Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

The Baikalsk Cellulose Paper Plant was placed here in 1996, to make (hopefully) a super cellulose
for aircraft tires, by Khrushchev, though that never worked out. Synthetic rubbers got better
instead.
In 1904, a railway track was laid across the ice, and 2,000 flatcars and 65 locomotives transferred
to the front.
Burhats are Mongols, living here since before the 13th century. The boundary between Russia and
Mongolia (then part of China) was drawn in 1727.
The Angara River runs through a series of colossal dams, built by Khrushchev in the 1960's. The
Angara joins the Yenisey and then flows into the Kara Sea.
If all its 336 tributaries dried up, its volume could keep the Angara River flowing 400 years.
The pollution levels (owing to its size and remoteness) are still much lower than that lakes of
Europe and North America.
There are also coal-fired plants in towns like Slyudyanka, causing acid rain.
Three tectonic plates intersect seismically. There is a seismically measurable earthquake every
few hours, most too weak to feel. In 1861, a huge quake sank 310 sq. km. of the Selenga delta into
the earth.
There is a Limnological Institute in Irkutsk.
The shamanist God Burkhan is offered vodka for protection. They did this regularly on the trip and
make quite a joke of it.
Lake Tahoe is said by many to resemble Lake Baikal, though Lake Tahoe is only 10,000 years old
and has two endemic species. Lake Baikal is over 25 million years old and has 1,500 endemics.
It has a limnological process that carries oxygen to the deepest parts of the lake, and so has more
life at depths than one would expect.
One shrimp, Epischura baicalensis strains out algae and bacteria resulting in especially pure water.
The Baikalsk cellulose plant pollutes 200 sq. km. with a bacteria and has devastated bottomdwelling
organisms.
The Selenga River, a 1,480 km. long tributary, supplies half the water flowing into Baikal, and is
laden with wastes from three Mongolian cities, as well as from Ulan Ude, the Burhat capital.
The Nerpa is a river that presently rises nearby but does not now connect with the lake. It turns
north to flow into the Arctic.
Olkhon, the largest island, is quite dry, in the rain shadow of the Primorsky Range. Often there is
no snow in winter. 4,000 people, 500 are Buryat, live on the island. There was a forced labor camp
here in Stalinist times.
end of notes from the National Geographic article.