Road of Bones to the Coldest Place in the World

In the beginning, The Turtle Expedition had what they thought was an innocent idea: drive across Russia. Then reality struck: one sixth of the Earth’s surface... eight million square miles... 7,000 miles across eleven time zones, stretching halfway around the planet. Oh, and there was that nagging fact that there are no all-weather roads across the Russian Far East. The solution? Follow the example of Russian Cossacks and trappers, and before them, the Paleo-Siberian and Altaic tribes which roamed the forests and valleys of Siberia for millennia: Winter Roads.

The Road of Bones is the first of several installments to be published in Russian Life, chronicling the The Turtle Expedition’s 16,000 mile, 11 month long adventure across the breadth of Russia. By Gary Wescott. Photos by Gary and Monika Wescott.

At sixty degrees below zero, metal can crystallize and snap.

Plastics –like photographic film and the vinyl sides of our pop-up camper – can become as brittle as a potato chip. Tires and fan belts can reach their “glass transition point” and crack. A 5w/15 weight, Arctic oil turns to heavy jello. Gear oil becomes solid. Normal diesel fuel turns into syrup, clogging filters with globs of wax and reducing fuel lines to mere capillaries.

Little wonder that few foreigners had ever crossed Siberia with a vehicle, and that those who had invariably resorted to the insular comfort of the Trans-Siberian Railway, with its Pacific terminus in Vladivostok. But then the Trans-Siberian does not go where we were headed.

In Northern Siberia, winter comes very early. A September snow is normal, and major rivers freeze in November. In the remote reaches of Northeastern Siberia, between the Cherskovo and the Verkhoyansky ranges, there are valleys which, for reasons better explained by meteorologists, experience cold beyond imagination. As the dry, Arctic air rushes down from the Laptev Sea, temperatures can plummet below -60°F for weeks. There are documented lows below -98°F.

The human body, with its built-in internal heater, is far easier than a truck to keep alive in such extremes, though frostbite can occur in minutes at temperatures below -50°F.

If the cold were not enough, we were told that food and fuel could both be scarce. Our support trailer allowed us to carry at least ninety days of basic supplies like butter, milk, rice, beans, pastas, canned meats, and freeze dried vegetables. Our combined 145 gallon fuel tanks in the truck and support trailer would give us a range of over 1,600 miles.

Water – when it could be found in liquid form – needed to be boiled, chemically treated or filtered to treat against such waterborne parasites as amoebae and giardia, as well as bacteria and viruses which spread hepatitis. There were the countless innoculations needed for traveling in Russia’s backcountry: shots against everything from cholera and typhoid, to rabies, Japanese encephalitis, tetanus/diphtheria and Russian Spring tick fever.

Cooking and heating in our pop-up camper presented major dilemmas, starting with the fact that propane freezes at -42°F. In any case, propane was not available along the first few thousand miles of our route, and tests in Prudhoe Bay in 1994 showed a full tank would keep the three-season camper above freezing for only four days at a balmy eighteen degrees above zero Fahrenheit. So, two special Hunter heaters were installed, one diesel/fired and a second which took heat from the truck’s engine. Coleman Peak I multi-fuel stoves would be used in an emergency to cook and melt snow.   

In short, we had to be self-contained, careful, and lucky. For emergency contact to the outside world from remote areas, we carried a Hughes Magnaphone briefcase Satellite Communi-cation System. Using a dash-mounted Eagle GPS and U.S. Defense Agency Tactical and Operational Navigation Charts, we would always know our exact location.

All these problems and answers notwithstanding, there were the ongoing horror stories of bandits, highway robbery, Mafia, and rising crime. Reports from both the American Embassy and Russian & American contacts indicated that these dangers were real and should not be taken lightly. It was suggested that we travel armed and most certainly not alone, least we end up in a ditch with a bullet in the back of our heads.

You should be getting the picture. The innocence of our original idea had vanished. It was not going to be a “drive in the country.”

So, after three years of planning, we stood on the docks of Magadan’s dilapidated harbor, the frozen Sea of Okhotsk as a backdrop. A light snow dusted our parkas as we watched the prehistoric looking crane lower a rusting 40-foot container onto the oil-soaked gravel outside the custom’s guard shack, releasing it with a resounding thump. It was seventeen degrees below zero.

