Mongol Altai

A journey that brings together the two great peoples of Mongolia: the Mongols of the steppe and the Kazakhs of the western mountains. It also crosses almost every landscape the country has, from the harsh Gobi desert to the flowering green hills of the centre and the icy ranges of the Altai. Above it all, big blue skies full of fast-moving clouds. We know each morning where we will sleep that night; what happens in between is open country and chance meetings with nomad families.

We land in Ulaanbaatar and set off west at once in our UAZ 4x4s. On the way we stop at Ovgon monastery, recently restored, and reach Kharkhorin, the old capital of the Mongol empire, by evening. We wander among the 108 stupas inside the walls of Erdene Zuu monastery, look at the stone turtles that once guarded the city, and drive through green hills to Shankh, a Tibetan-style monastery from the 17th century.

The plains are dotted with gers, and we stop to meet the families who live in them: watching mares and yaks being milked, and tasting their strong, fragrant fermented cheese. At Ongi a new temple and a small museum stand among the ruins of an old monastery. The land grows drier and the first herds of Bactrian camels appear on the horizon.

In Gurvan Saikhan National Park we come face to face with the Gobi. We sleep right in front of Khongoryn Els, huge golden dunes we can climb on foot or ride along by camel. Heading north we pass through the narrow Dugany Am gorge to the Yol valley, the “valley of the vultures”, and follow its path on foot or on horseback, crossing the cold stream, to a block of ice that lasts most of the year. At Bayanzag, the red cliffs where the first dinosaur eggs and Velociraptor skeletons were found, we enter dinosaur country. After the Gimpil Darjaalan monastery at Erdenedalai we drive back to Ulaanbaatar.

Then we fly west to the Altai, the high range that divides Mongolia from Kazakhstan, China and Russia, for six days in the part of the country most shaped by Kazakh, Muslim culture. Altai Tavan Bogd park is an open-air museum of rock carvings, cave paintings, ancient Turkic stone figures and Kazakh graves. We aim to see two of its three UNESCO sites: Aral Tolgoi near Khoton Lake and the remarkable Tsagaan Salaa, with some 100,000 carvings spread over 15 km. The blue lakes Khoton and Khurgan lie below the Five Holy Peaks, the highest of the Altai, crowned by Khüiten (4,374 m). In Tsambagarav park the Namarjin valley, home to Kazakh herders, leads up to the glaciers of a mountain over 4,200 m high. In September and October we can also join the eagle festivals of Ölgii and Sagsai.

We fly back to Ulaanbaatar for a last day in the capital and its most important monastery, Gandan, home of the 26-metre copper statue of Migjid Janraisig, before the flight home. The trip can be shortened to 15 days by spending all of it in the Altai and seeing the region in more depth. Special departures: Naadam in Ulaanbaatar, 11–15 July 2026, and the Golden Eagle Festival in Ölgii, 3–4 October 2026, which opens the hunting season. The route is a guide based on our past trips and may change.