Steppes of Mongolia (5 August): Getting Wet

5 August 2014

Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve near Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Fortuitous hike

Chilly morning for man and beast

Getting  northern. I’m sitting up late in a bed in a warm ger. By sunrise tomorrow I know, from today’s experience, it will be cold. Cold in a way that says we’re into something different. Cold in a way that prompted us to go shopping first thing in the morning at a marketplace in a small town somewhere on our route. Gracie has a new blue velour sweat suit that says HAPPY over the butt – she want’s to change it so it says APP. Carrie bought a new pair of warm tights and sweat bottoms. Liam owns a new red sweater that, true to form, he said he didn’t care about when we bought it and had since been wearing around proudly, collecting compliments as if the whole thing was his idea. We didn’t find hats or mittens. I didn’t get anything, either. These might prove to be oversights – maybe we can get some stuff when my mother-in-law flies over from the States next week. Packing for 48° N latitude, where we’ve arrived now, proves to have a new set of challenges. Carrie walked in a few minutes ago wearing all the clothes she possessed in her clothes bag – layer upon layer of tropical clothes topped off with her most recent purchases. We were not ready.

As the sun rose over the Mongolian steppe, all worries of cool evenings and cold mornings evaporated like morning dew. Our first full day on our Taste of Mongolia Tour (the tour company’s name, not mine, and quite fitting) was a pell-mell itinerary, with enough time to pose in historical regalia or holding an eagle, climb a giant Genghis Khan statue, take a hike across a river, and to go out searching (unsuccessfully) for rare argali sheep before a dinner of Mongolian barbeque.

Jumping for joy in front of the largest mounted horse statue in the world (a protracted claim to fame).
Chinghis Khan, or course.

Skye, Carrie & Gracie

Liam passed up the chance to dress-up and pose as
a mongol warrior, but later found this lovely eagle in front.

Watery adventures. Our unscheduled hike across the river Kherlen provided a worthy anecdote. Mongolia provides broad, sweeping expanses between gentle slopes. Driving through, one wants to just get out and run to the nearest rise all for the pleasure of running and to see what’s on the other side. Her first day out Gracie said, “I feel so free in Mongolia. Can I just run around?” China was all paths. The steppes are like a lawn. Our chance to explore came when the afternoon rains dispersed and Skye, Carrie, Liz and I poked out of our gers and headed to an otherwise pointless rise that, in the event, just happened to be on the far side of a broad and sweeping stream. Skye was the first one to decide that fording the stream would be just the thing, and I was quick to agree. Liz and Carrie waited until we demonstrated that the water was more than waist high, but not more than belly high, and that the current, though strong, would not sweep us down. Then with some hemming and taking off of pants, they crossed to join us. With the exception of Liz losing her balance briefly, we arrived in tact. From the top of our promontory we could see the herding families and their herds. We were introduced to the thoroughly modern practice of herding from motorcycle, which seemed to exist side-by-side with horseback herding.

The whole hike had so far been a little over an hour and we had just enough time to return before heading out to seek the rare argali sheep. We surmised that upstream the river might be more fordable – perhaps we thought we’d seen someone cross on horseback -- and so traveled further along the river before attempting to cross back. My first attempt I turned back when the stream passed belly level and risked the backpack I was carrying. But rather than retry there, or take the time to go back to our original ford, hope sprang eternal and we ended up crossing further upstream. It appeared that Skye had made it across there. Only after I was halfway across with my pack and Carrie’s and my shoes and clothes on top of my head did we hear that Skye had swum the river. The water was well above my navel by then and the solid current scrapped my feet downstream several years with each increasingly rapid step. 30 meters upstream Liz and Carrie were having the same experience, less the pack. As I approached the bank of our camp, the water rose further and faster. The number of electronic devices I was carrying flashed through my head – camera’s, iPhones, batteries, lenses. I heard a splash which was our driver, Eggy (!), jumping in to help Carrie. But I could’t spare a glance because 3 meters from the bank the water was too deep even for me. I was swimming the last, struggling to keep my head above water without using the arm required to keep the pack on top of that head. Then the bank was a foot away and two feet up. I hurled the bag onto the grass and grasped at the mud, grateful the bag didn’t fall back down into the water. Upstream I could hear that the others had made it back safely as well. Bad judgment. Good outcome. Find story.

It was a full day. The ger camp settles down for the night. So do I.

The river in question. It looks deep even on horses, although
this is shallower than our spot.

This is a picture of yaks. Because they're cute.