THE ROAD OF BONES

Magadan was once called ’The Gateway to Hell’. Until recent years, this strategic military port had been closed to all outsiders. In 1932, when gold was discovered in the nearby Kolyma River Valley, the city was founded as an administration and transfer/receiving point for the masses of political, social and criminal prisoners brought here to work in the rich Siberian mines. Some historians estimate that as many as twenty million people died in brutal labor camps across the former USSR: victims of starvation, torture and exposure (according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Edward E. Ericson, Jr. of the Calvin College, the figure of sixty million is a “widely accepted number” of people killed). Many were shot or beaten to death in their attempts to escape. Hundreds of thousands died in transit. As many as twelve million perished just in the nearby Kolyma Gold Fields, where conditions were so unspeakable, some of the camps officially did not exist.

Only with Stalin’s death in 1953 was Dalstroy (which oversaw the gulag system in the East) abolished, but its legacy of gulags (prison camps) – guard towers, barbed wire compounds and unmarked graves – remains to haunt today’s citizens with the shadow of a human atrocity far surpassing Hitler’s Holocaust. An old man who had miraculously survived ten years in labor camps told us that, between the gulags  and World War II, one out of three Russian families lost a member. In 1945, his father and brother were taken to Khandyga. He never saw them again.

Despite its morbid history, we found Magadan a rather friendly and accommodating town in which to begin our adventure. The outdoor markets were well stocked with goods from the U.S. and Asia. Local museums held a wealth of history about the area, including fascinating samples of the many prehistoric mammoths which have been unearthed from the permafrost. Ice fishing is a Russian passion. We took time to wet a line on the frozen bay. Though relatively mild temperatures result from its proximity to the ocean, the weather can be unpredictably nasty. The average temperature in January and February is 0°F, and bitter,  icy winds sweep down from the Arctic.

Negotiating the rubber stamp bureaucracy, the mountains of superfluous red tape and carbon copies surpassed even our previous experiences in Colombia  and Venezuela. We extracted a one year “transit visa” for our expedition truck and trailer and extended our own three month visas for an additional three months.

The Kolyma Highway heading west from Magadan toward Yakutsk on the distant Lena River, more than 1,000 miles away, remained shrouded in mystery. Historians refer to it as the ‘Road of Bones.’ During the height of the gulags, according to one grim explanation, there were so many corpses, they were used for the road bed.

The current 1996 Lonely Planet guide to Russia, Ukraine & Belarus, said of the route: “roughshod and impassable in winter.” Temperatures could drop unexpectedly to below -80°F, and high winds could create complete whiteouts for hours, burying the road in the process. To the unprepared occupants of a stalled vehicle, death would come swiftly and quietly. The general consensus was that, if the road was passable at all, it would be foolish to attempt this route alone.

Through the office of NC Machinery, Magadan’s regional Caterpillar dealership, we arranged to travel in the company of a supply convoy as far as Ust Nera. Following two, six-wheel drive Kamazes hauling frozen chicken and other foodstuffs, we headed west through stands of skinny larch and across wide valleys. Rolling white hills turned to mountains in the distance. There were few towns or villages, and many seemed almost abandoned. Some ruins, we could guess, were remnants of the over 100 gulags which existed here during our own lifetime.

The view of snow-covered peaks in the distance was increasingly spectacular. Drifts along the road had been sculptured by the wind into waves and fluffs of whipped cream, a white so pure it was startling. The barren mountains resembled giant mounds of sugar. The road alternated between two-lanes and one-lane with just enough room to pass. There was little sign of snow plows. The deep tracks were kept open by the huge tires of six or ten-wheel drive trucks hauling coal east and supplies west. In sections, our differentials dragged the center berm, but there was no resistance from the light powder which swirled behind in our wake.

The snow in the ruts had been compacted into solid ice. Even in four-wheel drive, there was never a moment to let concentration drift. On some of the steep sections, we could feel the tires slip and grab again. Any sudden stop or turn would have been impossible. Problems needed to be anticipated a half mile ahead.

