Mongolia | Khövsgöl Aimag | Darkhad Depression #5

We head down the left bank of the Buural Gol through thick taiga to its confluence with the Ulaan Ongo Gol. The source of the Ulaan Ongo, seven or eight miles upstream from here, is only about a mile and a half from the source of the Khoogiin Gol, where we are headed, but Batmönkh says the head of the Ulaan Ongo Gol dead ends in impassable cliffs, making it impossible to reach the Khoogiin Gol from there. Instead we will head farther down the Buural and follow a small tributary of the Buural to a pass leading to the Khoogiin. The trail meanders through thick stands of willows and larch. At places the Buural Gol flows under ten-foot thick-football field-sized slabs of ice which Batmönkh says never melt during the summer.

Soon we come to the small unnamed tributary tumbling down a deep ravine to the left. We turn off and follow a vague trail up the right side of the ravine up through a thick larch forest. The misting rain slowly builds into a steady shower. Up ahead, through the mists and clouds, we can make out the snow already falling on the pass.

The trail gets steeper and steeper and we have to make many detours around fallen timber. On one particularly steep section Batmönkh, who is riding right behind me, shouts, “your girth strap has come loose.” He no sooner says this than my horse lunges upward over the steep trail. I feel the saddle sliding beneath me and I topple off the right side of the horse. The horse, with the saddle dangling underneath its belly by the front strap, goes berserk, bucking like a rodeo bronco. Hanging onto the lead rope I am dragging a couple of yards before the horse makes a final lunge and jerks the rope out of my hand. The horse promptly starts trotting back down the trail the way we come. Bayarkhüü rides off in hot pursuit. This is not good. After running off like this horses are notoriously hard to catch again, and especially by one person, like Bayarkhüü, on the thickly-forested side of a ravine. Batmönkh finds the saddle and inspecting it discovers that the girth strap had broken off where it attaches to the saddle. It is not clear, however, if this happened before or after the saddle came off.

After a half an hour Bayarkhüü appears with my horse in tow. My opinion of his horse-handling skills, already high, soars. Batmönkh jerry-rigs the strap back onto the saddle with a scrap of rope—some essential part, I can’t make out what, is missing—and soon we are back on the trail. Another half hour later we emerge from the taiga onto the tundra leading to the pass.

On the tundra below the passLooking back the way we came

As we approach 8356-foot Khushit Khem Pass it starts snowing in earnest, big wet flakes which quickly soak through the deels of the horsemen, who have no raingear. They hurry on across the pass. I linger behind with Nergui, who has no raingear either, but seems oblivious to the snow.

Nergui at 8356-foot Khushit Khem Pass

Mongolia | Khövsgöl Aimag | Darkhad Depression #2

The wolves did not reappear last night. Bayarkhüü had come back from the herd at sunrise, about 4:30 am, grabbed a quick cat nap and was up at seven. We meet with Batmönkh and him in the ger to discuss our itinerary. I tell him I want to visit two places; the source of the Mungaragiin Gol and the source of the Khoogin Gol but that I really don't care how we got there. I told Batmönkh to pick the route. He allows that he has been to both places several times and he did not anticipate any problems. I had figured that the most direct route to both places and back would cover about seventy miles. Spread out over eight days this would be only 8.8 miles a day, which did not sound too onerous. I told Batmönkh we would take our time and enjoy the country.

Loading the two pack horses was facilitated by the three large Kazakh saddle bags of heavy handwoven cloth that I had bought on my last trip to Xinjiang. At eleven o’clock we bid farewell to the rest of the people at the ger and rode west through a thick larch forest. Just as we were leaving, Enkha, my translator, finally admitted that this was the first horse trip she had ever been on. She had been born in Zavkhan Aimag but her family moved to Ulaan Baatar when she was a little girl and she was now nominally a city girl. But as they say in the States, you can take the boy out of the country, but you cannot take the country out of the boy. The same thing seems to apply to Mongolian girls. Enkha seemed perfectly at home on a horse and indeed looked charming on her all-white mount, which perfectly matched her stylish white ski jacket. A few amber-colored horse flies chivied our horses but so far there was no sight of the dreaded green-eyed monsters.

