February 2018 · Baikal, Olkhon

Frozen Baikal

The largest skating rink on the planet.

The journey began with a six-hour flight from Moscow. In Irkutsk the captain cheered us up with the forecast: sunny, minus 31. There were still more than 300 km to go to our final destination, Olkhon Island, and on the way the thermometer swung between −30 and −45 — normal for the end of January.

The frozen plain of Lake Baikal netted with white cracks to the horizon, seen from a rocky summit on Olkhon Island — View over Baikal from Olkhon Island. This is the deepest part of the lake, more than 1,600 metres deep. In the distance is the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula on the eastern shore of Baikal — more than fifty kilometres away.

Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth and holds a fifth of all the planet’s fresh water. The water here is so clear that stones on the bottom can be seen from a depth of forty metres. In winter the lake turns into a kingdom of ice — from milky white to emerald. Every winter the shore of Olkhon, Baikal’s largest island, is coated with ice splashes — traces of the autumn storms.

Just under two thousand people live on the island, in a few villages, and the sun shines here more than 300 days a year. In summer the island can only be reached by ferry, in winter across the ice, and in the off-season by hovercraft. Commercial fishing is banned: the island is part of Pribaikalsky National Park. There are plenty of tourists in summer even without winter, but in recent years the winter flow has been growing too.

Shamanka Rock on Olkhon Island and the ice of the Maloye More strait under a pink sky — The Maloye More strait, which separates Olkhon Island from the mainland. On the right is Shamanka Rock (Cape Burkhan) — one of the best-known places on Lake Baikal and one of the nine holy places of Asia.

Clear black Baikal ice crossed by white cracks, a rocky shore in the distance, Uzury, Olkhon Island — Lake Baikal is famous not only for its vast reserves of pure fresh water but also for its perfectly clear ice, in places more than a metre thick. Near the shore you can see the bottom even at a depth of a couple of dozen metres.

A rocky cape and mirror-smooth ice on Lake Baikal under streaks of cloud — The ice often looks like a mirror.

An old rusty boat frozen into the Baikal ice and covered in icicles, in warm light — Old fishing boats on the shore of Olkhon Island protect the coast during the autumn storms.

A clear chunk of ice on smooth dark Baikal ice, with rocky islands behind — You often come across blocks of ice that look like huge diamonds.

The jagged rock of Ogoy Island encased in ice, with white cracks in the Baikal ice converging on it — The photograph shows the southern cape of Ogoy Island, whose distinctive feature is a rock that resembles a dragon.

A tangle of white cracks and air bubbles deep in blue Baikal ice, close-up

Even in calm weather Baikal can suddenly turn stormy — waves sometimes reach six metres. This is tectonics, not the whims of the atmosphere: the lake is a law unto itself, with zones that never freeze, shifting cracks and colossal ice thrusts. Most of these phenomena are caused by powerful storms in autumn and early winter. Once the ice is more than 50 cm thick, driving on it is relatively safe, but there are still pressure ridges 2–3 metres high and cracks from half a metre to two metres wide — they stay open all winter, narrowing and widening, and new ones appear with a sound like an artillery salvo.

A grotto in a shoreline cliff on Lake Baikal, its entrance hung with icicles, with glowing ice beyond

A person in a red jacket with a camera beside a cliff hung with huge icicles on frozen Lake Baikal

Layered white cracks inside dark ice on Lake Baikal, close-up

A snowy slope with scattered larches above frozen Lake Baikal, mountains in the distance, Olkhon Island

An ice grotto on Lake Baikal: icicles on the vault, turquoise ice at the entrance and a person in the distance

A thin clear slab of ice standing like a sail among the hummocks of Lake Baikal — Winter Baikal is a rather unusual place where nature shows what it is capable of. Besides ice splashes many metres high and heaps of ice several metres tall, you also find examples of far more delicate work. Pieces of ice often resemble objects or animals. This one, more than half a metre tall, immediately reminded me of a sail — and the ice is so clear that you could easily read a book through it.

