The Gobi in detail: what is actually out there

The sand exists and it is spectacular, and it occupies a small fraction of the whole. People who arrive expecting the Sahara are briefly disappointed and then, usually within a day, converted by something better: a desert that is inhabited, that has weather, that has ice in it in July and dinosaur bones in it everywhere.

This is what is actually out there, how long each thing takes, and how many nights the Gobi earns on your itinerary.

The three set pieces

Yolyn Am, the ice gorge

A narrow gorge in the Gurvan Saikhan mountains, walked on a flat gravel path along a stream, about ninety minutes each way. In a good year it holds ice into July, which is the point: a sheet of it in a shaded cleft in a desert that will be over 100 Fahrenheit (38 C) on the plain outside.

Look for pikas in the rocks and lammergeiers overhead. The name refers to the bearded vulture rather than to anything more romantic.

It is the gentlest of the three and a good first Gobi afternoon, especially after a flight.

Khongoryn Els, the dunes

The reason most people come. A dune field that runs for about 110 miles (180 km) along the northern edge of the Gobi Gurvansaikhan park and rises to around 1,000 feet (300 m), with a green strip of grass and a stream at its base and mountains behind it.

Two things happen here. First, Bactrian camels at the foot of the dunes, ridden at walking pace by families who herd them. Second, the climb.

The climb is forty minutes of genuinely hard work, straight up a ridge of soft sand, at the end of the day. You take one step and slide back a third of it. It is the best hour on most Mongolia itineraries: the top gives you the whole dune field on one side and the plain on the other, the light is doing something extraordinary, and the way down takes four minutes because you run it.

Give the dunes a full day rather than a night. A morning walk along the base, an afternoon with a camel herding family, and the sunset climb again if your legs agree.

Bayanzag, the flaming cliffs

Red and orange sandstone cliffs above a plain, with a saxaul forest below that is the only tree cover for a very long way.

This is where the first identified dinosaur eggs were found, by Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1920s, and the fossil record here remains one of the richest in the world. Fossil fragments are genuinely lying on the ground, which is a strange thing to walk over. They stay there: removing fossils from Mongolia is illegal and the country has spent years repatriating specimens taken by others.

Go at the end of the afternoon when the light is on the cliffs. An hour or two, and the walk along the rim is easy.

The other things worth the drive

Tsagaan Suvarga. Sedimentary cliffs about 200 feet (60 m) high, striped orange and white, standing above a dry plain on the eastern approach to the Gobi. Best in the last hour of light, and usually visited on the overland route rather than the flight-based one.

Baga Gazriin Chuluu. A granite outcrop area in open steppe on the way south, with a small ruined monastery and rocks to walk among. A good first night out of the capital.

Ongi. The ruins of two monastery complexes on either side of a river, destroyed in the 1930s during the purges, with a small rebuilt temple and a monk who will talk to you about what happened. This is the most affecting hour in the Gobi and almost nobody expects it. Usually on the northward leg out of the desert.

The camel herding families. Not a set piece and the best thing here. Bactrian camels are working animals in the south Gobi, and an afternoon with a family who herd them is a better use of time than a fourth rock formation.

Getting there, which is the whole planning problem

Ulaanbaatar to the Khongoryn Els dunes is about 620 miles (1,000 km), of which most is not paved. That is two long days by road, or a flight to Dalanzadgad plus a half day.

Fly if you have ten days. The domestic flight south buys back two full driving days each way and it is almost always the right call on a shorter trip. Schedules are seasonal and thin, aircraft are small, the baggage allowance is usually around 15 kg, and changes happen, so we book them the moment the schedule opens and keep a road contingency.

Drive if you have fourteen days and want the transition. The overland loop goes south into the desert, west to the dunes, then north out of the sand into the Arkhangai hills, and the day the gravel turns to grass is the day the route exists for. The two-week route argues it properly.

Within the Gobi, everything is four to five hours apart on tracks at 20 to 30 miles an hour (30 to 50 km/h). There are no service stations and long stretches with nothing at all.

How many nights the Gobi earns

Three nights minimum. Four is better.

Three gives you the gorge, the dunes with one sunset, and the cliffs. Four gives you a full day at the dunes, which is the difference between passing through and being there.

Two nights is what a compressed itinerary offers and it is the most common under-service we see. You spend one of them arriving and one of them leaving. How many days you need in Mongolia sets it in the context of the whole trip.

Camps, weather and comfort

The camps. Gobi ger camps mostly have shared shower blocks: a separate building a short walk from your ger, with hot water at set hours because it runs on a generator or a scheduled boiler. A small number have private bathrooms in the ger and they are worth booking where they exist. Deep in the desert, some camps are genuinely basic and the good camp and the simple camp are sometimes the same camp. We state the arrangement for every night before you book rather than describing them all as comfortable.

Water is the constraint. It is trucked or pumped, and that is why showers are timed. Take the hot water hour when it is offered rather than after dinner.

The heat. July afternoons can pass 100 F (38 C). Days are planned around early starts and late finishes for that reason, with the middle of the day spent driving or resting.

The cold. Freezing at night in the Gobi in June is normal, and September nights are cold. The stove is lit at dusk and goes out at around two in the morning. This is the thing that surprises people most about a desert.

The wind and the dust. Constant, and the dust gets into everything. Wet wipes, a scarf and a bag for the camera.

Connectivity. Absent for most of the Gobi. Tell people at home before you go. Mongolia for the first time covers the rest of the practical ground.

The best time for the Gobi specifically

June and September are the good months here, and for different reasons. June has cold nights, the least dust and the grass at its best. September has clear air, comfortable days, quiet camps and the season closing behind you from mid-month.

July and August are hot in the middle of the day and busiest. The Gobi gets less of the summer rain than the central provinces, so tracks stay firmer here than they do around Kharkhorin. The full calendar is here.

Outside mid-June to mid-September the camps close and this is not a trip.

Plan this trip

Tell us how many nights you can give the Gobi and whether you would rather fly or drive, and one of our Southeast and Central Asia specialists will build it with real drive hours and the camp arrangement stated for every night. Free, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Classic Mongolia in 10 days
• Gobi and central Mongolia in 14 days
• The best two-week route in Mongolia
• How many days do you need in Mongolia?
• Mongolia month by month
• All our Mongolia trips

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