How to get there:
This peak is located up in the north-west of Mongolia. The summit is only
3 kilometer from the border with Russia. This is quite an alpine
and remote region of Mongolia. The closest town is Nogoonnuur.
Route description:
The best route is to travel in the valley from the east. One should first locate the
driving track that ascends to location N49.80908, E089.94166. The 4WD track is rough in
the higher part, one may continue a little more to the highest point where the route descends slightly
in order to enter the valley.
The valley is fairly flat with good grass for animals.
A couple of normad families have quarters
near the lower end of this valley, a short distance after the driving track turns into a trail.
There is one (side) river crossing
that may be tricky (keeping dry boots on), the main river is also
crossed a few times, but in areas with many stepping stones.
Continue to the highest possible grassy camp site, aa pretty good location is near N49.81250, E089.78407,
elevation about 2900 meter.
This is a pretty wild valley,
we had rockfall
from Turgen quite frequently, one should keep
this in mind when establishing camp as well as when walking around.
The route continues into the valley, now more rocks. Possibly best to keep right in the first
part, then more left after passing the upper lake.
When at the glacier, start up on the very gentle slope
until is is natural to turn more left and
ascend the glacier towards its horizon. Steepness stays pretty
consistently at 30-35 degrees. In August, this was ice all the way, care is needed to avoid any
mishap. Earlier (or later) in the season with snow, this slope would indeed be pretty easy and certainly safer.
After about 400 meter of ascent, you will encounter a limited area with some crevasses. No big problem to
cross by doing a few obvious zig-zag moves. Proceed up more left to reach the (small) west summit.
From here, you have a pretty good view of the route as
it continues up on rock across a connecting col located
below. You still cannot see the true summit, as it is a bit more behind.
The elevation here is around 3750 meter, the rock band falls of towards climbers left. Go left and locate
a pretty obvious ramp that may be down-climbed (class 3) towards your right, nicely connecting to the col.
Continue uphill along the edge of the glacier. When this steepens, connect right to the rocks forming
a long ridge extending upwards towards the summit. There are several variations on this ridge. The rocks
are loose and requires caution. At some point, the route will naturally go right, then connect with
a loose gully that again may be ascended left. The difficulty should stay at (YDS) class 3. Much higher,
the route again meets ice, a fairly narrow, but short ice ridge
will connect back to more rocks. There
is substantial exposure here, sort of all the way down to camp.
The route finishes by a traverse (climbers) right before turning up to the summit.
Comments:
Here is a quick summary of peaks climbed in Mongolia August 2024.
After an easy ascent of Altan Hohiy, we started
driving north on August 7. This was a scenic and long drive on the typical multi-lane Mongolian
roads.
We arrived pretty late at the small town of Nogoonnuur.
Camped on a flat area outside of town. Thousands of mosquitos there, very unpleasant.
I spent considerable time after entering the tent, killing mosquitos that had succeeded
to enter at the same time as I. Sarangerel Namsrei (our cook) was kind enough to serve me dinner in my tent
in order to avoid even more trouble.
The next morning, more people showed up. A young guide, Narra, that would strengthen our
team even more, plus an older companion on a motorbike. He showed the way as we
continued driving. As soon as the driving track started uphill, the road got considerably
rougher. Kudos to our driver that managed to get our landcruiser up here without a functioning
low gear. We established camp
at location N49.80908, E089.9416, elevation 2368 meter. The driving
track continued up and across a small col, two trucks and a jeep were parked there. A trail
continues into the valley from this location.
Lunch and later dinner. A leisurely afternoon with few tasks. A camel arrived and a bit later
camel number 2. We will trek in the valley after breakfast on August 9th. and establish a
camp as close to the peak as possible. Steven and I put up our tents about 50 meter
east in a spot having good mobile signals. Interesting, since the reception was poor or
not available almost everywhere else.
I went for a short hike in the early evening, exploring the beginning of the trek. I noticed
a few vehicles that
had made it a bit further, however, it was a nicer place to camp where
we stopped. I turned around after getting to a spot where I could see how the trail continued
into the vally without loosing much elevation.
We walked into the valley
on Friday morning, with a stop at the last normade hut.
Great hospitality
as always with these people. We had rented 2 camels from them, clearly a poplular event that does
not happen very often. Later in the trek, we met two young boys looking after their sheep. Already
experienced with their horse, they were happy
to see us, appearently nobody had ventured into this
valley in the last 10-15 years.
The trek into the valley took about 4 hours, 13 kilometer.
We established camp close to the
end of reasonable grass, location N49.81250, E089.78407, elevation
near 2900 meter.
Before dinner, I went on an exploring hike more into the valley. I got beyond the grass, big
boulders and more cumbersome terrain,
however I could see the glacier a bit higher up.
