What you need to know to hike in Mongolia

Here we begin a journey to hike all the way through Bogd Khan.  We made it - barely.

Hiking is easy.  The most simple of human activities.  All you need is a pair of shoes (some people are known to even forgo those) and the willingness to be on your feet all day.  You may also want (in no particular order): a compass, a marked trail, a destination, some hiking partners, and don't forget your camera.

Hiking is one of our favorite activities during the summer in Mongolia.  The Bogd Khan Protected Area is just south of Ulaanbaatar and offers many great places for hiking.  You just need to know where to go, which can be more of a challenge than you might think.  You see, in Mongolia there are very few marked trails (we have seen one so far), and the trails that do exist tend to meander and disappear at times.  Some are used by Mongolians who know their way around and do hike, though hiking is not a very popular activity here.  Others, and this is the case with many of the trails, are actually animal trails and so they are beaten down well for a while, but have no destination in mind other than a field of grass.

So, it is best if you go hiking in Mongolia to go with someone who knows where they are going, and a general sense of direction (which sadly over the years, I have proved to be lacking).  Cause hiking is a lot of fun until you get lost and find yourself walking in circles.  Tumi is our Mongolian hiking guide, and he has brought us to some great destinations in Bogd Khan.  Below are just some of pictures of our Mongolian hiking adventures.

The payoff.  Enjoying the view on our through hike.

On the top of the ridge on an overcast day

Soaking wet, but still smiling with fresh wildflowers

Enjoying the view during a short hike in Terelj

Tsetsegun, the highest peak in Bogd Khan.  There is even a real trail to follow the whole way.

Our guide Tumi scoping out the terrain because, once again, there is no trail.

The view from the fire tower shows rolling hills almost as far as you can see.

On our way to Nukht with no trail, Mongolia-style

Storms on the Steppe

This is going to be a post about weather.  It will be more exciting than it sounds, I promise.

Look, double rainbows! 

No, not rainbow exciting.  Massive destructive storm that leaves you keyed up and slightly shell-shocked for two days kind of exciting. 

"Before" photo.

Andy and I decided to get away for the weekend to our favorite ger camp, about 3 hours outside of UB.  We've been there at least 6 times since we came to Mongolia (so many that we're losing track, anyway), so I feel that I have a claim to call it "our" ger camp.   We had a good day Saturday with a leisurely breakfast and then a mostly successful double kayak trip 10k down the river.  Then evening hit.  We saw a storm moving in across the mountains just over the river.  I love riding out storms while snug in a ger, and enjoyed watching the dramatic sky moving towards us.

"During"

Then the storm came on like a freight train and we ran for the ger.  It was so fast and intense that it's a bit of a blur.  Never mind that rain and dust were somehow pouring through our ger roof (a dwelling, it must be pointed out, that Mongolians have lived through storms in for thousands of years), but the whole thing was actually starting to lift off the ground and buckle over.  We grabbed the two center posts and hung on.  Meanwhile, the next aspect of the storm hit as hail - ranging from pea-sized to large cherries - came thudding down.  We had left the door open, and so we had hail projectiles rocketing into the room.  Lots of fun

This was just one ger over from us.

It was over as quickly as it started.  And then we saw how lucky we were.  Of maybe 30 gers at camp, all but 3 had significant damage.  (Ours was one of three).  The roof was torn off of the lodge building.  The hills were covered in hail, looking like we'd had snow in July.  The road out of the camp had washed out and developed a 4-5 foot ravine down the middle.  The brand-new restaurant building was flooded and had broken windows and destroyed furniture.  Miraculously, no one was hurt at all.  We wandered around stunned for awhile.

Roof torn off the lodge.

 

Hail on the hills.

The general devastation at camp.

I can't even say how glad I am that this one wasn't ours.

 There was nothing really to do, as night was coming on fast.  We had a dry, safe place to sleep (if very musty and dusty), and went to bed.  Our car came through pretty well, except with 4 holes punched in the window splash guards.  I think we got off easy.    The next morning, the staff had rustled up a crew of Mongolians and were cleaning, sorting, drying, and getting the camp back in order.  I'm still not sure I believe that that happened.  Hopefully riding out a hurricane/hail storm in a felt tent is a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

UB's Playground

 

Terelj National Park is known as Ulaanbaatar's Playground.  It's a short ways away from the city geographically, but miles away in temperament.  Because it's so close, we haven't really done much there - when we have the time and enthusiasm to get away, we try to go further afield.  But feeling lazy over the Naadam holiday, we thought it was time to dip our toes into Terelj.  

It's a fun area of fields, rivers, and rock formations.  The most popular formation is Turtle Rock, which is what we chose as the starting point for our ramble.   

Andy plays mountain goat.

