Siberia in winter is a Fairy tale.… it's hard to find a proper word to describe all the winter beauty and might of this tremendous land! Winter air is fresh and still, pristine Taiga forest stretches far beyond the horizon and ice-covered Baikal shimmers in the sun.
Winter tours at Baikal are for those who prefer adventures and want to get some rest from hustle and bustle of life.
Many people who were at Baikal in summer want to come back in winter. There are a lot of travel-opportunities at Baikal in winter. When the Lake gets frozen, remote areas become accessible and one can travel for days on this immense ice floe on skies, in dog sledges, by snowmobiles, ATVs (All Terrain Vehicle), by airbag boats or on foot.
It's all up to your preferences!
Dog-sled sliding trips
Just imagine yourself traveling through age-old forests, across frozen Baikal, and over snow-covered trails behind a team of dogs running fast and far. Only the whisper of wind in the pines and the rhythmic patter of paws packing snow break the silence in the winter woods - quite a contrast from the normal hustle of everyday life!
You'll definitely have a great journey in the picturesque and mysterious Siberia when the sled is pulled by a team of hearty Husky sled dogs who are having as much fun as you are! They love people, and they love to run and pull.
Once you try it, you'll find that dog sledding is a great experience. Every trip is unique, and since there are many different routes, the opportunities for adventure are endless!
Irkutsk Travel Bureau "Sputnik" is glad to offer you dog-sleding tours of various duration and level of complexity.
Tours by hydrofoil boats (= airbag boats Khivus)
Khivus is a hovercraft boat able to travel across Baikal ice with the speed up to 100 km/h.
It is a very safe vehicle, which is intended for all-the-year-round exploitation. It feels well equally on water and on ice, and it is capable to move across gullies, cracks and shallows, flat coastal slopes, and it can move on shoal, deep snow and bogs. Tours by khivus either can go alone or can easily be combined with any other type of winter activities such as dog-sledding, ATV tours or ice-fishing (tours are on request).
Fresh winter air, fascinating Baikal views and high-speed ride along transparent ice will definitely raise up level of adrenaline in your blood!
Adventure tours by snowmobiles (ATV tours)
Snowmobile-trips give an excellent chance to get to the most distant (and most beautiful!) spots of Baikal withing a much shorter period of time.
ATV can travel easily both along asphalt roads and through the Taiga forest, along smooth ice floe of Baikal and through deep virgin snow-fields of the mainland. In straight and more or less smooth sections of the route ATV can reach the speed of 100 km (!). When crossing cracks in Baikal ice (which can be up to 1 m wide) or when moving through the forest area, the speed is certainly much lower (30-40 km/h), but impressions after such a ride will never make you feel indifferent!
Duration and the route of the snowmobile trip can be modified in accordance with all of your preferences: from 1-hour ride to more prolonged tours.
