AN endurance athlete who risked frostbite, falling through thin ice and coming face to face with hungry black bears has earned a British record for a gruelling trek.

Darwen dad-of-two Alex Buckland has swapped software for Siberia to take part in the 100-mile expedition across Lake Baikal the world’s largest frozen lake.

The 33-year-old explorer spent six long days pulling heavy sledges for 30km a day in -20 degree temperatures and was part of the first British team to make the trip unaided. He raised almost £2,000 for national mental health charity, Mind.

Mr Buckland, a community health product manager for healthcare IT supplier EMIS Health, described the expedition as gruelling but said he was very happy to have achieved such a feat.

Describing the experience with his friend and expedition leader, Phil Hayday-Brown, 49, and fellow adventurer Jonathan Zeffert, 39, he said: “It was tough. It was physically exhausting. It’s such an isolated place that it felt very lonely at times.

“But we are very proud. We achieved a complete circumnavigation of Olkhon Island, Lake Baikal, and are the first British team on record to do so unsupported in winter.”

Mr Buckland, married to Vladimira and dad to Lexi, six, and Emma, four, did a mammoth 960-mile cycling journey from John O’ Groats, Scotland, to Land’s End in Cornwall in 2011.

His first ‘Arctic’ expedition took place in north Sweden in February last year where he met Mr Brown and Mr Zeffert. He spent three weeks out there and travelled just short of 100 miles. After the expedition, they decided to take on a new challenge - Lake Baikal - and after nine months of training the three departed from London to Siberia on March 2.

Equipped with tents, sleeping bags, food supplies and 10 litres of fuel to melt the ice, they arrived at the frozen lake on March 5. They each dragged sledges, weighing 40kg, around the 160km of Olkhon Island.

When they first touched the ice, Mr Buckland said he it was a scary experience. He said: “Getting to walk on the ice was a little daunting at first when you wonder if it will really support you. The first steps I took were really tentative and then you realise it’s a metre thick in places.”

The three walked around 30km a day for eight hours. This wasn’t easy at times as their team leader suffered from a shoulder injury and had to take painkillers.

On one of the nights the expedition team lost one of their tents, Mr Buckland said. He said: “One night the wind picked up and changed direction. It snapped tent guy lines and pulled pegs out of the ice which we then had to get up at 3am, out of our sleeping bags, to go outside and fix in a fierce wind. We then stacked the sledges up and leant then against the tent to help brace it from snapping a pole.

“We could have really ended up in trouble if we lost the tent.”

Despite this each day brought new surprises. On the first day the trio saw a minibus speeding along the ice at 100km an hour and filled with a coach full of tourists. They also passed other expedition teams - one Russian group was completing the Lake Baikal trek both ways, a total of 200 miles.

The former pupil of Blackburn’s Queens Park High School said: “The scenery was stunning and every I time I think of it now, I recall it as magnificent.”

When they returned to base after the six-day trek, Mr Buckland described it as a ‘relief’. He said: “It felt like quite an accomplishment. You can prepare all you want but do not know what it is like until you get out there.

“The days after the expedition were strange. Before it all I could think about was Baikal and then there was nothing there. The post expedition blues kicked in and. I can’t wait for the next expedition where I get to see something as beautiful and that isolating.”

The Darwen explorer said he also took part in the expedition to raise awareness about mental health issues. To donate visit Alex’s sponsor page on https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/alexontheice