I received a good bit of advice on preparing for a winter trip from a few members on this website, so I wanted to share a brief report of my trip.

The plan:

To drive the conventional route across Russia (with a side-trip down to Vladivostok) in summer / autumn 2017 and arrive in Magadan in mid October. Then return in the middle of winter, using ice roads, frozen rivers and generally trying to avoid using the same route as taken on the outward trip.

The vehicle:

I wanted a strong Toyota 4x4 with a manual transmission and a straight 4, 16 valve, fuel injected petrol engine. This is not an easy set of criteria to fill, but in November 2015 I managed to buy a seriously rare 1996 Toyota Hilux Surf. It was in terrible condition, so a lot of weekends were spent on a total engine rebuild, total replacement of all suspension components, and various other bits. I needed the car to be in perfect condition. I put foil-backed foam insulation behind every internal panel, under the carpet and under the head-lining. I fitted a 2kW Eberspacher Airtronic cabin heater running from a separate internal battery and diesel tank. The engine was running on 0W20 synthetic oil with 2:1 antifreeze mixture. All transmission and axle oils fully synthetic. All external rubber components were replaced prior to leaving. The rear seats were removed and a space-frame luggage rack / sleeping platform bolted down so as to have a heated, insulated sleeping space. I was running Yokohama IceGuard studless snow tyres which were fantastic. Extra fuel capacity consisted of 5x 22 litre petrol cans.


The journey:

My first week in Magadan was spent doing final preparations such as blanking the radiator with insulation, insulating the engine and battery. I also had time to take the truck on it's first run of the year....



...out on the sea ice of the Sea of Okhotsk.

Then after a side trip to Kamchatka, I headed out onto the Kolyma Highway. Two week earlier the temperature was around -48º C but a cyclone came over and temperatures were barely above freezing when leaving Magadan. Just after Ust Nera however, I outran the cyclone and was into the winter wonderland I had been dreaming of seeing for so many years:



Kolyma Highway, between Ust Nera and Kyubeme



On the gorgeous road to Oymyakon...



...meet a friendly reindeer herd.

It took a week to reach Yakutsk, which was pretty cold at -38º C mid-day temperature. Nice city though.



Then the real adventure began: The Lena River Ice Road. This was the toughest drive I have ever done. From Ulakahn-An about an hour south-west of Yakutsk, the ice road starts. It's 1200 kilometres to Peleduy, and from memory maybe 800 of these are on the frozen river itself.



This is the best bit: it got way, way worse. At times the snow had covered the tracks. In other places there was a phenomenon known as naled in Russian, where a thin crust of ice forms on top of liquid water on the main ice body, which is very dangerous for trucks. In other places the ice had heaved up towards the bank and the ice road was steeply cambered and covered in snow; speed was the only way through!

On the last section, from Lensk to Peleduy, I teamed up with a local (who had one eye) as the conditions were getting bad (blizzards and deep snow on top of cambered ice).



With some relief I reached Peleduy; but now the problems would become logistical. The only road to Peleduy is privately owned, and requires a permit to travel on. I however tried my luck, and after a bit of talking with the bored security guards at the checkpoint, I got an escort through the Talakan oil base. Then it's 100 kilometres on an access road which joins the public Ust-Kut to Mirny zimnik (ice road). This presented a new danger; the trucks had created deep grooves in the frozen ground which were much wider than my axle width, meaning a lot of sliding. Fine when there's nobody around but hair-raising when overtaking.



After two days, I finally reach Ust-Kut and get onto the BAM road, which here is wide and easy. It's a spectacular drive across the pass to Severobaikalsk however:



Severobaikalsk is truly one of the nicest towns I have been to in Russia; not for the town itself but for the stunning location at the top of Lake Baikal, which is magnificent in winter (and summer!). There is a short asphalt road from Sevrobaikalsk to Baikalskoye, where I found some tracks heading south on the lake:



It was a bit early in the season to be out on the ice, but it was nice and thick. Only problem was that there was more snow than I would have liked, and some rather large cracks. I jumped over this one. The lake is 800 metres deep at this point!



After 223 kilometres I reached Ust-Barguzin on the east coast of the lake (a wonderful area to explore in summer / autumn). From here there is a newly surfaced asphalt road all the way to Ulan Ude, though as I was heading west I turned off early and drove over the Selenge River onto the Trans-Siberian Highway at Ilinka.

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EurasiaOverland a memoir of one quarter of a million kilometres by road through all of the Former USSR, Western and Southern Asia.