In the darkness of 2:00 a.m., as we wound over switch-backs to a final pass (3,990 ft.) and crawled into the valley of Susuman, little crystals of snow danced through our lights, the diamond dust of hoarfrost searching for a nest. The town was cloaked in what is called “habitation fog,” caused by human breath, homes and automobiles. The air is so cold, it prevents the fog from rising. Following the other two trucks in our convoy, we stopped at the freight company’s avtobaza (truck maintenance and dispatch center), for the night.

This was a luxury, for we were able to park inside a huge, heated truck barn, eliminating the need to start our diesel generator, which supplied 110 AC to the various block, oil, battery and cab heaters. The grease on the floor of the hanger-type building was thick with the stench of dead or dying machinery. Numerous trucks looked like they had been on the ‘fix-when-parts-arrive’ list for years.

By morning, the temperature had risen to -35°F. We slurped sweet tea and greasy mutton soup in the workers’ dimly lit cafeteria. After fixing a flat on one of the Kamazes, a laborious task which, being performed without modern machinery, took the rest of the morning, our start was late. The dense habitation fog had burned off by noon as we pulled out of town, and a blue sky brought needed color to the Arctic scene.

ON OUR OWN

Tired of breathing diesel smoke from the belching Kamazes, we passed our convoy and headed west alone. The main route was seldom in question. Fifty miles out of Susuman, we came to the junction with the road to Yakutsk. We stayed northwest toward Ust Nera, a longer and more difficult option, and one which kept our accompanying freight trucks behind us.

The road narrowed to one lane as we climbed steeply to the top of a 4,766 foot pass. There were signs of recent avalanches and we plowed through two-foot drifts of talc-like powder. Pine trees started to appear, barely recognizable in their thick blankets of snow. We dropped down into a long winding canyon. The rutted road alternately hugged a cliff along the Nera River, or twisted down to cross its tributaries. Most bridges were blocked-off and traffic was routed around them, across the frozen riverbeds. Low bushes along the road and stream banks were tufted with balls, like cotton plants ready to pick. By evening we had entered the Cherskovo mountains. Hoarfrost coated trees and power poles to a depth of several inches. A gentle snow drifted through the lingering rose colored light of a Siberian dusk.

It was nearly midnight when we climbed over the last pass and snaked our way down an icy track into Ust Nera. Dense habitation fog limited visibility to only a few feet as we inched through the dark streets, our tires squeaking in the dry snow. The temperature was already below -40F.

Located some 628 miles from Magadan, Ust Nera is one of at least four small communities in the region which vie for the title of ’The Coldest Inhabited Place in the World.’ In nearby Oymyakon, a monument was placed to mark the spot, but their record of -96.4°F has been eclipsed by a low of -98°F, and rumors of -112°F in Verkhoyansk were circulating. Ust Nera is definitely in the running, with a low of -97°F. For the record: minus ninety-seven is one hundred and twenty-nine degrees below freezing.

The vehicle storage barn at the avtobaza was full, so we fired up the generator in the trailer and plugged in the truck and camper to 110 AC. Sleeping with the camper top down, we used the Pelonis 1,500-watt ceramic heater to keep the small space at a comfortable  65°F (and to keep the battery and oil heating elements hot). Crawling under our Cascade Design sleeping bags, it felt like we were camping in a three-man back-packing tent. The hum of the generator lulled us to sleep.

Ust Nera was a gulag until 1956. Now an active gold mining town, it is situated in a wide river valley, guarded by high peaks and ridges capped with unique, jagged rock formations resembling the backbones of dinosaurs. The whole settlement is built on permafrost, a layer of frozen soil hundreds of feet deep which never melts. Newer buildings were constructed on stilts so that their heat wouldn’t thaw the earth below, but older log homes have sagged and settled into the ground at drunken angles. Since most homes are heated from a central coal-burning power plant producing hot water, the town was crisscrossed with a web of raised, insulated pipes.

By morning, the mercury had dropped to -52°F. Despite a comfortable inside temperature of 60°F, a half an inch of frost had formed on every metal point of convection; window frames, floor bolts, door latches, etc. The seam of the door was frozen over.

