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Tim and Colin in Siberia: The vezdehod was driven right over a sailboat
Oct 8, 2004 11: 16 EST
Last the guys rowed across the Bering Sea, then they hiked through Siberian wilderness, ran out of food, ate berries and robbed an old trappers cabin emergency stash of food that consisted of 5 year old bread.
Here goes the latest from the teams webmaster on Tim and Colin's Vancouver-Moscow adventure:
No roads = no bridges
"Each day our team wakes at 6AM to begin their 10+ hour hike. The 70 lbs packs may cause their backs to ache, but it is the rivers that are least appealing. As there are no roads, there cannot be bridges. But there are rivers and our team must cross them. Crossing a river mean stripping off boots, socks, and pants so that they are bare from the waist down. Shirts are then rolled up and they walk barefoot and half naked through rivers with ice in them.
Rubber raft
Fortunately all the rivers until now have been passable in this fashion. But this will soon change. In the next few days the team will reach one that is so deep they'll need to swim across it. A vexing problem that was solved through the help of the ever hospitable locals. In a small village enroute, our team befriended a group of Russians that were planning a fishing and hunting trip. As they were heading in the same direction as our team, they kindly offered to transport a rubber raft to this river.
The dangers of mixing vodka and vezdehods
The raft would be delivered in a vezdehod, which in this case was a large tank with the cannon removed. Unfortunately the night before their departure, the newly found friends discovered the dangers of mixing vodka and vezdehods.
After a few too many nightcaps, the vezdehod was driven right over a sailboat and into the side of a house. Fortunately for the expedition, the vehicle is a tank and was not damaged but unfortunately for the home owners the damage a tank inflicts can be quite substantial.
Next rest stop: 200 km
So far the team has traveled 300 km and passed through two small villages enroute. In each village they are welcomed with open arms and have been given hot food, shelter, and an overwhelmingly friendly reception. They are now entering a less populated region and will not encounter another village for 200 km. Unfortunately, this means they need to carry at least 10 days worth of food provisions and there will be no borscht for a little while."
No sails, no engines - just raw human energy. From Vancouver to Alaska, across the Bering Sea and into Siberia, two BC adventurers Colin Angus and Tim Harvey have rowed and bicycled their way since June 1. The trip is a 11 month, 18,000 km journey that will take them to Moscow using only human powered modes of transportation.
Currently they are at in Siberia, after crossing the 400 km Bering sea in a rowboat purchased on E-Bay only a few months ago. The 18 ft rowboat was packed solid with 1500 lbs of gear and provisions - everything needed in Siberia. In addition to food, they are carrying Arctic expedition clothing, four season tents, -50°C sleeping bags, skis, winterized bikes, ocean survival suits (just in case), and other essential gear they'll need to cope with temperatures that regularly drop below -60°C.
Colin and Tim started out cycling, the bicycles each carrying 140 lbs of gear, clocking 120 km a day. Grizzly bears and blistering heat were are all part of the daily routine, in Yukon the were almost caught in forest fires reducing visibility to 30 meters. In order to stick to their schedule, they decided to canoe from Whitehorse towards Fairbanks along the Yukon River. The voracious forest fires created a river journey that Colin described as "the liquid road to hell". The flames crept up to both sides of the river, creating a constant smoke that obscured the river banks and made breathing difficult. "It's like being in pea soup with iridescent displays of light."
They cooked, ate, and slept in the canoe (bought in Whitehorse for $200). The boat carried more than 700 pounds, including both bikes and all the gear. This made it quite unstable and left little room to sit, let alone sleep. Strong headwinds assaulted the overburdened and undersized canoe for five days. They could not afford to wait a week until the weather system passed. The constant 24 hour daily paddle took on new meaning as they were both forced to paddle the canoe to keep its nose pointed into the waves and stay on a forward course. After nearly sinking and 48 hours without sleep they reached Fairbanks.
In Fairbanks, the bikes underwent a transformation to enable them to endure the hardships of Siberia and a rowboat conversion was finalized. Next, the rowed over to Siberia. Currently they are on a loong winter walk to Moscow.
Colin Angus
Colin Angus and pals traveled the 7,000 km length of the Amazon River in a raft - from the first trickles of melting snow in the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean. In five months, they crossed a desert, climbed mountains, shot rapids and ducked bullets, and 119 days after setting out from Lima on Sept. 13, they navigated the entire length of the river.
Based in Vancouver, Colin has spent the last twelve years pursuing a life of adventure. Colin sailed across the Pacific Ocean (much of it solo) as a teenager, organized the self-powered expedition down the Amazon, and most recently completed a descent of the 5,500 km Yenisey River through Mongolia and Siberia.
Colin has authored two books for Random House and co-produced two documentaries for National Geographic, one of which garnered awards at the Banff and Telluride Festivals of Mountain Films.
Tim Harvey
Born and raised in BC, Tim has long enjoyed exploring the coastal wilderness by kayak and canoe. Tim spent seven months in Central America, funded by the Canadian International Development Agency to work as a photographer on biological inventories of threatened marine and wetland ecology.
Image of the guys current position, courtesy of the team.
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