! I will definitely come back here!

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