The Last Great Wilderness Trek: Mongolia

Day by day

1. Day 1Arrival in UlaanbaatarArrival day · 1,300m

   Welcome to Mongolia. We meet you at Chinggis Khaan International, which sits about 52km south of the city in the Khoshig valley, and transfer you into Ulaanbaatar. Allow a full hour for that drive, longer at rush hour.

   Ulaanbaatar sits at around 1,300m and is a strange, likeable collision of Soviet concrete, glass towers and gers on the hillsides. Depending on your arrival time we take in the capital's headline sights: Gandantegchinlen Monastery, where the 26m gilded Migjid Janraisig statue stands under a wooden roof and the morning chanting is worth setting an alarm for; Sukhbaatar Square with its parliament and its skateboarders; and the National Museum, which is the single best hour you can spend on understanding where you have just landed.

   In the evening we gather for a welcome dinner with Joe and the team. Kit is checked, questions are answered, and the twelve of you stop being strangers. Overnight in a city hotel on bed and breakfast.

2. Day 2Fly West into Wild Country2 hrs 40 · 1 to 3 hrs · UTC+7

   An early transfer back to the airport for the MIAT flight west to Ulaangom, capital of Uvs province: roughly 1,113km and about two hours forty minutes in a seventy-seat regional jet. Watch the left-hand window as the Khangai gives way to bare, folded, apparently empty country. Uvs runs on UTC+7, an hour behind Ulaanbaatar, so put your watch back on landing.

   Ulaangom sits at 939m in a dry basin that receives around 142mm of rain a year, less than a third of London's. From here we load into 4WDs and drive out towards the mountains, one to three hours depending on how far up the valley the track is passable this season, until the road stops being a road and then stops altogether.

   And there they are: the Bactrian camels, their two humps swaying, and the Khoton handlers who own them, already sorting loads. The camels take the tents, the kitchen, the food and every kitbag. From tomorrow all you carry is a daypack. We walk a short distance to the first camp and pitch beside water, and the sky over your tent turns out to have rather more stars in it than you were expecting.

3. Day 3Into the Uliastai Valley5 to 6 hrs · Daypack only · River sandals

   The first proper day on foot, and deliberately a gentle one. We follow the Uliastai river up a broad, open valley of alpine meadow and grazing pasture, the sort of walking where the ground does most of the work for you and you can spend the hours looking around rather than at your boots. Larks and wheatears go up off the grass; higher on the slopes, watch for the slow spiralling of a bearded vulture.

   Nomadic families appear at intervals, their gers pitched near water with the day's animals fanned out across the hillside above. Uvs is Oirat country: Dorvod and Bayad make up three quarters of the province, and it is the Khoton, concentrated in exactly these valleys, whose camels are carrying your kit. If we are invited in, go in. Take what is offered with your right hand, do not tread on the threshold, and let your guide lead.

   There are small streams to cross on foot today, which is your introduction to a theme: this route crosses water constantly, and river sandals earn their place in your bag on day one. We camp beside the river, and the sound you fall asleep to is the sound you woke up to.

4. Day 4Blue Lake6 hrs · 1,795m · Alpine flowers

   The valley narrows and tilts, and we climb. The going is steady rather than steep, over the Uliastai pass at around 2,410m and on through thinning grass and the first proper rock, with the ridgelines closing in on either side.

   Then the ground drops away and Blue Lake is below you, an improbable slab of turquoise held in a bowl of grey rock at around 1,795m, its edges fringed with alpine flowers in late July. Local people call it Khukh Nuur. It photographs badly and looks extraordinary, which is a common problem in this part of the world.

   We camp on the shore. The water is snowmelt and it is exactly as cold as that sounds, which does not stop somebody swimming every year. If conditions and local rules allow, there is a small fire in the evening, and you begin to understand quite how far from anything you already are.

5. Day 5High Pass and Red Cliffs7 hrs · Ancient burials · Wild camp

   Today the trek shows its hand. A long, honest climb takes us onto a high pass with the whole massif laid out around it: the snow of Kharkhiraa Uul to one side, ridge behind ridge fading westward, and not a building, a road or a wire anywhere in the view. Take the time on top. This is the sort of thing you flew nine thousand kilometres for.

   The descent runs into a secluded valley where the rock changes colour and red cliffs rise on either side. Scattered along the valley floor are burial mounds, low stone-covered rings that have been here a very long time indeed and about which nobody will offer you a confident date. Walk around them, not over them, and leave everything where it lies.

   Camp tonight is hidden in this valley, and it is as wild a spot as we pitch anywhere on the route.

6. Day 6Turgen River Valley6 hrs · Horseback crossings · 1,860m

   A change of scale today. We drop into the Turgen river valley, which is wide, green and loud with meltwater, and the walking becomes steady and companionable again after yesterday's effort. The peaks stand well back here, which lets you see how big the country actually is.

   This is one of the great grazing valleys of the massif, and you are likely to see yaks, horses and camels out on the meadows, with herders' summer camps at intervals. It is also where the trek's serious water begins. The Turgen and its side channels run fast, cold and opaque with rock flour, and the deeper crossings are done on horseback, one guest at a time, with the crew in the water on either side. It is undignified, memorable and completely safe, and everyone wants to do it twice.

   We camp on the riverbank at around 1,860m, fresh water at our feet and mountains at our backs.

7. Day 7Kharkhiraa Pass7 to 8 hrs · Close to 3,000m · Highest camp

   The biggest day. We climb steadily out of the valley towards Kharkhiraa Pass, the high point of the route at somewhere close to 3,000m, on a long ascent that asks for patience rather than power. Go slowly. There is no prize for arriving first and a great deal to be said for arriving able to look around.

