Back in 2010 I drove my Hilux from Western Mongolia across Russia to Estonia. I started in late November and got to Estonia in the last few days of December. Although it was not the middle of winter, temperatures went down to -26ºC, and it was my first experience driving in real winter conditions.

I was rather unprepared - the truck had summer tyres and the radiator was leaking - and it was in short the scariest thing I have probably ever done. There was utter carnage on the roads, trucks crashed everywhere, terrible visibility, salty slushy crap flying everywhere (not helped by my windscreen washer bottle being frozen solid for over 4 months), and twice my truck suddenly did a 180-spin and it was only by luck that I wasn't in a serious accident (no damage either time).

To cap it off, the very low temperatures revealed an electrical fault (much later diagnosed as a faulty starter relay) which meant it didn't like to start (had to turn the key 30-40 times) below about -15ºC. Plus the truck is diesel and I was worried that a sudden cold snap below -30ºC might just stop me in my tracks.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I swore I would never ever ever do it again.

But... now I'm thinking, I'd love to get up to all those places in Siberia, Yakutia, Kamchatka, maybe even Chukotka. I'd be taking a similar Hilux (a great, strong, simple and light 4x4), but with a petrol engine, studded tyres, proper recovery gear, neat anti-freeze, winch, and maybe a wood-stove. Ship it to Vladivostok one February and explore the region for a month or two when the days are not so short, the temperatures not too hostile, but the ice on rivers still thick enough to drive on (the Lena Ice Road intrigues me).

So, finally getting to my question (sorry for waffling), does anyone know a resource where I can find out about Russia's Ice Roads? I speak passable Russian and will be improving it in the near future, but an English-language resource would be great.

I'm most interested in Yakutia / Chukotka, driving along the Lena, and perhaps across Baikal, but I've no idea about the feasibility of this. I know there are proper ice roads made by the authorities, linked by small towns and presumably with some sort of traffic.

How about driving the BAM in winter? Would it make the river crossings doable, or is it ridiculously risky? I don't want to do anything that the locals wouldn't do.

And what about further west? Are there ice roads up the Ob or Yenisei? How about up from Ukhta to Vorkuta and the Polar Ural Region?

I hope my questions aren't too naive. For what it's worth, I've driven in most parts of Russia, and all other parts of the USSR, so I'm no stranger to the region / people / culture. This will take some organising so I am looking to do it perhaps in February 2017.

Thanks for reading

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.