Satisfied, I turned around and walked back down to camp. Peak Climb
We left camp around 0530, it was already light.
I arrived at the glacier
at 0715, so 1:45 to get there. The last part crosses an area full of pretty
large boulders, just the type of terrain that slows me down more than when I was younger.
The glacier was initially pretty flat, but then steepens to around 30-35 degrees. It would
have been a nice ski slope with snow. However, not a trace of snow, just ice.
One should climb with caution, any slide here could be hard to arrest and thus very dangerous.
Here is a picture of us taken by Steven,
already quite a bit above us. (Look in the lower middle.)
About a 600
meter ascent on sustained steepish ice with about half a dozen crevasses after about 400
meter of ascent. The crevasses did not cause much delay as they were pretty easy to bybass
with a little bit of zig-zag traversing.
We reached a rock band that marked the top of the glacier at 0930. This also forms a small
west summit on the mountain. Steven had climbed ahead and had disappeared out of sight. The
descent to the connecting col looked steep and difficult from where we had arrived.
Somewhat to my surprise, both Manlei and Narra were shaking their heads and pointing back
down. What? we were not anywhere near the summit yet. They insisted and started talking
to Sarang at BC with walkie-talki. She came through and said we should return. Of course,
only repeating what they had told her. I pointed across to the summit ridge and tried to
explain that it certainly looked as we could climb/scramble up to the summit. No, no,
they tried with sign language to tell that we would face vertical rock, they did not bring
any gear for rock etc. This wasted close to one hour, precious time as we would see later.
Finally, I gave up this discussion and scrambled left (gently downhill) to scout for a possible
route down to the col. I soon spotted what looked like a nice ramp and continued there.
At this point, I was determined to just leave Manlei and Narra behind. We were all the way up
here, just wasted a lot of precious time, what remained certainly looked very doable.
This was indeed the easy route, some class 3, but not much. I proceeded to walk a nice ledge
that connected to the lowest area of the col.
Next, Steven came down, he had already been at the summit and could confirm my belief, the
rock ridge could be climbed, mostly class 3, perhaps a couple of class 4 moves depending
on the precise route, there were several variations. I asked if he could show me the
first section uphill, and he did this. Very nice, as he had also seen potential bad
weather coming. He wanted to descend as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, Manlei and Narra had also followed my route to the col and seemed more
motivated to continue. Steven left and the 3 of us continued the scramble. Overall, not
too hard, at one point I discovered a tunnel bypass,
narrow but convenient. (Video from the return.)
Higher up, we had to cross a knife-edge of ice
with 1000+ meter exposure left (picture when returning, exposure right is down to the camp),
also steeply falling off to our right. Crampons were again needed. Then a final section of rocks,
traversing right below the summit, then turning left and we were on top.
We made the summit at 1200, noon. I looked west and could see bad weather coming.
Obviously, we should have been here one hour earlier. I took a quick summit panorama
video, then Narra wanted to have pictures
with some sort of flag. I told them: "we need
to descend immediately, no more pics, bad weather is coming!" We started down, but about
half way, the weather arrived. dark clouds, hail and thunder. We sheltered briefly
under a rock (there were higher/bigger rocks nearby), hopefully pretty safe. A thunderous
flash-boom made the entire mountain shake from the shock. Most likely the loudest boom
from thunder that I have ever heard. Really scary!
The storm was short, but violent, more thunder. Then a patch of blue sky, however, I could
see that a second storm would follow soon. We scrambled back down into the col, then the second
storm came, more hail, more thunder and lightning flashing, but not quite as bad as the first one.
Soon, the situation improved, we climbed back up on the west summit, then descended the long and
steep ice glacier, safely and with attention. It felt like it would never end, but eventually, we were
back down on the gentle section.
The return hike, crossing sections with large boulders, would be slow for me. This is the
type of terrain where balance and age team up to make me much slower than in younger days.
Pushing onwards, I came back to camp at 1800.
A 12.5 hour trip time. The ascent should have been more like 4:45, if not for the long
discussion on the west summit. The descent had stops for shelter when we had the
worst thunder. It had been a long, but successful day. This is by a pretty large
margin, the hardest ultra in Mongolia.
Steven did the climb solo, staying ahead of me all the time, a very good accomplishment. He discovered
a trail register near the cairn. It showed that a Russian team had been here 20 years ago, no
entries since then.
The next day, we had the camels show up on time and made our return hike out the valley.
Again, we were invited to visit the local family that provided us with camels. They decided
that the smaller camel could stop right there. The other camel could easily carry everything
back out to our cars.
We decided that the camp was a better place than going back down to more
mosquito infested areas, so a final night here before any more driving. Thus, this
climb took 4 nights in addition to, say a half day drive to and from. That is, one
should allocate about 4 days for climbing this peak.