   And the looking around is the point. From the col the snow and ice of Kharkhiraa Uul (4,037m) and the Turgen peaks fill the northern sky, glacier-fed valleys run away below in both directions, and the Altai stacks up ridge on ridge to the west. It is genuinely, uncomplicatedly enormous. Expect it to be cold and windy on top whatever the valley was doing, so warm layers, hat and gloves come out of the pack before the final pull, not on the summit.

   The descent leads into the Many Lakes basin, Olon Nuuriin Belchir, a wide boggy upland scattered with scores of small glacial tarns. Ground underfoot is wet and tussocky and progress is slower than it looks. We camp beside the tarns at around 2,650m, the highest night of the trek, and there will very likely be frost on the flysheet in the morning.

8. Day 8Rest and Exploration DayRest day · Wildlife · Dark skies

   After four days of moving camp, today you do not have to. Breakfast happens when it happens. Some people walk out with Joe to explore the surrounding tarns and ridgelines and come back full of it; some read a book in a tent doorway for six hours and consider that the finest day of the trip. Both are correct.

   This is also the day the trek quietly does its work on you. Bodies recover, appetites come back, and a fortnight of accumulated noise finally drains out. There is laundry to do in a cold stream and hair to give up on. Keep an eye on the skyline: ibex are numerous in the Turgen massif, thought to number around 7,000, and argali and bearded vultures are both regularly seen from camps like this one.

   In the evening we eat well, sit out late, and if conditions allow there is a fire. At this altitude, with no light for a hundred kilometres in any direction, the Milky Way does not look like the sky you know.

9. Day 9Black Goat Pass6 to 7 hrs · About 2,960m · Raptor country

   Back on the move, and the legs have remembered how to do this. We climb to Black Goat Pass, known locally as Khar Yamaat, at around 2,960m, which on most lines is fractionally the highest ground of the entire trek. It is a shorter climb than Kharkhiraa but no less spectacular from the top: a wide grass and rock col with the Altai spread out on either side.

   The descent is the real revelation. A steep track drops into a canyon of high cliffs and then opens into a valley that sees almost no one from one year to the next. There are no gers here, no tracks, no cut wood. Golden eagles and bearded vultures work the cliffs above, and you will spend a lot of the afternoon looking up.

   Tonight's camp feels as remote as anywhere we go. There is no sign of a human being in any direction, and the silence after the crew stop working has a quality that people remember for years.

10. Day 10Towards the Lowlands5 to 6 hrs · Summer camps · Last night camping

    The trek starts letting you go today. The valleys broaden, the gradient eases, the air thickens noticeably and the walking becomes the pleasant, chatty sort. You will feel strong, which is a strange thing to notice on day ten and a good sign that the plan worked.

    Herding families reappear, and this is the richest stretch of the route for that: summer camps of horse and yak herders, gers with solar panels and motorbikes parked beside tethered animals, children who will beat you at everything. Uvs province runs well over a million sheep and a million goats, alongside horses, cattle and around twenty thousand camels, and in high summer almost all of it is up here on the good grass.

    There is a definite mood in the group by the evening: dusty, brown-armed, slightly smug, and starting to talk about the things you are going to eat when you get home. Last night under canvas.

11. Day 11Final Trek and Uureg Lake Ger Camp3 to 4 hrs · 1,425m · Hot showers

    Our last morning on the trail is filled with a quiet sense of achievement. The mountains open out, the valley widens, and we make the final descent to meet the vehicles: boots dusty, packs lighter, spirits high. There is usually a certain amount of standing about looking back up the valley before anyone can be persuaded into a Land Cruiser.

    From here a drive takes us to Uureg Nuur, a high-altitude lake at 1,425m ringed by snow-dusted peaks and about as blue as water gets. Tonight we trade expedition tents for traditional gers: proper beds, wood stoves, and hot showers, which after ten days will feel like an unreasonable luxury rather than a normal amenity.

    In the evening we gather for a celebratory Mongolian feast hosted by our nomadic friends. Expect hearty food, a great deal of laughing, and the reflective, slightly emotional conversation that always comes at the end of something like this. Sitting inside the ger, or outside by the lake as the sun goes down, it is the perfect finale.

12. Day 12Return to UlaanbaatarFlight day · Free afternoon · Farewell dinner

    After breakfast we drive back to Ulaangom and board the return flight to Ulaanbaatar, watching from the air the country you have just walked across. Remember to put your watch forward an hour on landing.

    The afternoon is yours. Most people head for the State Department Store or the cashmere shops, which are genuinely worth the trip and where the prices will surprise you in the right direction. Others find a cafe, order something that is not made in a camp kitchen, and sit in it for three hours. Both plans are sound. This is also your first proper wi-fi in eleven days, so a certain amount of quiet phone time is inevitable.

    In the evening we gather for a farewell dinner: photographs, toasts, the retelling of the river crossings, and the exchange of contact details that always accompanies a group that has done something like this together. Overnight in the city hotel.

13. Day 13DepartureDeparture day · Allow 1 hr

    After breakfast we transfer you to Chinggis Khaan International for your international flight, timed to your individual departure and allowing a full hour for the 52km run south to the airport.

    You go home with dust that will not come out of one particular jacket, a new and unreasonable confidence around horses, and the specific, hard-won knowledge of what a place with one person per square kilometre actually sounds like. Most of all you go home with eleven other people who were there, which is the part nobody expects and everybody keeps.