Orange team ran the "sunrise shift" today from 3:00am all along Lake Baikal. The cold morning and a keen interest to see Lake Baikal after hearing so much about it throughout our trip kept us sleepless thru our entire journey to our exchange point next to the Lake. We were trying to get a glance of Baikal in the darkness and could only here the sea like waves splashing on the pebbled shores.

Our guide “Uliyana” who is from this province of Irkutsk was reluctant to take us to the lake because of our long journey ahead after our run to the city of Irkutsk and showed us the Lake from the road. We really wanted to explore Baikal and feel it as close as possible and take a dip in this world’s deepest Lake. We went to the lake after our run and took a dip in the ice cold Baikal.
This lake is called as “the Siberian miracle of nature”. This is also UNESCO world heritage center. It is about 636 km long and about 80 km wide. The length of the coastline is about 2,100 km. There are 30 rocky islands on the lake. Compared with the other great lakes of the world, Lake Baikal is enormous. Baikal's volume, at 23,600 km3, is greater than any other fresh water lake and makes approximately 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water. As a point of comparison, if you were to drain Lake Baikal, it would take the Great Lakes of the United States: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario to refill the empty basin. Well, I am here today in front of its majesty on my journey to provide the same to many countries and people who lack fresh drinking water.