Bajkal II

• 22. 2. 2012
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My original plan for this year was the North Pole. I wanted to travel from the polar station Barneo to the Pole and back. A three-week trip during which I would not walk more than 220 km (137 miles). Not exactly a piece of cake but not that difficult either even though it would be in a new environment which is very difficult to navigate. Unfortunately, it is also an expedition with a million Czech Crown budget which I was not able to secure despite 9 months of hard work, bunch of meetings and hundreds of emails and phone calls.

Sometimes around November I started to doubt that I would be able to get the money and I figured out that the only logical thing to do is to come up with a back up plan and start planning simultaneously another expedition with a lower budget - a solo crossing of the lake Baikal both ways. My thinking was as follows - if I was able to get the money for the North Pole in the end, I can do Baikal next year as a training trip before the South Pole because the environment in the Baikal region has a lot in common with that in Antarctica and also the distance over 1000 km is fairly the same.

In January, the last potential sponsor opted out and I plunged into preparations for Baikal. At that time I also made the decision to attempt the speed record on my return journey. Partly, I decided so in order to limit the time I will have to spend at the lake and partly I want to find out if I am able to do it under 13 days which is the current speed record. I plan to complete the expedition in 35 days max. I have 20 days for the journey to the northern tip of the lake, 13 days for the return journey and two extra days as a backup. The distance is about 650 km long which means that I will have to cover at least 33 km (20.5 miles) a day on the first journey and at least 50 km (31 miles) a day on the way back if I want to stick to my plan.

In order to be as fast as possible, I made a little risky decision to take only two extra food rations. As for the equipment, except for one down jacket I won’t have anything extra with me, just the essentials. Still, the sled will weight more than 90 kg (198 pounds) - 49 kg (108) of food, 16 kg (35 pounds) of fuel and the rest is the tent, sleeping bag, mattresses, stove and some cookware and technology (camera, laptop, satellite phone).

I have less than a week till my departure. Thoughts swirl through my head and I can’t stop wandering how this will end up. On the one hand I have doubts whether I will be able to pull it off, whether the weather will be good, whether the equipment will hold. On the other hand there are the great memories of all the beautiful moments I’ve already experienced in Baikal. The stunning sunsets, deep rumbling of the ice, or the great feeling when everything works fine and I easily walk mile after mile after mile.

22. 2. 2012 / Pavel Blažek / Number of comments: 0