We fired up the camper’s diesel heater for a quick melt-down, and wiped off the resulting puddles of dripping condensation. This would become routine for the next two months. In these extreme temperatures, the vinyl sides of the pop-up camper would crack if we put the top up. Despite all our preparations for cold weather, it was becoming apparent that little can be done to combat temperatures below -40°F.

At the insistence of our truck-driver friends at the avtobaza, we agreed to wait three days and travel with two six-wheel drive Kraz tanker trucks heading to Khandyga for a load of fuel. The tanker truck drivers, Yuri, 51, and Misha, 56, had many years of experience on the Ust Nera-Khandyga winter route. They were excited that we would be joining them for the two-day trip. No one travels alone on these winter roads, they warned.

The morning of our departure was bitterly clear and cold, with an overnight low of -57 °F. In fact, it had not risen above -50°F for two days. While the engine started easily, we were beginning to realize that, in these extreme temperatures, never above -40°F, just keeping the block and oil warm was not  enough. The transmission, fan belts, vacuum and power steering pumps, and all the various accessories under the hood were suffering. It would be necessary to follow the example of locals and keep our engine running 24-hours a day.

Leaving town, we began a climb into the mountains. The narrow, single-lane track allowed room to pass now and then. Four-wheel drive was preferable at all times on the steep sections. We kept a constant watch for oncoming trucks. If they stopped coming up, they would have trouble starting again on the slick surface. Braking quickly on the downhills was extremely dangerous.

We passed through stands of birch mixed with larch and pine. The view from the pass at 4,530 ft. into the Nera Valley was spectacular. This was the Siberia we had imagined and dreamed of. Ragged escarpments stabbed into an iridescent-blue sky. Snow-clad peaks surrounded us on all sides. A brittle cold burned our noses with every breath and bit at our cheeks and eyelids.

We were now accustomed to detours around most bridges. On some occasions, we’d bypass whole sections of road by driving across rivers, over islands and through the forest. The track was easy to follow, but it demanded four-wheel drive and constant attention.

Since leaving Magadan, the signs of intense mining had been an ever-present reminder of what this part of the world is all about. The river valleys and hills are rich in gold, silver, tin and other minerals. Snow partially hid the “worm piles” typically left by gold dredges, but they were everywhere, scarring the river beds with alarming indiscretion for the natural beauty of the land.

FIRST CHALLENGES

Crossing the Elgi River, 64 miles out of Ust Nera, a tanker truck had broken through the ice into a foot and a half of water. The hole was about 40 feet across. We had the option of driving around on ice of unknown quality over water of unknown depth, or trying to follow the big six-wheel drive Krazes through the hole. Not much of a choice.

With the ice about twelve inches thick, the drop-off to the gravel river bed was over two and a half feet at a slight angle. Shifting to low-range, second gear, I locked both ARB differentials. Unconsciously holding my breath, I eased over the edge. Monika had already taken out our Keeper 30,000-lb tow strap and walked to the far side. The Turtle IV sloshed ungracefully into the icy water, the front bumper partially submerged.

I intended to hit the other side with enough speed to give the tires a little help in lifting up the front of the truck, but not so much as to damage anything. The back bumper dragged on the ice as the rear tires dropped into the river. The trailer crashed helplessly behind. We were committed, to say the least.

A little to my amazement, the front tires grabbed the broken ledge of ice on the other side and pulled themselves up with a crunch and a groan. The transfer case cleared, and the rear wheels followed with a bump of hesitation as they spun, jerked and clawed up the ice shelf. The trailer hit, bounced once, and landed like a Sumo wrestler, legs spread, ready for the next attack.

At -47°F, the entire undersides of the truck and trailer immediately became sheathed in ice. Tires and wheels were coated white like giant glazed donuts. It took half an hour of riding the pedal to melt the ice off the brakes.

