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Published: June 24th 2011
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Rafting the Orkhon Gol - by Pat Phillips
Travel adventure in Mongolia is a redundant phrase. All countryside travel in Mongolia is an adventure. Add an ingredient of whitewater rafting 130 kilometers of one of the most isolated and breath-taking canyons in the Mongolia’s Hangay Mountains, and the term takes on a new meaning. That is exactly what four intrepid wanderers did this past week with the travel adventure company ‘Mongolian River Adventures’, descending the magnificent Orkhon Gol through a road-less, wilderness canyon in Bulgan Aimag, approximately 300 kilometers north and west of Ulaanbaatar.
In the spirit of shared-cost, budget travel, our group used public transportation to reach the Aimag center of Bulgan. Jostling and bouncing along in the crowded Russian bus, we were simply swallowed up by the grand open steppes. Looking with the eyes of babes, we absorbed the herds of grazing animals, the surreal ninja mining camps, the stone patterns of ancient burial sites, and somewhere along the way, we realized that as budget travelers with our plethora of equipment, we were in fact placing an unnecessary burden on the already strained Mongolian public transportation system and the countryside population that relies on it. The stoic,
Boats and more boats
paddle raft, duckie (inflatable kayak), and hard shell kayak in our apartment - and Pat good-hearted Mongolians seemed not to mind, but chalk one up to experience- that will not happen again.
Our travels to the river were completed by hiring a truck in Bulgan to haul us the last 100 kilometers to a point just south of Saikhan, a region of Mongolia famed for the tasty fermented mares milk (airig) produced there. Our pleasant, chatty driver informed us his name was “Jarin-Gurav”, or Sixty-Three, in honor of the Russian automobile he had been born in! We amused ourselves for the next half hour discussing which make of automobile we would have preferred to have made our entrance into this world… In the end, our savings in travel expenses seemed to be balanced by the 16 hours spent getting to the ‘put-in’, and we lay our weary bones down as a rising gibbous moon broke through the clouds.
We awoke the next morning to thundering hooves as a herd of horses emerged from the river, and poked our heads from our tents to realize we were in postcard scenery at the head of a dramatic canyon. Breakfast was complimented with fresh yoghurt from the local herders while we inflated and loaded the sturdy,
Loading up
loading gear into the bus - quite a feat self-bailing raft. We pushed off feeling the excitement of new adventure, but with the cautious confidence of prepared and experienced river guides. Within the first hour we were completely cut off from the surrounding landscape by rising cliffs on both sides of the river. The Orkhon Gol is an old stream that was well entrenched long before the Hangay Mountains belched lava across the landscape in five separate episodes beginning 800,000 years ago, and ending a mere 20,000 years in the past. The basalt columns that formed the canyon walls displayed elaborate designs resulting from different cooling rates when the lava poured into the ancestral waters of the river we were now navigating. The raft weaved between the rocks, human occupants laughing at each other and the harmless collisions with geologic obstacles. Just before camp we smelled, then spied, a large wild boar decaying at the waters edge, no doubt a victim of the higher water that had occurred that spring. We made camp as the walls closed in and became sheer, saving the crux of the run for the following day. A campfire, and the discovery of a large antler left behind years before by a red deer, assured
us that we were exactly where we needed to be.
The following day we entered the deepest part of the canyon and negotiated some technical, boulder choked stretches of river. The raft and crew handled themselves well, but judging by the high-water line on both banks, it was clear that at flood levels the river features would be extremely challenging. The kilometers passed slowly through this stretch, but by lunchtime the ominous, 200-meter canyon walls began to descend, the river channel widened, and we knew we were safely past the most dangerous part of our journey. By evening we were admiring roving bands of horses that followed our progress along the river bank in galloping dashes, then stopped to nod their heads in greeting as we passed.
Our last day on the water was the mellowest in terms of whitewater excitement, but a bonanza of scenery and wildlife. We enjoyed the early morning tranquility sneaking by the families of waterfowl that fled downstream in front of us. Baby ducklings and goslings, too young to fly, sped ahead of us while a concerned parent tried to distract our attention by flapping lamely in the opposite direction. Movement on the
Ninja mining
Lots of mining that goes unregulated shore turned out to be a curious fox, and later Bulgaa’s trained hunting eyes detected the first of two badgers spotted that day. All other wildlife sightings were eclipsed, however, when Bulgaa excitedly sputtered “Wolf! Look- over there!” And sure enough, the unmistakable form was running upslope away from us, eventually turning to look back to confirm that we were out of range. It is hard to describe how blessed I felt by this very auspicious occurrence. Only last year I saw my first wolf in the wild after a lifetime of wilderness travel. That time I had been alone on the Chuluut Gol, also in the Hangay Mountains, and when I told my Mongolian friends of the experience they assured me of my good fortune. Two in as many years seemed too much to ask, and I can only hope I am so lucky ever again.
As we meandered downstream, weaving our way through small rapids and paddling through the peaceful pools between, we shared the landscape with various birds of prey, including a golden falcon, Mongolia’s national symbol, and watching a fish eagle do barrel rolls in aerial combat with a pair of marauding smaller birds. We
At the put in
This local herder was amused with us stopped to investigate some ruins we spotted on the north side of the river, and ambled through the huge complex of an old abandoned Soviet military base. We learned later it was positioned there to defend the Erdenet copper mine from southern invaders (i.e. Chinese). When the 10,000 Russiantroops and their families pulled out in the late 1980’s, the nearby town of Orkhon fell on extremely hard times and nearly relocated itself to the empty complex, but instead the recently unemployed Mongolian workers scavenged whatever useful materials they could in order to survive. We found some empty shell casings, tell-tale epaulettes emblazoned with “CA” (Soviet Army), and a handsome snake with a suspiciously arrow shaped, pit-viper head.
Not yet ready to re-enter civilization, we slept our final night two kilometers upstream of the bridge where we would catch the passing bus in the morning. That night we were lulled into unconsciousness by visions of wild lands and the gentle pattering of rain drops on our tents.
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Bulgaa
non-member comment
Many thanks
Dear Becky and Pat, I really loved it. I wanna be there with you again. All good wishes to you. Bulgaa