Overland to Kamchatka - ZIMNIK winter roads
 

I understand it has not been done before, but the preparations that Rainer Zietlow took are impressive: Amarok Polar Expedition: Home. Keep fingers crossed that he will make it. His team started in Moscow, is in Yakutsk today, and will drive via Pevek and Anadyr to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatka...

According to their Yellowbrick real-time tracking, the group is now close to the Kyubyume petrol station in Oymyakon District, and will reach the turn-off point into uncharted territory at Ust-Nera in the next hours: Amarok Polar Expedition: Home

Some information on their potential offroad route to Chukotka may be found on askyakutia.com: How to get from Magadan to Anadyr in summer? Via Yakutia's Kolyma | AskYakutia.com or How to get from Uelen to Magadan via Anadyr & Omsukchan? | AskYakutia.com

Worth looking at all the pages from this expedition 13 years ago led by a feisty Italian woman.
Кругосветный автопробег

These guys really pioneered this kinda winter exploration. The current guys seem to following in their footsteps till chukotka

Correction: the Amarok group is now in Oymyakon village. Would be funny if they drive the OLD Road of Bones ... :oops2:

Thank you. Very interesting, the Shparo-expedition. They shipped from Uelen to Vladivostok. Amazing: 900 l fuel tanks each car ! More on the Jewish-Italian teamleader Stefania Zini here: A Taste for Adventure

The Shparo-website lists further overland expeditions to Chukotka (google-translate):

1. Expedition Richard Chrisy, December 1994 - March 1995. In the caravan 6 "Ford", which came accompanied by Russian "Ural". The expedition reached the village. Lawrence (Chukotka)

2. Expedition Dr. Petter Johannessen, nephew of Roald Amundsen. Machinery - 4 truck "Iveco" (6x6, weighing 6 tons). Date: November 1995 - March 1996. Expedition big problems drove to the village of Cape Schmidt, Chukotka, and was transported to Alaska by air.

3. Company "Land Rover" planned way London - London - New York - London, in their cars, in December 1997 - April 1998. The transition was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the company. For the management of the so-called "Transglobalnoy expedition" were attracted famous travelers: Dmitry Shparo (Russia), Dr. Gordon Thomas (Canada), Sir Renalf Faynnes (UK). Crossing the Bering Strait was to be carried on pontoons. The expedition did not take place because of financial difficulties.

Rainer Zietlow and the Amarok Expedition have now left Ust-Nera, to go off-road (at Burustah) towards Chukotka and Kamchatka: Amarok Polar Expedition: Home (livetracking)

http://www.amarokpolar.com/fileadmin..._w556_v001.png

For comparison, this is the route that the Shparo-Expedition took:

http://www.shparo.ru/zil_expedition/zil_transrussia.htm

http://www.shparo.ru/zil_expedition/.../zil_map_2.gif


(below: Coal = Ugolskoye; Whalen = Uelen)


Burustah - Sasyr
Sasyr - Coal
Coal - Zyrianka
Zyrianka - Cherskiy
Chersky - Pevek
Pevek - Cape Schmidt
Cape Schmidt - Whalen

^^^ ...presumably those numbers are distances between those points in Km?

do maps of the winter roads up there exist?

That is km, correct.

I am searching for a winter road map too.

Here is a series of youtube-videos of Frederick Taer's expedition, with relatively standard 4x4s, driving on winter roads to Chukotka in 2012: Chukotka 2012. Day 1. Neryungri. - YouTube

And this is their route:

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/32...kotka_2012.png

including a signpost of an iceroad:

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/32...ge_Iceroad.png

Not sure, but I think the youtube-videos end halfway (?) On their Russian website it shows they finished the trip in Chukotka as planned: http://frederick-taer.livejournal.com/

It looks like the maps on Bolot's askyakutia.com (www.rus-map.ru) show the iceroads as well (here for example Burustah to Sasir to Ugolskoye). Can someone with better Russian-skills than me help to turn to map pages 196 etc. towards Pevek and Anadyr?

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/32...ceroad_map.png

Here are the waypoints for that trip as far as Pevek. This guy made it as far as Pevek, the rest actually got to Anadyr via Cape Schmidt.

Those guys had the maps in their sat nav so they must be available in that format as well as Russian Military Maps.

One person on this thread can best advise on satnav maps for the region. The only one I know of is http://www.navicom.ru/maps/topo/


Google Maps



Страница Виртуальных Путешественников

Thanks, Fastship, the google-map link until Pevek is very good:

http://www.4sync.com/web/get/s.dolya...a3/mapchuk.png

It is is from Sergey Dolya who was part of the same Frederick Taer expedition. Fantastic fotos of the iceroads here: http://sergeydolya.livejournal.com/t AG / Chukotka

It seems that this is the only Chukotka expedition ever to be done in standard 4x4s ...

And of course, no one made it to Kamchatka overland...

I asked Navicom - good enough they replied by return:

Good morning,

We have only the "Roads of Russia" card. This is a map of the whole of Russia. It is only in Russian language. And it's not divided into "winter" and "summer"

Best wishes,
NavicomArslanov Alexey

I think in general that these zimniks are too changeable to be mapped to the accuracy satnav's require. I read as many trip reports in this area as I can, one such reports states

In general, the cause "winter road" on the map - it is almost impossible. Each year, it is laid on a string of different ways, depending on weather conditions, and in general, the route itself is changing constantly: sweep somewhere, somewhere will water on ice, and winter road alone will make a new bend.

Expedition "Brest - Pevek." Fight with the North - HGV - Avto@Mail.Ru

The routes seem fully prepared, all the way up to Pevek, there are even UK style road signs which can be seen in some of the photos. Basically, you follow the Kolyma River. This looks like one of those places you pick your route when you get there. On google earth there are roads from Pevek to Uelen marked, finding them might be another matter! From Uelen to Anadry it looks like you're on your own, line of sight/dead reckoning with GPS or sextant.

This list of winter roads is from a Russian cycle website: Google Translate

What a stunning place though.

Thank you Fastship. Very good weblinks.

So the "Brest -Pevek" expedition is Nr. 5 on our list of drives to Chukotka, and the 2nd in standard 4x4s (Mazdas, even without special tyres).

I have My-Weather-Indicator on my PC set for Anadyr, I haven't seen it above -30c this year! Remember too that you require special permissions to enter Chukotchka:-

VISITCHUKOTKA.COM - Ethnic Chukotka

Amazing. In Sergey Dolya's expedition blog, he mentions that real temperatures in Siberia tend to be even colder than the "official" ones on the web / in the news. That was our experience too. :freezing:

"Anyway, the local inhabitants do not hesitate saying that "This is not Russia, where anarchy and its laws", and complain that the weather forecast for the central channels constantly lie: they say that the temperature of -34 * Celsius and in fact -50 *. Think they want to knock off the "northern", due to the salary, and that is after all half the salary plus."