Lake Baikal

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Originally uploaded by gregtaleck.

I made it down to Listvyanka today, a small village on the shore of Lake Baikal.

Here's one of the ferry docks. Completely frozen over. One week ago and I would have been able to reach a small island to the north, but now there is too much ice up there for the ferries to be running.

Baikal is huge. It contains 20 percent of the worlds unfrozen fresh water, and, volume-wise, is larger than all of the American Great Lakes combined. It's also the worlds deepest lake at 1620 meters at its deepest.

I spent just the afternoon here today, walking along the shore, stopping for some coffee, then some lunch, before catching a minibus back to Irkutsk. I'd really love to return in the summertime and do some trekking around the shoreline.