Seventy-eight miles from Ust Nera, the track becomes a winter road, meaning a route which is only passable a few months a year when it’s frozen. A late start forced us to travel after dark. In the beams of our high-powered auxiliary lights, the trail looked like a two-lane bobsled run of gray glare-ice. The surface was very rough with irregular dips and holes. Our support trailer yanked at the back of the truck like a mad pit bull lunging at its chain as it bounced in and out of the track.

The inky vacuum of night swallowed everything but the path of our lights as we traversed a narrow berm across a frozen marsh for several miles. In the black void, an 8-foot drop-off on each side waited hungrily for a mistake. Two trucks had slid off and overturned. They would stay there until the end of Winter.

Leaving the berm, the track dropped down into a gully, and made a hard right up a steep hill. For the climb up, I stayed to the right out of habit. Suddenly, I felt the wheels slipping. It was too late. A 6x6 Kamaz truck blasted by us out of nowhere, blocking my escape to the left. With all four wheels locked, the truck and trailer began a slow, helpless slide backwards and sideways down the hill. The trailer’s inertia brakes were useless, and it began to jackknife. After several feet, the truck found some snow and stuttered to a stop. By locking up only the front differential, I was able to spin/crab the wheels sideways enough to straighten out the trailer and back down for a second try.

The treacherous track continued to roller-coaster through the trees, where eerie shadows played in the forest. We climbed slowly to a pass at 4,470 ft. and descended gradually to the town of Kyubyume, parking on the ice of the Kyubyume River to camp for the night.

Following what had become a standard procedure, we stopped, waited five minutes, moved forward a foot, waited another five, and moved a second time, allowing the tires to cool and prevent them from freezing to the ground overnight. Kyubyume was the junction of The Road of Bones, the normal route from Susuman to Khandyga.

We had traveled but 124 miles in seven hours – an average speed of 17.7 mph, mostly in second and third gear. Needless to say, there are no Flying J or Texaco Truck Cen-ters in this part of the world. Drivers boil up a pot of tea on a sooty kerosene stove and eat bread and sausage or frozen fish sitting in their cramped cabs. They sleep across their narrow front seat which is heated by copper tubes from the engine’s radiator.

We crawled into our own camper for a quick one-pot meal using canned meat, canned butter, instant rice and freeze-dried vegetable mix. The temperature when we stopped was -64°F. By morning, it would drop to -87°F. With the engine running all night, we were able to keep warm by using only our Hunter hot water heater. Nevertheless, with an inside air temperature of 65°F to 75°F, water or coffee spilled on the floor would still freeze instantly. Snow melting off our winter boots created a small glacier by the door.

In the morning, despite our precautions, we still needed low-range to break the tires loose. Though we had far exceeded the official minimum temperature rating for our BFGoodrich Mud-Terrain tires, (their glass transition point is -40°F), we saw no signs of cracking or loss of pressure.

As we wound our way up the drainage of the Kyubyume River over a low pass and down into the valley of the Vostochnaya (Eastern) Khandyga River, open trucks stacked with frozen quarters of beef passed us. At -70 °F the meat was not likely to spoil. We wondered morbidly if this was how they transported the victims of the gulags to their final resting place, now under the wheels of our truck!

The main track had been cut along the cliff above the river, but since we were headed towards Khandyga, and therefore presumably empty, we were diverted into the canyon and the riverbed itself. The next few miles were fascinating as we drove downstream. This was a small tributary of the Vostochnaya Khandyga river, perhaps only fifteen yards across in places with a fast drop. We could see the frozen boils where the rushing water had heaved up over rocks as we “ran the rapids”. Cracks in the blue ice had formed miniature crevasses several feet deep.

Crossing an old wooden trestle, we waited at the bottom of the Chyorny Prishim grade while two fuel trucks inched their way down the one-lane ledge carved into the rock cliffs. Oncoming truck drivers, always in convoy, would hold up one finger to their eye, indicating the need to watch for others coming behind them. Snowy peaks towered ominously above our heads. A thousand feet below, a wide river with many islands meandered down a beautiful valley. Walls of snow from earlier avalanches reached higher than the camper. In the dead of Winter, it was a picture off an old Christmas card, the snow piled high like globs of shaving cream. You knew it could never look like that, but it did. The peaks of the Sordoginsky range crowded in from the north.

