Chara Sands: Siberia's Ice Age Desert Below the Kodar Mountains

In the Chara valley of Russia's Zabaykalsky Krai, a field of golden dunes rises straight out of the taiga, with the snow-streaked Kodar Mountains on the horizon. The Chara Sands cover only a few dozen square kilometres, yet they make one of the strangest sights in Siberia: a small sand desert in a region where January averages around −29 °C at night.

Where the Chara Sands are

The dunes lie in the Kalarsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai (Trans-Baikal), in the broad Chara basin between the Kodar and Udokan ranges. They sit between the valleys of the Chara, Middle Sakukan and Upper Sakukan rivers, about 600 km northeast of Chita.

The sand field measures roughly 10 km by 5 km, and its area is usually given as about 37 km². Since 2016 it has been protected as a spur of the northern sector of Kodar National Park, a reserve of about 4,917 km² whose highest summit, Pik BAM, reaches 3,072 m. The park headquarters are in the old village of Chara, just north of the sands.

How a desert formed in the taiga

The sand is a leftover of the last Ice Age. During the Muruktin (Zyryan) glaciation, roughly 100,000 to 55,000 years ago, meltwater from the Sakukan glacier filled the Chara hollow with a lake, and the glacier's streams built a large delta of sand along its front. When the lake drained, the sediment was left exposed.

In the Holocene, the wind went to work on the top 20 metres of that deposit, shaping it into ripples, dunes and blown sand that mostly trend northwest. Some dunes reach 15 to 30 m high, and individual dune chains can stretch up to 2.5 km. The tallest, thickest chains are in the southwest, and a ledge 40 to 50 m high cuts into one chain in the centre of the field.

The dune shapes show the wind's direction clearly. Windward slopes are gentle, around 10 to 15°, while the lee slopes drop at 30 to 35° and carry fine ripple patterns, as the photographs below show.

Dunes, larch forest and the Kodar Mountains

What makes Chara so photogenic is the abrupt edge. There is almost no transition zone: pine and larch forest and peat bogs stop, and bare sand begins. Small oases of larch grow in the hollows among the dunes, and some dunes run straight into bogs or small lakes. Above it all, the peaks of the Kodar range hold snow well into summer.

The climate is firmly subarctic. Average January highs are about −21 °C and lows about −29 °C, while July brings average highs near 21 °C and the year's heaviest rain. In winter the dunes are dusted with snow, giving the photographers their famous mix of sand, frost and mountains.

How to visit Chara Sands

The gateway is Novaya Chara, a settlement founded in 1979 for the construction of the Baikal–Amur Mainline (BAM). It is an important BAM station, with trains running east to Tynda and west to Severobaykalsk, and it also has a small airport. The old village of Chara, the district centre, lies about 16 km away.

The sands are around 10 km from Novaya Chara station. Local day tours drive visitors to Chara village, then continue on foot along fairly flat forest trails, about 20 km in total. There is no bridge over the Middle Sakukan, a mountain river about 30 m wide: in summer you cross by inflatable boat, in winter on the ice or by off-road vehicle.

• Best season: mid-June to mid-September, when the trails are dry and the river can be crossed by boat.
• Pack: insect repellent, rain and wind layers, and sun protection for the bright sand.
• Combine with: clear, cold Lake Alenka nearby, and the Kodar range, where mountain areas require a visitor permit from the national park.

Go with a local guide in winter: temperatures in the valley can fall to around −50 °C, and an off-road vehicle is sometimes the only safe way across the river.

Related reading

• Lake Baikal’s winter ice forms
• Amos Chapple’s Yakutia Photographs: Oymyakon and the Journey Through Cold
• Winter in Yakutsk: Streets, Transport and Everyday Adaptation
• Lake Baikal Ice Percussion with irkDarbuka
• A Car Recovered from an Opening in Lake Ice

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