Lake Baikal

Today I saw Lake Baikal with an excellent, experienced guide. It nearly overwhelmed my camera, and is likely to do the same to my ability to describe it.

My guide, Sasha, has been an ecologist at the Baikal National Park nearly since its foundation about 20 years ago, and has become a well-known expert on the ecosystem here. He's a somewhat taciturn fellow with gnarled hands, bespeaking his country life. With a glance, he notices things that simply flew by the windows for me. And his quiet nature notwithstanding, he's not shy about sharing his knowledge.

Sasha and I headed out around 9am after loading up his truck. The van looks like a VW bus, but is as spare and unstoppable as a Range Rover - the real kind, not the kind they sell to yuppies. We picked our way through town down to the waters edge, drove off the shoreline, and shot out onto the ice.

Despite the lake's vast size it freezes over completely in winter. I waited what I thought was an acceptable period of time before asking exactly how thick the ice is. Sasha just smile as we hurtled over what qualifies as the only smooth road in Buryatia. "That's always the first question," he said.

Baikal is profoundly deep - more than one mile deep in the center. And the isoquants on the map are bunched tightly around the shore and the islands. That is to say, the lake gets very deep very, very fast. Only a few dozen meters from shore its possible to find depths of hundreds and hundreds of meters. Nonetheless, it freezes over to a thickness of more than 3 feet. That is a reassuring statistic when one is in an old truck and in every direction the shoreline is quickly receding into an icy haze.

The landscape is nearly indescribable in its beauty. Every direction is a dramatic scene of snow-capped mountains, thick forest, rocky islands, and cliffs. The lake is ringed with mountains - even a peninsula in the middle has its own mountain range - guaranteeing a jaw-dropping view at every turn. I felt inconsequential in the midst of it all, holding a dinky digital camera and wondering how I could possibly capture even a glimmer of the sense of being here. The short answer, I think, is that one simply can't do it.

We went to several fishing camps out on the lake, where we got out and chatted with the locals; all of whom, it seems, Sasha knew. They showed me how and what they were catching and made jokes about saying hello to America when I took their pictures. Then, we drove around a few islands where I got to walk into some ice caves along the water line.

I was never really in any danger with such an experienced guide nearby at all times. But it felt like I was going to freeze to death at several points of the trip. The icy wind howled across the featureless giant ice cube, driving the snow along with it in high-speed rivulets. It cut through everything I was wearing and viciously attacked my fingers when I took out my camera. In a word, while everyone else was enjoying what they considered spring weather, I was brutalized.

At another fishing site we saw an entrepreneurial operation run by a friend of Sasha's - the "Brigadier". While they prepared to haul in their nets through a hole in the ice, we had lunch in the truck - a delicious, warm, long process that involved a good amount of vodka.

The "Brigade" laughed and clowned around in what they considered fine weather while they prepared the catch. It was an interesting and efficient operation, aided by diesel powered winches and a tractor and some other modern technology. But some things don't change on Baikal - most of the equipment was hauled out to the site by two horses attached to sleds. And the nets were tended with long, hand-carved poles as they slowly emerged from the ice. But it all still made sense; the horses can go where machines can't, and the specialized wooden tools won't damage the nets.

Then the nets came in, loaded with a local fish called Omool and a local perch. We watched along with the Brigadier as the team loaded trucks and sleds with their catch. The captain gave us 2 big buckets of fish to take home.

When we got back, we picked out the biggest perch - tipping in at almost 1.4 kilos each - cleaned them, put them on stakes, and cooked them in the fireplace. That night, the whole family ate like royalty of Baikal.