The fairy tale of the icy Baikal — a journey through the Small Sea

February — in the harshest month of the year — the trip to Lake Baikal and the Small Sea was far from the first for me and quite short in duration, only four days, but at the same time one of the most spectacular and unforgettable ... Almost a month has passed since my return, and mentally I'm still somewhere out there - among the Baikal icy expanses…

The Small Sea is part of the Baikal water area, a strait separated from the "big" Baikal by the largest island — Olkhon. The Small Sea is located on the territory of the Baikal National Park, and in the Sea itself there are many interesting natural monuments for ordinary tourists, photographers, and local residents.

1. The first stop is Cape Uyuga, next to it there are many tourist bases of varying degrees of comfort. On the very first evening we arrived, threw our things and went to Lake Baikal to admire the sunset.

2. Ice strikes immediately — huge expanses of transparent surface, in which the sunset sky is reflected. And the winds draw a variety of patterns with snow on the ice.

3. A few minutes — the sun sets right before our eyes, but even after sunset, the ice continues to light up for a few more minutes, reflecting the evening sky.

4. The ice is about a meter thick and at the same time transparent, you can see how cracks go to a meter depth.

5. The next day is early morning, we meet the dawn at Cape Hadarta.

6. Dots-men on ice — our group under the leadership of alexphotograph is exploring the icy expanses of Lake Baikal.

7. From Hadarta we move south, towards the island of Ogoy.

8. Ice is very diverse in color and texture. Somewhere blue-black.

9. And sometimes green. The ice is so clean that microscopic air bubbles can be seen at a depth of half a meter, and if you look closely, you can see micro—arcs formed from the refraction of light in the cracks.

10. If you are lucky, you can see not only air bubbles, but also twigs or fragments of algae frozen in ice. The thickness of such a "still life" is several tens of centimeters, and all this is under your feet — hundreds of meters!

11. And here is the actual Ogoy. The largest of the islands of the Small Sea. The island is dearly loved by photographers and... Buddhist pilgrims.

12. The fact is that a Buddhist shrine, the Stupa of Enlightenment, was erected on the highest point of the island in 2005.

13. In a couple of hours we go around Ogoy and the surrounding area, and I return to my favorite stele in the ice — the western tip of the island. This frame is the result of a couple of hours of waiting for beautiful light, clouds and another half hour of lying on the ice in an embrace with the camera.

14. By sunset we return back to Hadarta: clean ice, wind-smoothed snow cover and textured ice splashes.

15. Dawn again, this time Cape Tsagan-Khushun, the vicinity of Kurma. Early morning, the temperature is about -30. There are only a few minutes left before sunrise.

16. The sun finally appears, literally the first seconds of dawn. In general, Kurma is a magical place for a photographer: firstly, there are several grottoes and spectacular stone arches in the vicinity.

17. Secondly, these are grass fields sprinkled with snow and wrapped in the wind.

18. And thirdly - in the same place, not far from Cape Tsagan—Khushun, there is a swampy Baikal Bay, where frozen marsh vegetation can be seen in the ice thickness.

19. The spectacle is fantastic — try to imagine a smooth and transparent ice glass half a meter thick with frozen plants and snow crystals.

20.

21. Another of the islands of the Small Sea, which made a very strong impression on me, is the island of Oltrek.

22. Ice splashes on the Baikal islands are a common phenomenon, they are always very photogenic, and this year Baikal has not frozen for a long time, perhaps that's why the ice and the splashes shining in the sun with a bluish light this year are an unreal sight at all.

23. The icy Oltrek impressed me so much that at sunset I returned to it again to admire this beauty in the rays of the setting sun.

24. And on the way back, I again observed the red-gold ice from the evening light.

25. I meet the dawn again — this time I admire the rising sun from the grotto at Cape Uyuga. The grotto is huge, dark, to highlight it, I used a couple of external flashes, which I placed in the corners.

26. And the last frame from the trip: a downright explosion of color, ice corals on Uyuge in the first rays of dawn. Surely someone will look and say: "I don't believe it! Photoshop!" But this is the case when photographic equipment cannot convey the full brightness of those dawn seconds, during processing it was even necessary to reduce the saturation.