Adventure Mongolia: the Altai and five days on horseback, in 14 days

This route flies out there, spends five days riding and walking through the high lakes and the glacier valley, and then comes back east for the horse riding country of the Orkhon valley. It is the hardest of our Mongolian itineraries and the one people come back talking about.

Who it suits: fit travellers with some riding experience, comfortable with tents, cold nights and no showers for days at a time. You do not need to be an expert rider. You do need to have ridden.

Your specialist: Osnat Angerman or Paz Prosianoy, our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, working with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar and their western Mongolia crew.

Day by day

Day 1: Arrive Ulaanbaatar. An hour from the airport. Nothing else.

Day 2: Ulaanbaatar. The National Museum, which is where the Kazakh and Mongol distinction starts making sense, Gandan monastery, and a kit check with your guide in the afternoon. Repack: the domestic flight west has a baggage allowance around 15 kg.

Day 3: Fly to Olgii. About three hours west. Olgii is a low, dusty provincial town of Kazakh Mongolia, and a good afternoon: the bazaar, the museum, and a first meal that is noticeably different from Mongol cooking.

Day 4: Olgii to the Tavan Bogd national park. Six to seven hours by 4×4 on tracks, climbing the whole way, to the ranger station area below the glacier. Camp at around 7,900 feet (2,400 m).

Day 5: Walk to the Potanin glacier viewpoint. A full day on foot, five to six hours out and back, up the moraine to look at the glacier and the peaks above it, including Khuiten at 14,350 feet (4,374 m), the highest point in Mongolia. No technical ground. Back to camp.

Day 6: Meet the horses, ride to Khoton Lake. The first riding day, five to six hours in the saddle across open ground. Mongolian horses are small, tough and semi-wild, and they are ridden with a lot less contact than you are used to. Your crew will spend the first hour matching you to one. Camp by the lake.

Day 7: Ride along Khoton and Khurgan lakes. Six hours between the two lakes, through Tuvan and Kazakh summer pastures. Camp at the water.

Day 8: Ride into the side valleys. Five to six hours, high pasture, marmots and eagles, and petroglyph sites that are thousands of years old and completely unfenced. Camp.

Day 9: Ride out to the road head. Five hours down, meeting the vehicles. A short drive to a ger camp with a shower, which after four days you will have opinions about.

Day 10: Eagle hunter family, and back to Olgii. A morning with a Kazakh eagle hunting family: the golden eagle on the arm, the equipment, the training, and an honest conversation about what happens in the hunting season, which is winter and not now. Then five to six hours back to Olgii.

Day 11: Fly to Ulaanbaatar, drive to the Orkhon valley. The flight east, then five to six hours west by road, which is a long day and is the price of doing both halves of this trip.

Day 12: Orkhon valley. Erdene Zuu monastery in the morning. Afternoon riding in the valley, which after the Altai will feel like a rest, out to the Orkhon waterfall.

Day 13: Orkhon valley to Ulaanbaatar. Five to six hours east. Afternoon in the city, a shower that works and a proper dinner. Also the buffer day, because the domestic flights move.

Day 14: Departure. Transfer to the airport.

What is included

All accommodation, hotel in Ulaanbaatar, ger camps where they exist and tents in the Tavan Bogd, full board outside the capital, both domestic flights, private 4×4 vehicles with drivers, an English-speaking Mongolian guide throughout and a Kazakh-speaking local guide in the west, horses and a horse crew for five riding days, all tents, mats and a cook, national park and border zone permits, the eagle hunter family visit paid properly, a day-by-day document with real hours, and a WhatsApp group with your specialist and our partner’s operations team where there is a signal.

What we would change, and when

• Want the Golden Eagle Festival? It is held near Olgii on the first weekend of October, and there is a smaller spring version. It is outside the main season, it is cold, and it is the best thing in the Mongolian calendar. We build a shorter, festival-focused route for it. The 21 day route includes the west.
• Less riding? Cut days 7 and 8 to walking days with the vehicles carrying the camp. It is a different trip and a good one.
• More climbing? Khuiten peak is a mountaineering objective requiring crampons, rope and a qualified guide. We arrange it as a separate expedition, not as part of this.
• Never ridden at all? Do the Orkhon valley half of this trip with led riding and skip the Altai saddle days. Tell us honestly and we will build it.

Honest notes, and please read them

Five days riding is hard on a body that has not ridden. Six hours a day in a Mongolian saddle, which is wooden unless the crew supplies a Russian one, over uneven ground. The first two days hurt. Riding trousers or padded shorts are not optional.

Mongolian horses are not trekking centre horses. They are small, semi-wild, and they were broken to ride rather than schooled. They respond to a loose rein and to voice, they can spook, and they are extremely surefooted. Your crew rides with you throughout.

You will be camping, and there is no shower. Days 4 to 9 are tents, a wash from a bowl and a long drop or a spade. Nights at 7,900 feet in the Altai go below freezing in any month.

The season is short and the west is shorter. Mid-June to mid-September for this route. The Altai holds snow later and gets it earlier than the rest of the country.

Driving days are long and the roads are tracks. Day 4 is six to seven hours of it, day 11 involves a flight and a five hour drive. There is no way to shorten those that does not remove something.

Domestic flights to Olgii are the weak point. Thin seasonal schedules, small aircraft, a baggage allowance around 15 kg and a real chance of a change. Day 13 is deliberately soft.

Connectivity is absent for most of the western section. Tell people at home before you go.

Built by our Southeast and Central Asia specialists, with our long-standing partner in Ulaanbaatar.

Related

• Mongolia: the complete guide
• Mongolia in 21 days, the far west
• Classic Mongolia in 10 days