We cross 5,757-foot Ovoolgo Pass and drop down into the valley of a small creek, which we follow upstream for two hours. At four o’clock we arrive at some log corrals near the headwaters of the stream. This is the winter camp of Nergui’s younger sister, who is married, Batmönkh tells us. We will spend the night here. I am a bit surprised at stopping so early—some horsemen I have been with refused to stop until the sun went down—but like I said we were in no real hurry. Batmönkh assures us we will have no trouble reaching our goals in eight days. We quickly brew up a pot of Formosa Oolong which we drink while Nergui prepares dinner.

Nergui preparing our first dinner on the trail

As she cooks she tells you about her name. She was her parent’s first child. Her mother had already had several miscarriages and she was very sickly when she born. Indeed her parents did not expect her to live and did not even bother to give her a name. Although very weak and sickly she survived a month, and finally her parents had to take her to the local authorities to register her birth. “What is the child's name? ” asked the official. Her parents admitted that they had not yet given her a name. On the form the official wrote “Nergui” (ner = name + gui = not). So she became “No-Name.” As soon as she was named, however, her health immediately improved. She has been fit as a fiddle as since.

We retire as soon as the sun went down. Enkha and Nergui share a tent and the last thing I remember hearing before falling asleep in my own tent is both of them laughing uproariously about something. About three in the morning I awoke to what I thought was rain pounding on my tent. I looked outside and was surprised to see an inch of snow on the ground. It was June 11. As soon as the sky turned gray I got up, started a fire, and brewed up a pot of Puerh Tea. I threw out my carpet on the snow and sat down to savor the dark brew as big wet snow flakes drifted down through the pewter colored sky. How many times have I contemplated suicide, only to be drawn back from the brink by the thought: “But what if I am reborn in a place with no Puerh Tea?”

Batmönkh soon emerges from his tent and we hold a desultory conversation in my limited Mongolian. He sips the Puerh tentatively at first but then gulps down the bowl and accept another. Although Puerh could hardly be more different from the the traditional Mongolian brick tea I have never met a herdsmen who did not like it—this despite the fact that as a rule countryside people are not particularly keen on innovations in food or drink. On one camel trip in the Gobi the camel guys often insisted on a rest stop for no other reason than to brew up a pot of khar tsai, or black tea, as they called Puerh (real black tea, like the Yunnan I have with me, they call “red tea”).

Batmönkh brewing up another pot of Puerh tea

Soon Enkha and Nergui emerge. I tell Nergui not to cook: we will have just tea, bortsog, and beslag for breakfast. Enkha, it turns out, had borrowed a purple deel from Batmönkh’s wife, which she now dons, along with winter hat, scarve, and gloves. The snow is falling even harder as we load the horses and begin the climb to 6,788-foot Temeegiin Davaa (Camel Pass). Batmönkh does not how the pass got this name. Camels are not all that common in these forested mountains. He allows, however, that he has a few camels. Like many herdsmen he likes to have all five kinds of Mongolian livestock: horses, cattle (including yaks), sheep, goats, and camels, even if the camels are mostly for show. He doesn’t ride them, but sometimes he does use them to tote loads when moving his ger.

Enkha bundled up for the trip over Temeegiin Davaa

Nergui in her utilitarian but nevertheless stylish deel

Climbing toward Temeegiin Davaa

It is downright wintry on the pass, with a stiff wind blowing the snow horizontally. Although the trail on the other side of the pass is not really very steep, Batmönkh insists we all get off our horses and walk them down to the next valley. As I would discover, Batmönkh never rides his horses downhill for any appreciable distance. It is hard on the horse’s legs, especially when it is carrying a one hundred kilo-plus load like myself. Reaching the valley we follow a small creek downstream. At the head of the valley, just visible through the snow and mist, is 9,468 foot Marchlaga Uul. Off to our left soon appears 9,193 feet Baidalag Uul. According to Batmönkh baidalag is a Tsaasan word for a kind of plant which flourishes on this mountain. The Tsaasan, or Reindeer People, who inhabit the mountains west of the Darkhad Depression, use this plant to make tea, he says. In recent years, the Tsaasan, with their unusual nomadic lifestyle centered around their reindeer herds, have become the biggest tourist attraction in the area. Most people who come to the Darkhad Depression probably come to visit the Tsaasan. There are now no Tsaasan in the area we are going however.

