The crunch of snow under your bicycle tires, the crisp tang of sub-zero wind whipping past you, the icicle beard forming as your breath condenses on your face mask, and the knowledge that there’s not another human being for dozens of frozen miles in every direction. Sound like fun? My friend David Williams drew my attention to the Lake Baikal Winter Circumnavigation 2010 expedition. This five-man team from Seattle, Oregon, and Venezuela has undertaken a 43-day trip to circumnavigate the enormous Lake Baikal in Siberia on bicycles, in sub-zero temperatures, on the ice.
The expedition’s website introduces the project:
We are currently in the process of completing the first ever human-powered winter circumnavigation of Lake Baikal on mountain bikes in 2010 to promote environmental conservation in Russia. The lake is frozen at this time and we are riding entirely on snow and ice for an estimated 43 days. Lake Baikal has never been circumnavigated by bicycle, and no one has ever made a circumnavigation by human power in winter conditions.
Lake Baikal is not only the world’s deepest lake, holding nearly a fifth of the world’s fresh water supply, but also the oldest, with an age of over 25 million years. It is home to 1,200 indigenous animal species, and is the focal point of the environmental movement in Russia. The Great Baikal Trail organization is attempting to build a recreational trail system around the lake to promote conservation, and to create a sustainable economy based on preservation of this incredibly beautiful and unique feature of our planet.
The expedition is the brainchild of Eugene, Oregon’s Christopher Pike, who spent two years living and studying in Russia on an academic exchange. While spending a year in Irkutsk (Eugene’s Russian sister city), he became very familiar with Lake Baikal and with local efforts to protect the world’s deepest and purest freshwater lake. It was there that the idea of circumnavigating the lake on bicycles, in winter, was born. An idea it has taken him five years to bring to fruition.
You can follow their progress on a map, and on Twitter, though the most comprehensive place is probably their Facebook page, where the Twitter posts appear as status updates, and where there’s a photo gallery.
They are currently twelve days into the trek, and just uploaded their first batch of photos, some of which I included above. Their latest update:
March 3-8: Days spend riding the road. We covered about 600 km of ice and snowy roads to the bay before Ust’-Barguzin. Once on the bay we decided to continue on the the lake for the remaining 60 km to Ust’-Barguzin. The lake is still covered in snow making the riding hard. According to locals this has been the most snow they have seen on the lake in the last ten years.
We expect to find better conditions in our way north. Ust’-Barguzin is the end of any available road and to complete the circumnavigation we now need to take the lake for the remaining 1000-1200 km.
Tomorrow, I’ll post a run-down of their gear choices.
