Aug 13 2009
Mongolia 2009 – Part 3 – Life on the Trail
Although there were a few camp sites where we stayed more than one night, life on the trail typically began in the morning with packing up and moving on. We used camels for carrying our gear – about 7 or 8 of them. After getting your own gear packed up, you’d hand it over to the guides who would load it onto the camels along with all the camp gear.
Karbai and Sarkut loading up a camel.
One fully-loaded camel. It’s amazing what they can carry – about 500 lbs. each.
We would usually saddle up and ride out ahead of the camel train to get a head start. There is a lot of varied terrain out there. Sometimes we were riding in valleys, some times over a rocky pass, sometimes through meadows.
Most of the trip was sunny but here we are riding through a valley on a cold, rainy morning. Bummer.
Riding over a 10,000 foot pass.
Walking our horses down the other side of the pass. Amazing views along the way.
Around mid-day, we’d stop for lunch on the trail. Lunch was always hearty – you never went hungry on this trip.
Amy and Jess, two of our guides with the lunch spread.
Our lunch spot as we rode closer and closer to the glaciers near the end of our trip.
A lunch-induced food coma sometimes was unavoidable.
After lunch, more riding. Sometimes we would stop in a local ger. They would invite us in and serve us food like at the beginning of our trip.
This ger had a freshly killed goat carcass hanging on the wall. Its head was on the floor near the door. Pretty grim.
The area is full of history and there are many petroglyphs and deer-stones, etc. One day we were in an area with many of them and we spent time exploring.
A part of on rock panel showing an Argali sheep and a moose. Probably about 3 or 4 thousand years old.
The group rides through a valley on the way to the next site.
Some days were short – only about 4 hours of riding. Some were long and went 6 hours or so. It was always very nice to finally get to camp and relax.
More to come…
– Dave
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