Walking the horses down from Temeegiin Davaa

Soon we turned left out of the valley and started climbing toward Adar Pass. The snow ceased and patches of cobalt blue sky broke through overhead. By noon the latest snow was pretty much melted on the southern side of the mountain we were on. A surprising number of wildflowers were in bloom. I greeted several old friends from Alaska, including northern anemones, Arctic poppies, and forget-me-nots, and stopped to chat with several of them. They said that they were glad to see me too. Northern anemones, which have the charming name of “tsasnii tsagaan” in Mongolian (tsasnii = snow + tsagaan = white, ie, Snow Whites), are always one of the first flowers to appear, often when there is still snow on the ground; likewise Arctic poppies, known as jamyan myadag. Also in bloom was a bush about two feet high with purple flowers and intensely aromatic leaves known as tsakhildag—I don't know the English name. Batmönkh claims that just breathing the aromatic scent from the crushed leaves of this plant strengthens the lungs. Then Batmönkh points out a small plant with purple flowers he calls suman sogoo. He says an infusion made from from the dried stalks and flowers of this plant is good for strengthening women’s wombs. Batmönkh, who seems to know a lot about plants, opines that the Darkhad Depression and surrounding mountains are the best places in Mongolia for medicinal herbs. This is just one of the many things which make the Darkhad Depression special, he says.

Riders of the Purple Tsakhildag

Suman Sogoo

Nergui amidst anemones and poppies

Enkha and Arctic poppies

Ascending the Ikh Cöögt Gol

There is still snow and a sharp wind on 8,094-foot Adar Pass. The other side ramps down very gradually to the Baga Cöögt Gol and we walk our hours down only the steepest parts. We lunch along the Baga Cöögt Gol and then climb to Khush Zurkht Davaa (Nut’s Heart Pass) and descend back down to the Ikh Cöögt Gol, which we follow upstream. At about six in the evening Batmönkh calls a halt and we camp in the mostly treeless tundra on the upper Cöögt Gol. The source of Mungaragiin is just over a pass near the head of this creek.

Nergui and Enkha, both of whom had just washed their ebony locks, enjoying the warm evening sun on the Ikh Cöögt Gol

Mongolia | Khövsgöl Aimag | Darkhad Depression

Continuing on to the Darkhad Depression, we stopped for lunch at a guanz (restaurant in a ger) where the road crosses the Beltes River. There were two other customers in the guanz, each nursing a bowl of milk tea: a woman in her fifties and a man perhaps in his mid-thirties. After some chit-chat the woman got up and left. Our driver whispered, “She is a very famous shamaness from the Darkhad Depression. She now lives in Mörön.” I knew that the Darkhad Depression was famous for its shamans. On a previous trip the Darkhad Depression back on 1999 I had noticed that very few Darkhads, the ethic group that inhabits the Depression, had any kind of Buddhist regalia in their gers. Most still believe to one degree or another in traditional Inner Asian-Siberian shamanism. The woman soon reappeared in the guanz. I told her we were going to the Belchir Uul area on the western edge of the Darkhad Depression and asked if she had ever been there. “Many times,” she said. Is there much snow there at this time of the year? I asked. “It can snow there any time, but it should be no big problem this time of year. The problem now is flies.” She held up her thumb of her right hand and circled it with the thumb and forefinger of her left land just below the first joint. “Flies this big, she said, indicating her protruding thumb. “They have a big green head and they bite both people and horses. You swell up wherever they bite you. It is not really a good time to go to that area.”

Actually I had been concerned about flies and mosquitoes. I had once hiked in the Lake Baikal area in Siberia in late June when the flies and mosquitoes were simply hellish. The area where we were going was really the southern edge of the Siberian taiga, or forest, and I was afraid of encountering the same conditions. Professor Terbish, a biologist at Mongolia State University who had put me in contact with the local horsemen we were meeting, had opined however that it was a bit early for an insect infestation. Hamid Sardar, an Ulaan Baatar based Auteur and Ger Camp Operator who has spent considerable time in the area, concurred that it was too early for the worse of the flies. He warned me about snow on the passes. So it seemed we were in for either snow or insects. Personally I preferred snow, but I had brought along a head net for the insects just in case.

