Day1: Arrived at basecamp near the river and close to a beautiful silverbirch forest which provided some shelter from the bitterly cold wind. The temperature is about +5C without wind and about -2C with wind. It feels quite cold after 15 hours on the typically tropical Russian trains.

The picture on the right shows our mound of rucksacks and equipment which we unloaded from the small delivery van which we had crammed into for the 20 mile journey from the remote train station to this tiny farming village at the end of the road. The village has two shops which is the only sign of civilisation for about 100 miles in every direction.

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The area is like a paradise with almost no sign of human intervention. The picture below shows the view from our campsite down towards the river where it widens after the snow covered ravine.

The sun was shining in deep blue skies on arrival at the site thus I took the opportunity to take some pictures while we were scouting the area for a good place for the tents.

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My good friend Pasha surveys the camp... "now where did I put that camp fire"?

Meanwhile four of the trekkers in our group wait expectantly for an evaluation and to be given further orders. At that time I was still wandering around getting in everybody's way and taking lots of pictures with frequent exclamations like "cool, there's even snow!"
"wow, check this out.." or "...look at the sun reflecting on the river!"

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It was real impressive how all these russian teenagers immediately organised themselves and setup the camp with minimal supervision. They sure have a lot of common sense and nobody complained about the frozen hands and feet from the wind.

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