Crossing Lake Khövsgöl with Women on a Mission, early 2026 - Karen Darke's amazing story of handcycling across Lake Khövsgöl.

Dive into her narratives of resilience, curiosity, and transformation. Let her experiences inspire you to navigate your own path, challenge your boundaries, and discover the extraordinary within the ordinary.

Lake Khövsgöl stretched before us. Seven women, converged on a frozen expanse for a brief but transformative journey: a crossing of the lake’s 160 km of fractured ice. The wind was sharp, the air bitter, the ice like a mirror of silver and shadow, shards like glass catching the pale Mongolian sky. We began a passage. We stepped into another dimension.

At -40°C, the world simplifies. Survival and safety take precedence. Beyond shielding our fingertips from frostnip, every small detail was amplified, as if our senses had been sharpened by the cold: the icy sting of air inside nostrils, the crunch of steel studs on brittle ice, the delicate crystals forming on eyelashes. Our breaths vanished before they could fog. The cold seemed to swallow everything unnecessary, leaving only the essentials of life and motion.

We had come to northern Mongolia from different countries, backgrounds, and life journeys, drawn together by curiosity, by challenge, and by the pull of adventure and how it forges connection in ways nothing else can.

I had pictured Lake Khövsgöl as a flawless sheet of glass. But as we traveled north, the autumn warmth had left its mark. Locals spoke of shifting patterns, perhaps hints of global warming. The ice had formed, fractured, refrozen, and cracked again. Smooth expanses gave way to ridges, rough plates, and jagged seams where the lake had heaved and settled. When we finally stepped onto its surface, we began navigating a frozen mosaic, and each step became a negotiation with a wild and shifting world. Where to cross cracks? Was the ice to broken or rough to walk over? How and where best to go?

We moved across the lake in different ways: I rode a hand-trike, a new Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE) machine, while the others walked, pedalled a mountain bike, or, when the ice allowed (rarely), skated. The ICE trike was an enabler for a journey that once would have seemed entirely out of reach. I sensed the delicious taste of freedom. The energy and beauty of the ice tingled my senses and penetrated deep within. I sat quietly on the trike, in a peaceful space, and listened to the millenia-old waters boom in haunting echos beneath the lake’s vast, frozen surface…the ice, in all its eminence, moved me to tears.... carry on reading here

Karen's review on how the ICE Handcycle held up:

Crossing Lake Khuvsgul on the ICE trike was a somewhat more extreme test of both rider and machine than I had anticipated, with temperatures as cold as -45 C. Overall the pre production handcycle performed remarkably well in one of the harshest environments imaginable. Despite the challenging terrain of broken, plated ice sections rather than the smooth frozen surface I had expected, the trike handled the expedition well…durable and reliabile.

The hydraulic brakes worked well, giving me confidence on unpredictable surfaces and hitching behind horse-drawn sleds at times when the terrain was especially tough. The clever design of the steering and hand-pedal column kept my thighs clear of the chain and protected from rubbing throughout long days of riding. The derailleur and 3D-printed parts were intact despite the tough conditions.

We made a few on-the-go adjustments such as tightening bolts, improving thigh pad security, adding more seat recline, for comfort and as the trike was being rattled by rough surfaces a lot. The trike was exposed to the elements 24 hours with no room for it in overnight teepees, and some days the gears froze due to prolonged and extreme overnight freezing! The overall build proved tough and capable for such an extreme crossing, and this adaptive adventure across the frozen wilderness of Mongolia would have been hard to consider without this ICE hand trike with its strength, comfort, and expedition-worthy potential. Thanks ICE Trikes.

Film and photography by John Baikie - www.cinematiq.co.uk