North of the Beltes River we entered higher country, finally climbing to 6,923-foot Eliin Davaa, the pass that marks the entrance to the Darkhad Depression. Here there are thirteen ovoos; one big ovoo and twelve smaller ovoos each representing one of the animals of the Mongolian calendar: mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. According to tradition, people entering the Darkhad Depression circumambulate the big ovoo and then pray to the ovoo representing the year they were born. Enkha was born in the Year of Dog, it turns out. I was born the Year of the Ox. Near the ovoos are several stone monuments, once dedicated to the shamans of the area.

Main ovoo at Eliin Davaa

Main ovoo and six of the twelve smaller ovoos

Monument to local shamans

We soon arrive in the tidy little village of Ulaan Uul. There had been some question about how we were going to meet our horsemen, as we had been told they had moved their gers several times already that spring and no one in Ulaan Baatar or our driver knew exactly where they were located at present. We had planned to ask local herdsmen in Ulaan Uul about their current location. Then a motorcycle pulled up alongside us. Behind the young driver was an older man who waved at us to stop. This turned out to Batmönkh, the man from who we were going to rent horses and who was going to act as our guide to Belchir Uul. Jumping into our van, he explained that the current site of his ger was hard to find and that he had come himself to Ulaan Uul to lead us there. Our horses were waiting for us at his ger, he assured us, and he and his son were ready for an eight-day horse trip into the mountains. The weather all spring had been very dry, but on June 2 some lamas from the monastery in Möron came and performed a rain making ceremony at the Noyon Ovoo in the Khogiin Gol Valley, where we would be going, and immediately afterwards there had been several rain and snow showers. It was still raining a bit every day. And the flies were out. "Flies as big as your thumb,” said Batmönkh, echoing the words of the shamaness. “They love to bite foreigners,” he said, guffawing loudly. He seemed to be in the best of moods.

North of Ulaan Uul we cross the Bakhmakh River. This stream is formed by two smaller rivers, the Guna Gol, which starts just below Eliin Davaa and is now almost dry, and the Mungaragiin Gol, which begins at the base of Belchir Uul. The source of the Mungaragiin Gol is our eventual destination.

Bakhmakh River

We drive across flat steppe with a thick larch forest on our left until Batmönkh shouts "Turn left here!” We take a vague jeep trail several kilometers through the thick forest before emerging into a long meadow dotted with three small lakes. These are Urd (southern) Tarkhai Nuur, Dund (middle) Tarkhai Nuur, and Ar (behind) Tarkhai Nuur. The meadow itself is also known as Tarkhai. Batmönkh says “tarkhai” means the sole of a shoe, but he is unable to explain why the name is used here. Near the last lake is a single ger where Batmönkh and his family live.

Batmönkh’s ger

We pop into the ger and while we are refreshing ourselves with milk tea, fried bread and homemade unsalted cheese Batmönkh introduces us to his wife and family. He is sixty-five years old, he says, and his wife is fifty-nine. They have eleven children, six boys and five girls. Present are the youngest daughter, sixteen, a twenty-six year old unmarried daughter, and one of the older sons, Bayarkhüü. Bayarkhüü, we are informed, will be going with us on our horse trip. Also present is a twenty-seven year old woman named Nergui, who is a friend of the family. Batmönkh has recruited her to go along on the horse trip as a cook. I had planned to buy a sheep, but now Batmönkh informs us that he was just recently prepared some boortz, or dried meat, made from beef. Long thin strips of this boortz are hanging from the latticework of his ger. He now suggests that we take this boortz inside of killing a sheep. I agree. Then we ask if ask if Nergui can make us some bortsog, or fried bread, for the trip. She inspects the flour I had bought in Möron and for some reason finds it unsatisfactory. Instead she will use flour from one of several huge burlap bags of flour Batmönkh has in his ger.

We go out and set up our tents. Soon Bayarkhüu emerges from the ger with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The night before, he tells us, wolves had raided their horse herd and killed two young foals. Tonight he will stand watch over the herd. “I hope the wolves come back,” he says, patting his rifle. “I will be ready for them.”

Our horses