Back to Ust-Nera it was; the imminent Indigirka Tube – the cause.

What with several business trips the world over since the spring, plus a few Kamchatka-2024 posts already sneaking onto these here blog pages of mine, you might think that my tales from the extreme-north side (our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk road expedition) could be over. How wrong you’d be!…

But even I admit that it’s been a while since my last Tiksi-post. Accordingly, quick rewind to where I left you months ago…

I left you with our having left Tiksi heading back in the direction of Yakutsk just before Tiksi was cut off completely for over a week due to a particularly intense arctic blizzard, and our realizing that we were waaaay ahead of schedule – as in: we’d be back in Yakutsk in half the time we’d planned; yes – a full 10 days earlier!

So what were we to do? Arrive back earlier and that was that? Of course not. No, instead, we decided to head back toward Ust-Nera and investigate much more closely Indigirskaya Truba – the Indigirka Tube. Well why not? After all, we’d plenty of time, and – more importantly – the naleds there were fully frozen, thus posing no danger…

// What’s the Indigirka Tube? Find out here.

So – back to Ust-Nera it was. Not that it felt much like our second time in as many weeks on this expedition, since the snowstorm had changed how the landscape looked so much. Here it is two weeks earlier ->

And here’s the exact (see the same road signs?!) same spot after the storm:

Onward – through the only-barely-cleared road – the Kolyma Highway…

Alas, a common sight is that in the following pic. This particular truck slid off the road some hundred meters before a sign (just visible – in blue) warning of a particularly treacherous stretch of road ahead: unlucky :0( ) ->

A little farther – another truck being pulled out of the ditch:

Sometimes we found ourselves behind slow trucks struggling up inclines. But as soon as the drivers noticed us they moved over  so we could pass…

“ATTENTION! ACCIDENT BLACK SPOT!”… ->

“Engage low gear now!” Who were we to argue? ->

The infamous Black Vice stretch of road ->

Hairpin bend + sharp decline + snow & ice + bridge -> trucks still fly off the road here. But we’re going up the hill – not down it, so there was less potential danger…

Onward along the bank of the naled-strewn river, with fog at times:

Later the air cleared…

If my memory serves me well, this rocky outcrop is called Devil’s Gate (Since the highway’s being widened, I reckon soon they’ll simply cut through the rock) ->

Some stretches have road works, but mostly the road’s free of hindrances, smooth and comfortable:

The skies become bluer and bluer, lifting our spirits ->

After lunch in Cuba, onward!…

Here’s another accident ->

A murky Olchansky Pass ->

That afternoon we arrived for the second time on the expedition in Ust-Nera. The day’s journey stats:

And overall journey stats:

The rest of the photos from our Yakutsk-Tiksi-Yakutsk expedition are here.