60 pieces · NaturePhoto by Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash (Unsplash License). Shore ice and icicle curtains on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal at Olkhon Island, Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, at sunset.
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Lake Baikal — Winter Ice at Olkhon Island, Siberia
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Lake Baikal — Winter Ice at Olkhon Island, Siberia
Lake Baikal is a rift lake in southern Siberia, lying between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast, and almost every superlative attached to it is literal. It is the deepest lake on Earth at 1,642 metres, the oldest at an estimated 25 to 30 million years, and because depth beats surface area it holds more fresh water than all of the North American Great Lakes combined — on the order of a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh surface water. The basin sits in the Baikal Rift Zone, where the crust is slowly pulling apart, which is why the lake keeps getting a little wider each year and why earthquakes and hot springs are part of life on its shores. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1996.
Olkhon, the island this photograph was taken from, is by far the largest in the lake: roughly 730 square kilometres, about 71 kilometres long, forming the southwestern margin of the Academician Ridge. From early January the lake surface freezes and stays frozen for four or five months, breaking up latest in the north. On Olkhon the ice season runs from around mid-January to mid-April, and as the cover thickens — up to something like 140 centimetres at its best — the ice road to the island opens, the only legal one on Baikal. That is the window when people walk, skate and cycle out to the sculpted ice at Cape Hoboy, the Three Brothers rock and the caves north of Khuzhir. The lake is also famously clear, and in a good year you can look a metre down through it.
As a jigsaw this frame is a study in two very different kinds of hard. The ice-encrusted rock on the left is the gift: a dense mass of icicles, bulges and blue shadow where almost every piece carries a unique shape, so build it first and build it from the top edge down. The sky is the second-easiest zone, because the long lenticular cloud bands sweep diagonally from the upper right and give you a line to follow rather than a flat wash. The real work is the lower right, where the frozen lake runs out toward the sun in near-uniform grey-blue with faint crack lines threading across it. Do not fight that area by colour. Sort those pieces by whether they carry a crack, a scattered chunk of broken ice, or nothing at all, and place the crack-bearing ones first — the fracture lines are continuous and will carry you across the flat expanse that would otherwise be the last forty minutes of the puzzle.
How to play
- Tap Play Lake Baikal Ice at Olkhon Island puzzle to open the puzzle board, then choose your piece count and difficulty.
- Drag pieces from the tray onto the board and snap them into place until the full image is complete. Works with mouse on desktop and touch on mobile.
- Use the Preview button on the play screen to peek at the full reference image whenever you need a hint.
- When you finish, check your solve time on the completion screen and share it with friends to see who can beat your record.
Frequently asked questions
- What makes Lake Baikal unusual among lakes?
- It is the deepest lake in the world, reaching 1,642 metres, and the oldest at an estimated 25 to 30 million years. Because of that depth it is the largest freshwater lake by volume, holding more water than all the North American Great Lakes together and roughly a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh surface water. It sits in the Baikal Rift Zone, an active continental rift, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996.
- When does Lake Baikal freeze over?
- The surface is covered in ice for about four to five months, from early January through to early May or June, with the northern end thawing last. Around Olkhon Island the usable ice season runs from roughly mid-January to mid-April, after which rising temperatures make the cover thin and fragile, particularly where there are strong currents beneath it.
- Where is Olkhon Island and can you drive to it in winter?
- Olkhon lies in Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia and is by far the largest island in the lake, about 730 square kilometres and 71 kilometres long. In winter an ice road to the island is prepared each year by specialists and opens when conditions allow — it is the only legal ice road on Baikal. Heavy vehicles such as tourist buses generally stay off it.
- What are the ice formations along the shore?
- They are shore ice: lake water splashed and frozen against the rocky banks over weeks of hard cold, building up into the icicle curtains and bulging blue-white masses seen in this photograph. The best-known examples on Olkhon are around Cape Hoboy, the Three Brothers rock and the caves north of Khuzhir, and reaching them on foot or by bicycle is one of the main reasons people visit the lake in winter at all.