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Tackling a Baikal crossing, while not a cakewalk, isn’t quite as extreme as you might think. You can fly direct from Moscow to Irkutsk, which is just sixty or so miles from the lake, and supply yourself there with almost everything you need. Shuttles cost about a hundred euros each way. When to go? February generally has the best combination of ice conditions and a reasonable amount of daylight. For a Google Doc of known expeditions, their duration, dates, and a lot more, go to adv-jour.nl/Baikal.

In 2016, actor Will Ferrell signed on to play Ralph Plaisted in a buddy comedy about the Plaisted Expedition set to be produced by Sony Pictures. The project was scuttled, reportedly over the Plaisted family’s concerns the story would portray Ralph and his companions as bumbling oafs. A documentary about the expedition, bearing zero oafishness except perhaps for the appearance of Justin Housman—this piece’s author—aired on Discovery Plus in 2021.

Bluebird and any other no-lift resorts in the works should prepare to welcome the hordes. According to Snowsports Industries America, in November 2020 backcountry ski sales were up eighty-one percent compared to the previous year. Backcountry snowboards were up one hundred and forty-six percent. And backcountry gear like beacons, probes, and shovels, were up one hundred and fifty-one percent. A day pass at Bluebird costs $49, while a season pass is $375. bluebirdbackcountry.com

Longtime outdoor writer Graham Averill lives in western North Carolina. This is his first piece for AJ. @daddy_drinks

North American caribou and the European reindeer are the same species, Rangifer tarandus, which evolved two million years ago in Beringia. The oldest known remains of a caribou were recovered in the Fort Selkirk region of central Yukon and are approximately one and a half million years old.

This story was excerpted from A Thousand Trails Home: Living With Caribou, Mountaineers Books, 2021. Author and frequent AJ contributor Seth Kantner is a writer and photographer who grew up in and still frequents a sod house near Kotzebue, Alaska. sethkantner.com, @sethkantner

Isaiah Branch-Boyle is a Southwest-based filmmaker whose work has appeared in National Geographic and the New York Times. isaiahbranchboyle.com, @isaiahjboyle

Matthew Tufts is a photojournalist who lives in his camper truck and divides his time between British Columbia, the Sierra Nevada, and places in between. matthew-tufts.com, @matthew_tufts

Want to get your little one hooked on cross-country skiing? According to the Appalachian Mountain Club, you’ll need the four “keep its”: keep it short, keep it cheap, keep it simple, and keep it fun. Same applies to adults, come to think of it.

Tim Lydon writes about public lands and conservation from his home in Alaska. @TimLydonAK

Bob and Wade gave up their offices in the Hostel a couple years ago, though they’re still wrestling with what to do with all their slides in their storage unit, and Marko and Ace’s atelier in Clambin is long terminé. As gentlemen of mostly leisure, they tend to keep a low digital profile. acekvale.com, @acekvale; markoshapirophotos.com; wademckoy.artstorefronts.com, @wademckoy

Jan Morris wrote nearly fifty books in her career (roughly half of which were written as James), which spanned from 1955 through her final memoir published in 2020. To commemorate her passing, the National Geographic UK listed the five “unmissable” Morris books. They are Venice (1960); Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (2001); Sultan in Oman (1957); Oxford (1965); and Destinations: Essays from Rolling Stone (1980).

The National Museum of the Guild of American Papercutters was established in Somerset, Pennsylvania, in 2009, as the first American museum dedicated to the art. Inside a stately red brick home are more than two hundred permanent and rotating pieces of paper-cut art, some of which are more than two centuries old. papercutters.org

Anna Brones is an artist and writer in the Pacific Northwest whose work has appeared in Saveur, the New York Times, and Eater, among other places. annabrones.com; @annabrones

We know what you’re thinking. If Skiland is the northernmost chairlift in the Americas, what’s the southernmost? That would be the single lift at Glaciar Martial, near the town of Ushuaia, in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego. Skiland, though, is easier to get to, and it’s cheap to boot. Day tickets are $40 and season passes are $550. Uphill skiing is free, you just have to go on days the hill is closed, which are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. skilandfairbanks.com

Author Lea Hartl is a meteorologist and skier who writes about, well, skiing at klartellsstories.blogspot.com

Megan McDuffie and Michael van Vliet live, cook up amazing camp grinds, and watch real estate prices soar into the heavens, in Bend, Oregon. freshoffthegrid.com, @freshoffthegrid

The Great Lakes have been surfed regularly since at least the 1970s, with most of the best and biggest breaks in Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. For photos of what kind of surf the lakes can produce, visit @greatlakessurfersjournal.

Photographer Fred Mitchell’s first monograph, You Can’t Go, All the Plants Will Die! was published in 2021. He lives in Los Angeles. fredmitchell.com, @yayfredmitchell