Yup, looks like a turtle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We made it right up to the rock at the top, but then bailed in the last ascent rather than face possible death.

 At the end, I had the brilliant idea to take a short cut through a possibly boggy section back to the car.  Any other year, and we'd have been fine.  This year, one of the rainiest on record?  I'm just thankful I kept my shoe on.

Of Flying Dogs and Barking Birds

One of our regular running routes here is known, very poetically, as "the dirt road."  As the name suggests, it's a pretty rough dirt road, varied terrain but not too hilly, mostly deserted and with some nice views of both the river and the city's power plants.  What the name doesn't suggest, however, is the vastly weird collection of species-confused animals that I've encountered on this road. 

Most recently, I was attacked by a flying dog.  There's one small segment of the route that passes from the grounds of a university to the dirt road proper.  There are nice houses on both sides, with high, solid walls and very angry dogs always barking behind them.  When coming through this section yesterday, I heard a noise that was out of the ordinary.  I looked behind me just in time to see a dog, in full mid-air flight, coming over the 7 foot wall.   Thankfully, over a year of living here has taught me how to deal with dogs.  Face them, yell, and threaten them with a rock.  This approach works best, of course, when you actually have a rock.  Super-Dog, after expending considerable effort to get over the 7 foot wall to me in the first place, wasn't going to give up and lose face at this point.  I managed to back up to a rocky section and get a nice, solid deterrent in my hand, and he let me run off.  When I left, he was looking around for other passerby to torment and eying the wall again.  Wonder if he managed to fly back over....

"Woof woof"

Several weeks ago, further down the road, I had another encounter with an odd beast.  I heard barking coming from the grassy bank on my right.  The sound was quite close at hand, and was clearly a dog, but there was no dog there.  Instead, there was a magpie, barking its head off.  I had read that magpies are great mimics, but had never heard one do its trick before. 



The last species-confused animal I've seen out there was probably the best.  Last fall, on another morning run, I saw a movement off in the brush and thought it was a wild dog pack (usually quiet and no trouble, unlike the dogs that belong to somebody.)  Well, I was half right.  A fawn comes up from the field and ran next to me for 50 meters, close enough that I touched its head.  But even stranger, it had apparently been adopted by some wild dogs and was happily running with the pack.

So, that's a small taste of the entertainment here.  Deer-dogs, dog-birds, bird-dogs....  Easier to get out the door every morning when you don't know what you'll encounter!

Khovsgol Adventures

The colors of the lake, mountains, and sky up at Khovsgol were amazing.  Partly, this was because it rained at least half of every day and night, so there was always changing interplay of light and cloud and lake.  I loved the tropical-looking turquoises, but the deep blues, greys, fir tree greens, etc... were also great.  I'll try not to smother this post with too many water-sky-grass pictures.   Though no promises.

This one doesn't count!  It has a horse too.

 Did I mention it rained at least half of everyday?  And also that it was cold?  But, we still managed to get up to a fair bit of adventures.



We went for a hike, wearing only half of the layers that we brought with us:

We skipped rocks into the lake.  My attempt to skip a Hagrid-size rock was not successful:

 

We went canoeing in the lake and managed not to capsize while taking pictures of the awesome views:

And lastly, we actually got into Lake Khovsgol.  Up to our knees.  For one very cold minute.  In our defense, the lake doesn't lose its ice until June, and we were there on July 4...

Andy shows the fine line between a smile and a grimace.

Just like the ice bath in college.

We interrupt this broadcast to announce...

... that our next post will be Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago.    From Mongolian winter to Caribbean warmth!  Coming June 2012.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Lake Khovsgol - the jewel of Mongolia

  

We just returned from a wonderful 4 day weekend at one of the main attractions of Mongolia - the beautiful alpine lake Khovsgol.    Some of the highlights of the trip:

1) Murun airport (also spelled Moron, which, let's face it, is more fun.)  Flying in a small shaky puddle-jumper from Ulaanbaatar, I was reassuring myself that I had given visas to train in the US to so many EZNis Airlines pilots that chances were, this guy was also very good.  I looked down right before landing, and turned to Andy.  "We're coming down on a dirt field."  Yup, our first landing, and take-off from a dirt runway!  Strangely, we then taxied over to the paved runway by the airport.  Not used to make it last longer?  Who knows. 

Clearly, a lot is going on in the airport parking area.  The outhouse restrooms are on the left.

2) Khovsgol is north, and is therefore yak country.  Lots of yaks.  We also ate yak milk butter and cream every day.  Yummy yaks.

3) There's simply nothing to compare to sleeping snug and warm in a ger while the rain patters down and the night gets cool.  Best sleep ever. 

View from our ger out over the lake.

And I haven't even gotten to the best part yet... the lake!  To be continued...