February 3rd
Somewhere in the taiga
Around -50 degrees Celcius

Believe me if I say I have been freezing today! My heels and toes have been terribly cold, but since I am used to this freezing, it does not scare me. All it takes to warm up is to start jumping, walking or doing camp work. The problem is when you are sitting at the back of a sled pulled by two reindeer like we are, it goes very fast and you just can´t get off when you need to!  We are probably traveling at 7-8 km per hour.

Yesterday was short, an hour no more and we put up our first Siberian camp.  It is basically a canvas tent built on natural elements.  Since I am new to the Scandinavian way, it takes me more time to do simple things like chopping wood, shoveling snow or starting a fire. In this element, our 4 reindeer herders are masters. The way they do the simplest things is relaxed with ease and grace. They are so easy going, just as I remember from my Kolyma journey back in 2004. The Yakut are more serious in every sense, but they get things going. Egor is organizing this perfectly, just because he loves this life. Bolot is a lot of help to me and Yura is a hard working camera man. His photography so far looks amazing!

So far, all the details in starting this expedition have been overwhelming and as always the obstacles are plentiful. I have forgotten to bring batteries for the torch, the wood stove isn´t doing too well in warming us and we did not get the generator going until 23.00 hours, so I will be working late again. We only use the generator every other day, to charge the batteries, which die quickly in this cold. I did not get a lot of sleep the first night but being outdoors in this healthy air, one does not need the same amount of hours.

We spent 6 hours traveling today and the scenery is like another world! Awesome mountain scenery, valleys and taiga, all dominated by this foggy smoke due to the cold.  The sunrise and sunset felt like they came simultaneously. Unexplainable colors. It is a real privilege to be out here!

It has only been two days and I am already suffering from this extreme cold. Tomorrow I will put on the fur clothes from the lower Kolyma and see what happens. There is no doubt the others do better, which of course also has to do with the fact they are adapted. We will see. Another exiting day!