01-Aug-2009 – It turned out that the confluence point is located in a swampy forest in about 3 kilometers from the northern shore of Yuksovskoe lake.

We have started our trip at 300 km away from the confluence. After 4 hours driving we came to Rodionovo village on the eastern shore of Yuksovskoe lake, and then we started the most difficult part of our trip. First of all we took a number of pictures of ancient wooden Georgievskaya church (built at 1496) standing on the hill near the lake and the great views of the lake shore. The shiny calm weather and the clear quiet lake were very pretty, and they gave us a hope that the trip would not be very hard.

We took out the inflatable boat, sandwiches and anti-gnat repellent from the trunk. A half an hour later we started to row across the lake... The next 4 km across the lake was beauty and funny journey: we tried to fish, but we just lost 2 spoon-baits and got nothing except algae on the hooks. We moored to the north shore, it was very ugly there – the place was swampy, overgrew by sedge, marsh insects swarmed there. Having left our boat in the forest in five meters from the shore, we checked the GPS and batteries and went deep in the forest.

The forest on the northern shore contains a lot of wind-fallen trees and swampy places, so we spent 3 hours to pass 5 kilometers and to walk around many swampy places. Fortunately, 2 kilometers we went along a plank-road, which we unexpectedly found. We were very close to the confluence, something about 200 meters, when the forest led us to the impassable swamp, and in this moment the rain fell on our heads. After the great battle against the swamp we found the confluence point. We were really happy. We had some water and sandwiches as a modest celebration, took pictures and went back. On the way back we faced with rainy forest and the clouds of gnats when rain paused. Having crossed the lake under rain and wind, we arrived to the eastern shore. We got soaked to the skin and frozen, but we had the photos of 61°N 35°E on our flash card.