Hummocks of clear ice slabs on Lake Baikal under a pink sunset sky

Baikal ice with a blue and golden sheen and fine pale cracks, close-up

The Milky Way over clear, cracked Baikal ice at night, with a dark rock on the right, Uzury, Olkhon Island

This photograph was taken at the end of January on the north-eastern side of the island, near the village of Uzury, where there is a weather station. The village is surrounded by hills — you can see them in the background. It is one of the few places on the coast from which you can easily get down to the lake. Despite temperatures of minus thirty, ice formed along the shore only in the second half of January. A clear sky and almost no light pollution revealed the Milky Way in all its glory. The foreground was lit with an ordinary pocket torch, which brought out the structure of the clear, emerald, cracked ice. We were lucky with the wind: there was almost no snow on the ice. Experimenting with the light took almost three hours — standing still any longer in such frost is hard, and the temperature swings at that time of night meant a risk of new cracks, so going far from the shore was risky. At some point Baikal stopped being just a lake. The ice, the cracks and the Milky Way merged into a single space in which it was hard to tell where the earth ends and the sky begins.

Clear slabs of Baikal ice in close-up, with the dawn sky showing through

White air bubbles frozen into Baikal ice, close-up

Snow-covered hills of Olkhon Island above the Baikal ice, with blowing snow drifting across it — Strong winds often blow all the snow away, right down to the ground.

A rust-coloured shoreline rock under thick flows of blue ice on Lake Baikal

Two people on a rocky headland above an endless expanse of Baikal ice, a steep mountainside on the right, Uzury

A clear block of ice on a pressure ridge, streaks of lit cloud in the sky and mountains behind, Lake Baikal

A skater in red on clear Baikal ice, reflected in the surface, with rocks in the distance — In winter the lake turns into the largest skating rink on the planet.

A rocky island in the Baikal ice under a starry sky

An ice-covered cape and the Baikal ice in the light of the setting sun — After strong storms in early winter, ice splashes several metres high build up on the coastal rocks of Olkhon. The morning was overcast, but by sunset the wind had died down, the sky had cleared, and the last rays of the sun lit up the ice-covered rocks at the southern tip of the island.

The rocky island of Ogoy on frozen Lake Baikal, with drifting snow sweeping across the clear ice — One morning promised nothing good — a fierce blizzard hid everything around. But it was for moments like this that I had come back to Baikal: if not a sunrise, then a rare natural phenomenon. One gust was so strong it nearly carried off my camera bag — no wonder: the sarma, one of the most powerful local winds, reaches 40–60 m/s.

Trees on the shore of Lake Baikal encased in splash ice

Shoreline rocks under thick white growths of frozen spray on Lake Baikal

A ridge of ice blocks along a fracture in the Baikal ice under a blue sky with clouds

Standing out on the ice all day at −25 to −30 °C (and it was even colder at night) is a test in itself. In the ice caves you literally had to crawl so as not to break the icicles. At first it was frightening to walk on the ice: it felt like walking on thin, cracked glass with a black abyss of unknown depth beneath it. You could walk in ordinary shoes, by the way — the ice turned out to be hardly slippery at all. But cracks appeared even under your feet, despite the ice being so thick, and the sound they made would have fitted right into Star Wars.

Sunlit cliffs of Olkhon Island above blue Baikal ice patched with snow — Panorama of the northern part of Olkhon Island, looking towards the Uzury weather station.

Cracks and bubbles radiating outwards inside Baikal ice, close-up

A fringe of icicles along the side of an ice-bound boat, with a pile of clear ice shards below, Lake Baikal

A network of white cracks in green Baikal ice, close-up

Turquoise and white ice floes piled up to the horizon, with hazy mountains beyond, Lake Baikal

A field of broken Baikal ice with the sun low on the horizon

Crisscrossing cracks and layers deep in grey Baikal ice, close-up

Two clear slabs of ice against the dawn sky, with the sun shining through, Lake Baikal

Turquoise pressure ridges of ice on Lake Baikal under dark clouds

Turquoise Baikal ice stretching to the horizon, divided by white bands of snow

Blue Baikal ice ruled with straight intersecting cracks, close-up

Crimson clouds reflected in smooth, crack-streaked Baikal ice

Dark blue Baikal ice with frozen ripples and a single crack running through it, dawn on the horizon

A rocky cape above blue Baikal ice at dusk, with the moon in the sky

In winter Baikal becomes a different place. Sometimes so different that you can no longer tell where the ice ends and the sky begins.