How to get there:
A good approach is from the north. Leave a main track near
location N45.060, E101.00. Locate and follow a pretty clear driving track
that heads south-east. It serves some normade dwellings a short distance
before you arrive at the entrance to the valley that next should be driven all
the way until the road ends.
This is a pretty long and quite slow 4WD access up a long valley. One may drive
all the way until the road narrows and becomes a path. This is also a pretty
good place to camp. The location is N44.88689, E101.54583, elevation about 2812 meter.
This road or driving track is pretty rough in several places, but should not
pose a problem for a vehicle like a landcruiser.
From here, the straight line distance to the summit is only 2.7 kilometer with
a vertical gain of 800 meter.
Route description:
From camp, continue up the valley, there is a small path most of
the way. Do not go left at a valley junction, but stay right.
Follow this valley, easy walking, all the way to a nice col, near
location N44.88843, E101.57483, elevation near 3250 meter.
From here, turn left and ascend the ridge to the summit. The steepest
part is fairly early. It is a pretty good ridge that offers some light
scrambling, this may also be avoided mostly by staying slightly left
as you ascend. This will lead directly to the first summit, marked with
a cairn.
The ridge continues
to the second (middle) summit. This is slightly
higher and thus defines the top of the mountain. There is a third
summit point that also may be visited, however this is the lowest
of the three summit points.
Comments:
Here is a quick summary of peaks climbed in Mongolia August 2024.
After climbing Tergun Bogd, we were thinking that the drive across
to the Myangan Yamaat trailhead should be at most a half day. We had breakfast shortly before
0800 and pretty ready to drive around 0830.
This drive turned out to take more time than thought for several reasons.
First, we made a stop in a small town Bayangovi. Proceeding, our drivers navigated the
small local tracks perfectly, getting is on the dirt road from where we should
fork right, following the track that Rob and Deividas had pioneered the previosu
year. However, at this point our driver had a different idea and proceeded to
drive towards a small town Baruunbayan Ulaan, despite our concern that the only reasonable
way would be to follow "our plan". No avail, we ended up in the small town
and here our drivers starting asking a random local man on a motorbike for
directions. Hmm, we could all see a long ridge of sand dunes that separated
us from the mountain. How to cross this? I walked over and insisted that
we turn back. After some hesitation Manlei reluctantly agreed. This detour
cost us 2 extra hours of driving.
When we finally arrived at the entrance to the valley, he would quickly point
out that we could have driven from the small town and come in to this point
from the opposite side. Possibly correct, but then ignoring the hour drive
to that town which in any event was a mistake. This situation, with language
and cultural differences, drivers using local knowledge while we would use
satellite based modern maps and GPS technology, resulting in diverging
choices had happened several times. It was still a challenge to get our
combined knowledge to work in an optimal way.
The drive up this long and winding valley takes more than one hour. The track is mostly
pretty essy to follow, but it is definitely a slow driving track. We finally arrived at the
very end of the road shortly
after 1800. The drive across from our previous mountain had
indeed taken a full day! This was a pretty good place to camp, good firm dirt that provided
a good surface for our tents. We agreed to have breakfast at 0600 with the hike starting
around 0630 the next morning. Manlei had done a long drive and we suggested that he just
rest the following morning, thus it would be only Steven and me going to the summit.
The hike was indeed very pleasant, we walked up the valley to the col, then easy scramble up the
ridge to the first summit.
The climb had taken us 1:50. The weather was good and it seemed only reasonable to spend some
time visiting the three tops along the summit ridge.
Gorgeous views back down into the long valley
that had given us such a good access to this summit.
We agreed that the middle summit seemed slightly
higher, while the third summit was clearly lower.
We turned around there and walked along the ridge back to the first summit.
After about 40 minutes after our first arrival, we were again there
and ready to head back down.
The return hike was also both nice and easy and we returned to camp in 1:15.
We proceeded to drive back down the long valley and Manlei was pleased to check out "his route"
going east. This worked, but the track was rough in places and we never explored the connection
back to Baruunbayan Ulaan. Instead, we made a short stop in a
town named Bogd, before we continued south
as far as almost to Byanadalai, an area with several tourist
facilities serving people that visit the Gobi desert.
We arrived after dark and it was unclear where to stay for the night.
After checking out a camp ground with
many mosquitos, we ended up renting some local cabins for the night.
