Lake Baikal Photography Expedition 2020

Andrew and Igor have been very friendly and knowledgeable tour guides, the program and daily trips they offered were varied and interesting.

Dmitri the driver: he was the king of the ice, that guy. He improved the safety of the trip immeasurably. The food at lunches on the trip: Dmitri's wife cooked the loveliest lunches. Your communications leading up to the trip: you were excellent in keeping in touch and providing information.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

- Andrej is an AMAZING landscape photographer (which we only realised at the end of the trip when we saw some of his photos), and we sort of missed the benefit of his knoweldge.

- Gaining tips and help: both Igor and Andrej were great at scouting locations and I liked them both very much, but I think they presumed that we all were just capable of capturing the landscape to maximum effect. I am an amateur photographer with no landscape photography experience. Later on the tour, Andrej started to show me some good spots to set up, which I was grateful for. If only this was posible at the start of the trip, and so many more of my photos would have been a better quality. So, I wasn't asking for dedicated and long-winded personal assistance, just a few minor tips and traps along the way was all that was needed to make a difference.

- I learned in other photographic contexts that you should start wide, then go small, and something like this could really help for landscape photography too when there's a group, i.e. start with your wide shots then walk towards the rock or hill that's the subject, for example.

- Packing list: I'd strongly recommend including on the packing list some cleat-like/ice no-slip things that you can place on your shoes. You can buy some fairly low-grade ones at the supermarket there, but they weren't that good. It means the difference between skipping/running along the ice like an elegant gazelle, or shuffling at a snails pace carefully and slowly, and even then falling over and hurting yourself constantly. Also, chemical hand warmers aren't really available in Russia, and I know that some of the others mentioned these. I also bought the reindeer boots that all of the cool Russian kids had there (like this), and I didn't have a single moment of cold toes.

So overall, I really loved the trip and found it to be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see a truly beautiful landscape; one which is fragile and vulernable to our climate change, and over-touristing in the coming years. Thank you for all your work, and I will be staying up to date with other tours that 56th Parallel run.

My 250km Ice skating adventure on lake baikal Feb/March 2016...

Five years ago I saw for the first time pictures of the frozen Lake Baikal on the internet. Gifted Russian photographer Daniel Kordan had just finished an ice skating trip around Olkhon Island with friends and came back with amazing photos of ice covered cliffs, lattice like patterns of white cracks in black ice, ice caves glittering like Aladin’s cave and icicles longer than a human being.

Fast forward five years later and I have just returned from my trip to Lake Baikal. My expectations were high after constantly looking at other people’s pictures of Lake Baikal, but they were exceeded. The ice was more wonderful than ever imagined and the ice skating was fantastic. I had enlisted 56th Parallel to help me with the logistics of my trip and they were great. Communication via email before the trip was good and together we worked out an itinerary for custom made trip.

Even when four days before the trip I had to put everything on hold because of family problems they were very understanding and prepared to support me whatever I decided. Luckily in the end I could travel as planned.

Anna from 56th Parallel with whom I corresponded promised me that my guide would be a real “travel buddy”. That was very important to me because I would be alone with the guide for 11 days. Maksim, 28 years old from Irkutsk, was the best guide I could have wished for. Experienced, yet relaxed, fit, with very good English, a good ice skater and with lots of local knowledge was also an interesting person to talk to. He was patient and friendly and looked very well after me. He was also very understanding of my photography, making sure I was at the best places during sunrise and sunset possible. He was a great guide and companion.

The organisation of gear, food, accommodation and transport was perfectly organised. In the evening we would skate into a village and move into cosy and warm rooms, often with the chance to take a shower before a filling dinner was served. During two nights we decided to camp on the edge of the lake, enjoying the solitude and scenery. In these cases it was no problem to cancel the accommodation, a flexibility I really appreciated.