In the 1920’s there was a route across the forests of The Kola. It was a wooden road built from the forest with substantial bridges across its many rivers. After the trees had been cut and the land laid bare this road fell into disrepair, it slowly and inexorably returned to the forest from whence it had come, its bridges collapsed as the ice from the winter melts pounded their supports. In the late 1990’s I got wind of this old logging road’s existence, it was rumoured that no ordinary 4×4 would be able to cross its path, you needed a “Grand Camion” they said, even the Off Road Club in Murmansk doubted that it was feasible, so they did not try.

Challenges like this are there to be conquered, so we set off to conquer its bogs, rocks and river crossings. The first adventure took us 7 days of hard work and at times seemingly insurmountable challenges to travel the 150 miles from Verkhnetulomsky to Kutskol (a deserted logging village) and this picture is from one of the many river crossings, this crossing actually determines if we can go on, or as we had to on one adventure turn back. If the water is too deep here we cannot go further as the next would be impassable.