Snowkiting

I thought I'd seen all the best ways of getting around on Baikal today, but after wandering through the market, eating some ormul, and picking up a couple of small souvenirs I find a rundown area of warehouses and old boats. Inside I find the large group of iron smoking ovens where the ormaul is preapred. Two ladies are just putting on the day's batch, coating the fish with a brush covered in some sort of oil then stacking them onto racks. The oven is then opened, smoke billows out and then the racks are hurriedly placed inside. I move on to photgraph the rusty boats, for some reason they are one of the most photogenic things I know. Just look in any photography collection and I guarantee they'll have a rusty boat in there somewhere. While taking possibly the best rusty boat shots I 've ever taken I notice a figure a long way out on the ice, somewhere between here and the mountains that are just taking on a reddish tinge as the sun goes down. He seems to be moving or maybe dancing round and around a pole and I think I might have stumbled on a shamanic ritual. My curiousity is piqued so I set out across the ice.

There is nothing like a loud crack and the sensation of your foot disappearing downwards to set the heart racing, especially if you're on a frozen lake. Fortunately I have just fallen through the thin top layer that has formed from melt water from previous days. As I prepare to fix my attention firmly footwards in case of a more serious break the man stops moving and then suddenly starts again, towed by a large orange kite that suddenly ascends into the evening sky. I love kites, having enjoyed immensely the small time I've spent kitesurfing in sunny England, so I increase the speed of my tentative shuffle to a slow walk, determined now to speak with the owner of what is undoubtedly the coolest way of crossing Baikal. His name is appropriately Hardy. He is from Austria and has been preparing for two years to snowkite from one end of Baikal to the other. He has specially modified skis that carry him over the ice and a sled on which he can tow all his equipment. He has just been doing some preliminary filming of the kite and his skis in motion, so that he can concentrate on the interesting stuff while he's actually out on the lake. He's preparing to take some photos too, using his camera and a remote. This sounds like an incredibly difficult operation, despite Hardy's assurances to the contrary, so I offer to take some for him, which is a lot of fun. He then does a few runs for his own enjoyment so I use the opportunity to grab some pictures of my own, Hardy kiting into the sunset. He'll be setting off in a couple of days from Severobaikalsk and he reckons he'll take about 8 days to cover the distance. On good ice he says he can manage 60 km/h with the sled. His site for those who are interested is http://www.stormrider.at and there's more information about snowkiting at http://www.snowkiting.at. If you're not interested then I'm shocked.