Around Baikal 2003

Days 17-21

Salenga, Part III Day 17, June 17, 2003
Brandon: To me the Selenga Delta is the crux of this entire expedition. I've been stressing about it every day since we started. Cursed with no landing, fine! Storm force winds and twenty-foot swells, bring it on. But, a giant swamp with one thousand twists, turns and outlets leading thru the dreaded mud-flats -- this is nightmare material.

Heather: To be honest, I hadn't given much thought to the Selenga until someone sat down with us over a map and showed us the inside route. I loved the challenge immediately - an expedition within an expedition. Besides, I've made sure we have a ton of food, we can't possibly run out of water and, if we make a wrong turn we just backtrack upriver.

Brandon: All right, here's the deal, we need to go out at race pace and crank hard for 8 hours straight. If you get tired, tell me and I'll clip a tow line to your boat. If we give this all we've got, chances are good that we can get thru God forsaken mess by nightfall.

Heather: It's quite peaceful out here. Why isn't Brandon talking to me? There was a beautiful bird back there I wanted to show him. Why does he insist on paddling 200 feet ahead of me? I've got so much to talk about. Brandon: Let's see, if my calculations are accurate, that last mile took 1,810 strokes and 33 minutes. At this pace it'll be close to midnight before we are safe on the Lake again, unless of course, the tail wind dies down. Where's Heather? Damn it girl, don't you know we are racing for our lives?

Heather: What a jerk, we've been paddling upstream for 9 hours and he hasn't let me rest since noon. Look at him snacking up there! If I could just get a little closer. Damn, there he goes again. Does he think we are in a race or something? Well, I have the food and the maps, he can't get too far.

Brandon: This isn't in my plan, but this looks like a nice camp. I wonder if Heather would mind pulling over for the night.

Heather: Arms tired, need food, need sleep!

Brandon: Nice of Heather to be so flexible. Now, while she builds a fire, prepares dinner, and pitches the tent, I'll see if I can create some sort of equation to pinpoint our exact position. Curses, I can't believe I left home without my divider and slide rule.

Heather: What a great day. I'd say we are within an hour of our big turn; I feel it. Look at him over there, what a freak! He's been bent over those maps for an hour and a half. Looks like he's whittled a ruler. What's with the laptop and, why is he sweating like a pig?

Brandon: All right, today is our day. If we don't make it to our down stream turn and start heading out of this place by 10 a.m I'll have to consider a satellite relay SOS to the American embassy.

Heather: Wa hoo! Down river! Now I can stop paddling and still go 4 miles per hour. At this rate we will reach the Lake by noon. Popurotses (sp?) and oymurs by 1:00 P.M.

Brandon: Is that&? Oh, can it be? Oh, thank you God, praise Burkham, we've reached the Lake! We're saved! Good riddance Selenga!

Heather: Gosh, I wonder if we finish the expedition around Baikal early if we could come back here to explore for a week or two!? I think Brandon really enjoyed it.

Day 21, June 21, 2003
Day 21 was a layover day. The 3rd day of bright clear skies and a blazing warm sun since the gray curtain of haze finally lifted. My arms needed a rest and our camp, on a mile long sandy beach, backed by dunes and dotted with lush pulpy pines, made it easy for Heather to agree.

We soaked up the much needed sunlight as we explored the dunes, built forts of driftwood and talked to local fishermen about their hand built wooden row boats.

Throughout the day, one or the other of us would duck into the tent and check the barometer. Hanging from a loop inside the simple nylon and screen shelter is a small weather instrument called the Brunton Sherpa. About the size of a cigarette lighter, the Sherpa keeps track of air temperature, elevation, barometric pressure and with a tiny prop it measures wind speed. The function we are most concerned with is the barometer; for, when it starts dropping we know to look for incoming weather.

On this day, despite the early clear skies and rejuvenating warmth, the barometer was on a steady plummet. By 6 P.M. a light rain had started and the sky was back to it's leaden gray color.

Heather and I were both holed up in the tent, engrossed in our books but, checking the Sherpa regularly. Amazed to see it was still dropping out, like there was no bottom. "We better move the boats in and tie down the tent," I said. The tent was in a lee of a large pine, but I didn't know what to expect. According to the numbers, we were practically in a vacuum.

Fifteen minutes later a loaded kayak sat on either side of the tent and ropes ran to 3 points on each side to help anchor them.

At 8 P.M., though the rain hadn't let up, Heather went out to cook dinner. She had stored a stack of firewood under a tarp and soon had her cooking fire going and a pot of noodles boiling away. Then a small gust passed over the tent. It rattled the rain-fly for maybe 2 seconds but otherwise it was totally benign. I hollered outside to Heather, "just checking, is everything OK?" "Yeah," she called back, "no problem." Three more minutes passed. The rain was pelting away on the tent fabric, like a dull drum. And then it hit…

Location: North 53 degrees, 09' 43.8" East 108 degrees, 24' 45.1" About 30 miles North of Turka

Day 21 Continued...
One can’t read a paragraph about Baikal, or meet one of its coastal residents, without being dealt a sermon of its stormy character. At the center of those warnings are a band of 30-some winds with a list of names like outlaw gunfighters: Gornaya, Kultuk, Verhovik, Barguzin, Berezhnik, and baddest of them all, the 100mph Sarma. This beast, born in a canyon of the same name directly opposite our camp on the eastern shore, tears roofs off houses, capsizes boats and throws livestock from the coastal cliffs down to an icy, watery grave below.

Exactly which of this brotherhood of winds came calling on the 20th day of the expedition I can’t be sure, but in an instant it was like every engine in the Trans-Siberian Rail system was racing by our camp at full throttle. The windward side of the tent didn’t collapse, it slammed into me like it’d been struck by a wrecking ball. Outside, the fire was torn from beneath the pot of noodles, whirled like a tornado and then shot away as fast as light.

I immediately sprung to my knees to brace the tent, and leaned my shoulder into it as if it were a parked car threatening to roll down an embankment. With my right hand I unclipped the Sherpa from its lanyard, then unzipped the tent door and thrust my arm outside to measure the wind. My unsleeved skin was blasted by a sonic slurry of sand, rain and pine needles. After 2 or 3 seconds I reached out and traded the Sherpa to my left hand, and with my right arm held open the door to see outside.

“Holy #@%*!” Lake Baikal, its water black as oil and deathly white as ice, had exploded. What once were waves were sheared off and vaporized into a spume of ballistic spray a meter high. The air between the tent and the lake was thick with a blur of debris and sand, a million million launched missiles whistling and stinging. The roar was maddening.

Suddenly, in the midst of the tempest, in a low crouch with her back to the lake, it was Heather. With one hand she held her raincoat up like a shield; in the other hand was her camera aiming right at me. It flashed once, twice, and my jaw went limp that she was photographing this fury. Then she raced toward the tent, stuffed the camera in with the one-word command, “Film!” and was off again. As I raced to load her a new roll of film, I glanced at the Sherpa for the wind speed. From 2 feet above ground, with a tree as partial shelter, it read 51 mph. Then Heather was back, this time shoving the pot of cooked noodles inside before grabbing the camera and heading back out.

10 minutes later the blow was done and left our camp as fast as it had come. Down the beach the nearest rowboat was flung from its rack and sat upright, slowly filling with the still-steady rain. Miraculously, the tent with its kayak anchorage sat completely intact. Holed up in its shelter once again, as Heather finished wiping down her camera with loving care, we opened the pot of steaming noodles and found not a single grain of sand. The feast that followed was heavenly!

Brandon and Heather from the town of Ust Barguzin

Read more about the journey in the introduction