We're finally back to civilization ! Our team managed to take the helicopter on June 25th as planned, and we were dropped in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, with 120 kms of wild rapids and canyons between us and the Baikal lake. The trip was absolutely stunning. The waterlevels were at least 10 times higher than what the previous expedition found in 2000, which forced us to portage the 4 km of the first canyon, which would have been suicidal with our boats heavily loaded with sleeping bags, tents, food and various gear.

After that, the boating was awesome with great class IV volume rapids on tens of kilometers. Being faster than what we expected, we spent two days exploring tributaries, and we actually did two first descents. Both required us to hike up in the mountains. The first run in particular was totally exhausting, as it took us more than 4 hours to complete the 4 kilometer hike through the forest to reach a put-in, continuously attacked by hords of hungry mosquitos but fortunately no bears ! This has probably been one of the most difficult things I've done in my life. But the river itself really rewarded our efforts however, as we were offered a pure whitewater gem with crystal clear water. The second first descent we did was a bit easier to access, with only 3 hours to complete once again a 4 km hike in the woods. We found the river to be very fast, with continuous gradient from the top to the confluence with the Tompuda, which made it a very pleasing descent.

The rest of the descent till the lake went smoothly, if it weren't for the mosquitos ; some fishing along the way, nice rapids and superb surroundings made it really worth however. We reached the lake 2 days ago, and we were picked up yesterday by a fishing boat and its crew to get back to Severobaikalsk. The photographers have had smiles on their faces all along the way, and I've captured great video footage myself.

We're now waiting for the speedboat that will take us back to Irkutsk in the south of the Baikal lake. It should normally take 10 hours to cross the 600km of the lake, which is really fast compared to the 32 hours of the train. There, we'll meet with Stephan Huber who will join us on the second part of our expedition on the Kitoy river. We plan to do 300 km in 11 days, which will certainly offer great paddling action once again, and probably first descents on tributaries if we're as fast as expected.

Stay tuned for more news of our expedition ! I'll post a few pics as soon as I'm back home in 2/3 weeks, just to make you wait until the full coverage of the trip in Kayak Session and several other WW magazines.