Clearing the "110 km" checkpoint, geocashing, swimming and saving a Rexton, July 20, 2012
It didn't take us long to reach the well-known stud after which this whole road is named now. It is the only stud left on the road: 110 km.
We took various pictures areound it and decided to find a geocashing treasure, of which we only remembered that it is near the stud under a rock. Probably in a rock pile. We have turned all the rocks around, and the one that we were looking for was indeed the last one we tried. Mikha was very happy to discover cigarettes there, and Irina took the videos from Kazan off-road club (which she indeed has never watched). Then we put some preserves, spices, something else, and Irina also added a bracelet that she herself brought from Germany (next summer a team from Novosibirsk brought it back to her :)).
Then we reached a mountain pass (I think this was Wolve's Tush, but not quite sure). This place is deemed to be a shrine, ribbons are on all the trees, and a huge pile of waste right here. There is a rock on top of the pass from which you can enjoy a picturesque view to Barguzin river.
The men certainly drank "to the pass" after which we headed towards Barguzin to cross it.
the old maps shown there was a bridge over the river; however, there are no bridges in operation on "110 zimnik", and there were no even a slight trace of this particular one. I waited on the bank for some time while my navigator was studying the river, the LandCruiser with its 35" wheels was staying behind not eager to go forward. So, my navigator commanded to move on, jumped to the running board, and we started right through the river slightly arcing our way.
Everything was fine, but we could not get out of the river: the wheels could not catch the stones, slipped and the car got filling with water pretty fast. The navigator commanded to bet back, but we were hanging hopelessly on one wheel following the stream. The cold water was almost knee high, my feet were cramped, it was not easy to push the pedals. I put my hopes on Mikha for a while, but what could he do standing on the running board in the almost waist-high water?
Somehow (probably the car filled enough and got heavier) we could eventually catch to the river bed, I revved like mad and jumped to the bank loosing the arch cover (luckily everything was fine there, just the fixing tore away).
We opened all the doors letting the streams of water to get out of the car, saved the backpack with notebooks and cameras. Luckily it was only the backpack that got wet, the water have not reached the equipment yet. Also Irina's wellingtons got wet, and it took us almost a half of the way back to get them dry :). Good wellingtons :)
Meanwhile the Cruiser passed the ford making a larger arc, but the picture (taken when the Cruiser has just left the bank) shows that it is deep enough there, too.
We drank "to the ford? indeed, and I was still in a slight shock – I have never been swimming in a car before. I suggested to stay here overnight: the place was beautiful, the fishing should have been good and it was 5 PM already. But all others wanted to go further, so we did.
Boggy ruts started soon – not scary and not long, but I managed to loose the momentum and stick careening to one side. The Cruiser had to pass over through the old dubious croduroy road, but it did it.
So we went further and saw an oncoming vehicle, a Rexton. It was motionless "waist-high" in a large pool. Behind it, on the other end of the pool, there were people and another car, a Kyron.
Then we found out a Mitsubishi L200 that was winching in the forest not far from us (some people though it was a Chinese replica, but I'm pretty sure I've seen a Mitsubishi label) from Yekaterinburg. Two other cars were from Moscow, people from myssangyong.ru community. One of them was Yuri who has been writing in the "110 zimnik" topic at offroadmaster.ru. Yuri was not quite sober and was wandering around his Rexton, which probably had all electronic components down because of sinking.
Gavrilov pulled the car from the pool whereas the Kyron approached through a bypass in the nearby field, and the L200 almost appeared from the forest still winching. All people happily drank "to the rescue", told to each other what terrible things the other party should expect and discussed possible places to pitch a camp for the night after which we headed all in our directions. We opted for the Kyron's way and used the laddres they left for us, but anyway shamefully stuck :) Anyway, if we stick it is always a shame:)).
We spent this night at the road again, on Kovyli river. The place was very nice, the river even nicer. In the morning, we traditionally found several places ready for camping, with sheds, tables etc., but anyway ours was not worse.
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