Miles driven: 330 miles
Time in Car: 6 hours
Borders crossed: 0
Bittersweet last camping meal of the crowd favorite, ground beef tacos. Find your Baikal.
After a celebratory night in Ulan Ude, we drove Stevie to Lake Baikal for her final adventure. Lake Baikal is a massive lake just west of Ulan Ude. I cannot understate enough just how massive of a lake this is. It holds almost a quarter of the world’s fresh water, more than all of the Great Lakes combined. It’s the world’s deepest freshwater lake. It’s the world’s largest freshwater lake. It’s the world’s oldest lake. It’s big. It’s ancient. It even, despite being nowhere close to the ocean, has seals. We were looking forward to it.
We drove straight to a town called Gremyachinsk, where we enjoyed a brief lunch on the beach (gotta love instant noodles) before checking out the local hot spring and finding perhaps the best camp spot of the trip. We camped right on a sandy patch of land next to a white-stone rocky beach, surrounded by magnificent pine and birch trees. It was gorgeous, remote, and peaceful. We collected firewood from the forest, took a swim in the crystal clear waters of the lake (supposedly some of the clearest and purest in the world), and then sat down to make the culinary masterpiece that are tacos. Needless to say, they were good. Washing them down with Coronas and lime, we had found our beach for the trip.
Our campsite on Baikal
Joe in Baikal
Mike in Baikal.
The next morning, we drove farther north to Ust-Baguzin, a town at the foot of the Svyatoy Nos peninsula - commonly referred to as the “Holy Nose” in Russian. The peninsula consists of a large mountainous nose-shaped tract of land connected to the mainland by an isthmus. At over 6100 feet, Mount Markova is the highest point on the island, and it was our destination for the day. We checked into a home stay in the nearby town. We elected to have one of the guesthouse hosts drive us in his Toyota Landcruiser 4x4 to the hiking point; it was the right decision and Stevie deserved to rest her weary bones. After a 45 minute drive over tough terrain, we found ourselves at the trailhead of what would end up being one of the most grueling hikes any of us have ever done.
The last portion of the hike ascended the jagged spine of the mountain.
The trailhead said it would be a 14km round trip hike. The elevation gain would probably be over 5,000 feet. Neither figure on its own seemed that daunting. We figured it would be a trail full of switchbacks with splendid views of the lake. The trail started with a gentle elevation gain through through a heavily wooded pine forest, before giving way to switch backs. As we started to climb, we could see the majestic bays of the lake breaking through the forest. It was beautiful and serene. There seemed to be no one else in the park. After an hour or so, the switch backs stopped, and the trail turned sharply upwards. The next two hours were spent climbing straight up an excruciatingly steep ridge of a mountain. The trail was poorly maintained and consisted of a ton of loose rocks and sand. For every two steps we took up, it seemed like we slid back another. Finally, we reached the first landmark: a large white cross that marked a beautiful vantage point. We stopped for a snack and a much needed break before continuing to climb along the narrow ridge. By now, we had passed the tree line. The ridge was rocky and narrow. We were basically scrambling over boulders and jagged rocks. Exhausted, and five hours since we started, we finally made it to the top. We were rewarded with some beautiful views and a deserved feeling of accomplishment. Tragically, as we ate our lunch, a cold rain set in, which caused us to have to end our anticipated long break early. We wanted to get back to the tree cover as quickly as possible After three to four hours of trying not to wipe out on the steep gravel, we made it. Exhausted. But we made it. It really was a difficult hike but our fitness was far from peak as we had been living very much a sedentary lifestyle over the past 45 days. Our driver picked us up and drove us back to the home stay where a wonderful Russian sauna (imagine showering in a dry sauna) and an amazing Russian meal awaited us. We had some sort of sashimi with pickled ginger and onions, borscht, lightly pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, potato pancakes, mashed potatoes, bread, stewed beef, and apple bread. It was honestly some of the better food we had had in awhile. Exhausted and full of comfort food, we called it an early night. The next day would be bitter sweet; we had to drive back to Ulan Ude where we would say goodbye to our dear friend Stevie - FWY
Photo at the white cross on the way up the mountain. Unfortunately, the views only worsened as we climbed due to increasing cloud coverage and fog.
The sun crept out once we got to the base of the hike providing some great views