Hi

I'm looking at routes for a cross-Russia winter expedition starting in Magadan in February 2017, in a 4WD. So far the route is:

Magadan - Yakutsk on M56
Yakutsk - Mirnyy - Olyokeminsk on forest roads
Olyokminsk - Vitim on the Lena River zimnik (ice road)

then either:

Vitim - Bodaybo on Vitim river (if possible) then western BAM to Severobaikalsk and either across Baikal or on the regular road to join the TSH

or

Vitim - Ust Kut on the Lena River then onto the TSH via Bratsk

(thanks to Mr Colebatch for route info here)

TSH to Tomsk
Ob River zimnik to Nizhnevartovsk, road to Khanty-Mansiysk
zimnik to Labytnangi / Salekhard (and possible excursion to meet Nenets on the Yamal Peninsula)

The last uncertainty I have now, is how to cross the Urals back into Europe.

I would love to drive through the Polar Urals from Labytnangi to Vorkuta. There is a railway line with regular services, and I believe there is something of an access track alongside the railway line. Rivers would be crossable in a car (this would be mid-March time).

This summer, whilst on a train from Sosnogorsk (near Ukhta in the Komi Republic) to Troitsko-Pechorsk (on the Pechora), I met a guy who serviced the lines and told me yes, there was an access road, but that I'd be crazy to take it. Unfortunately, I didn't get more information from him as I had not quite realised this trip plan at the time.

On the other hand, I contacted someone in Salekhard who told me that no, there was no zimnik across the Polar Urals...

Does anyone here have any idea about this? Maybe a contact who knows the area? Sadly, I did not make any contacts in that part of the Komi Republic...

I should say that I'm keen to cross the Urals as far north as possible, but I am not prepared to beat a track through virgin snow etc, only follow a road which has at least some chance of other traffic....

Cheers!

EO

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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.