Darkness had fallen when we stopped just out of Khandyga for the night. The four of us squeezed into the cab of Misha’s Kraz and ate frozen raw fish, dark Russian bread, Velveeta cheese & dried fruit from sunny California, washed down with Ukrainian vodka. It had been a great two days. The 357-mile trip from Ust Nera was difficult and dangerous, but so spectacular that during the following week, we left our trailer in storage in Khandyga and returned to Ust Nera in company with Misha and Yuri just for the drive! The Russians thought we were crazy!

Accepting traditional Siberian hospitality, we enjoyed a well-earned rest in Khandyga. It was an opportunity to meet some great new friends. For most of these people, we were the very first outsiders they had ever seen. We learned new recipes in their kitchens, drank vodka in the Russian tradition, and sweated in their Russian banyas  or sau-nas, while we took time to look around this old river port and gulag.

SOUTH  TO YAKUTSK

There is no all-weather road from Khandyga west to Yakutsk, we were told. In the Spring, Summer and Fall, all traffic comes by river, down the Lena to Yakutsk, and up the Aldan River to Khandyga. Using winter roads this time of the year, the 251-mile trip to Yakutsk normally takes twelve hours. Vladimir Gladkoshchekov, the chief engineer of the Khandyga truck avtobaza had planned a trip to Yakutsk, so we asked if we could tag along.

We followed a typical Russian schedule: Get ready to get ready at 8:00 a.m. Prepare to leave at 9:30 a.m. Get ready to leave at 10:30 a.m. Get ready to wait at 11:30 a.m. Get ready to eat lunch at 12:00 p.m. Start getting ready again at 1:00 p.m. Leave at 2:30 p.m. Drive the last half in the dark.

The two-lane, graded road over packed snow out of Khandyga soon turned to one lane as we passed through rolling hills and the occasional abandoned village. We crossed over the Aldan River, the major waterway joining with the Lena, noticeably lacking a bridge. A small, native village on the other side looked lived-in. Locals had cut huge blocks of ice from the river and stacked them near the shore. They would be melted for drinking water. Ice is preferred over snow or river water. In the permafrost, there are no wells and, after the Spring ice-break-up, the water is polluted with runoff.

The deeply-rutted one-lane two-track was miserably icy. Our usually-obedient support trailer thrashed wildly behind us, sometimes leaping into the air like a marlin in full fight, yanking the truck sideways as it landed. The whoopdee-doos were unavoidable.

We passed herds of the shaggy Yakutian ponies which are raised both for meat and milk in this part of the country. Fermented mare’s milk and horse tongue are local specialties. Their thick coats protect them from the extreme cold. Long manes and tails ward off the swarms of mosquitoes, midges and biting flies in the Summer. We watched them paw the ground, searching for grass and moss, their heads buried in two feet of snow.

A full moon pushed through wispy clouds as we crossed the Lena river; six miles wide where it flows by Yakutsk and frozen now to a depth of fifteen feet. Late as usual, we pulled into the avtobaza and camped for the night.

Yakutsk was founded as a Cossack fort in 1632, and has since served as a base for many expeditions to the Russian Far East. Isolated by thousands of miles of mosquito infested swamp and taiga four months of the year, and frozen solid the other eight months, it can hardly be considered a vacation spot. Its remoteness once made it a place of exile for social and political dissidents, a “prison without walls”. Each Spring, the legs and arms of those who tried to escape would be found sticking through the melting snow. Locals called them ‘Snow Drops.’

After a three-week stay in Yakutsk, we headed south and west alone, taking our chances with the unknown. To explore childlike, with no preconceived idea of what lies ahead: this is the real joy in travel. As Helen Keller wrote during her last dark years; “Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature....Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.” Our U.S. Military Defense maps indicated a rumored winter road up the Lena River did exist, but no one in Yakutsk seemed to know about it. The river port of Ust Kut was still 1,200 miles upstream, and the ice on the Lena would not last forever. Spring was in the air. In our attempt to drive across Russia, we had no desire to become Snow Drops! RL

Next month: Driving up the Lena River

to Lake Baikal, with Spring on our heels...