>>1647828One could feasibly walk along the lakeshore and harvest firewood on the western side of lake Baikal actually. Still wouldn't hurt to have a back-up stove though. You'd not get the desert of ice feeling you have in the middle of the lake, but I'd say the scenery is most impressive when you're one or two km out on the lake rather than in the middle of it.
The snow and ice desert that is the middle of the lake is otherworldly though. Barren, monotonous and devoid of life but also amazing. Oh, and if you ever do it and want to avoid tourists, use the Listvyanka - Bolshoi Golostnoye - Olkhon route, you'll have it all for yourself most of the time. There's a small but not insignificant number of people /out/ on the ice, but most stick to walking around Olkhon. And if you get a stove, buy 'benzin galosha' in the basement of the bigass mall in the centre of Irkutsk, took us two year to figure that out.
