Trip Reports

Mongolian Climber 2023

Eagle Hunter
Trip Report

Written by Leader Mara Larson, September 2023

An expedition stretching out across the steppes of Mongolia? Exploring the peaks and passes along ancient silk roads and modern nomadic herders? And eagle hunters? Count me in! The year was 2019 and the countdown began for Mongolia 2020…

…and then a few hiccups came along…

So two years and eleven months later there we were, having landed Chinggis Khan Airport in Ulaan Bataar via Istanbul. We were a wild-eyed and jet-lagged bunch after our red-eye flight across Europe, the Middle East, then Asia all in one fell swoop. The trip was notably described as an adventure requiring a flexible attitude and that’s what we got straight out of the gates. An arrival sans one team member, Misba!, as well as 8 duffle bags! We’d all cleverly packed our high altitude boots and summit essentials in our cabin bags anticipating that would be the kit challenge in-country a mere 4000 miles from home. Instead, half our team was also now without toothbrushes and a change of pants! Luckily, this team was game for challenge. 6’2’’ Lawrence immediately accepting my generous offer of lady’s size small shirts, Susie out the door for UB sandals, Iain on too many 8000 meter climbs to be phased by a lack of sleeping bag, and Andrew, well Andrew had the team med kit so that MIA bag was proving a slight hiccup :)

By midday, we’d tracked down our Kiwi duo of Richard and Jon, and Ben who’d been off horse-riding south of the capital and dropped what luggage we did have at our city hotel and the team was off on a cultural tour of the national museum and Gandan Monastery followed by a lively dinner of meat, meat, and more meat our first official night in country.

The next 48 days were a mix of acclimatizing hikes to Mt Tseseguun, a haze of jetlagged trip preparations, and a memorable meeting of our local guide and agent. We’d arrived straight after the weeklong annual Mongolian Naadam Festival of spirited horse racing, archery, wrestling, and a healthy dose of actual spirits, too.  Our local guide arrived in a happy haze of continued celebrations. Our pints of Golden Gobi brews almost had us keeping up.

And then a very early morning had us straight back to the airport for our in-country flight finally to the far west Mongolia and the Kazakh town of Olgii, our staging post for our climb and another 1000 miles back in time both literally and figuratively. This was the gateway to the Altai range and the most remote province of western Mongolia. One dusty runway, barren tracks of still unpaved roads, and signs only in the Mongolian cyrillic script reminded us immediately we were now in a truly far away, distant land. And just to add more spice to the mix, still without our missing kit! This meant the first crux of our expedition was a shift of itinerary to base here in the relative civilization of this one horse town while we waited on our gear to catch us up.

Oli and Nik set the tone, immediately out for a shopping mission for the “essentials” for Lawrence while myself and the local guides hunted down rooms, some restaurants with decipherable menus, and a rearranging of itinerary now that we’d be installed in the city atleast an extra day or two.

This meant, eagle hunters!

Our next day was a taster of the delights to come. Dodgy unpaved roads across the steppes, Kazakh yurts dotting the countryside, local mare’s milk at the home of a golden eagle hunting family, and finally meeting these massive birds of prey we’d all spent ages reading about.

One last overnight in Olgi and with a bit of good fortune, and some amazing jeep drivers on our side, it was another sunrise start welcoming the dusty arrival of our lost luggage! No small feat considering there was only one flight a day over to Olgii and no chance of all those bags making it onboard. Instead, they made a 1000 mile and 31 hour overland journey across the Mongolian steppes from Ulan Baatar to us.

So a couple days behind schedule but now fully loaded with kit we were on our way to the peaks! We managed to smash out both the drive and our first day's hike up into the national park and up to base camp in a one day mission thanks to a bit of strategic packing (and the support of our camels carrying most of the loads. We happily made it to camp with generous time to spare before dinner. To our total delight, camp was not only nearly empty at this time of year but also perched just beside the glacial moraine. Soft soil underfoot and under tents was a delight.

We settled into dinner by our exceptional kitchen team and cheered to the adventure of finally making it to the high Altai.

The next four days were our window of acclimatizing and climbing towards our goals of the Russian border and three Mongolian summits. The weather decided to surprise us on our third day and throw us a Denali style storm of high winds and unpredicted snow, meaning windslab and avalanche conditions that foiled our Mt. Khuiten plans. Instead we spent the early morning digging out from tents. (Thanks Jon and Oli!) But Friendship Peak with the most stunning views imaginable and whose summit had us in Russia, China, and Mongolia was our highlight. Malchin rounded out our summits with airy exposure to the snowy north face of our rocky ridge scramble. Views down 1000 feet to Siberia kept us firmly focused on staying in Mongolia rocky soil. Our early start meant time meant the 8 hour climb had us returning to base camp just before another round of storms, this time rain, caught up with us.

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