Camels Are Never Cold

Our goal was to explore these mountains for interesting skiable lines and bag a few of the 4,000 meter peaks along the way. Melissa Presslaber, arguably one of the strongest big mountain skiers in Austria, came up with the Mongolian idea the previous summer. She put together a team of like-minded ski mountaineers for this trip. Liz Kristoferitsch holds the Austrian Snowboard Freeride Masters title, Michi Mayrhofer competes in freeride contests, Zlu Haller is a well-known Austrian climber and photographer, Tom Andrillon is an accomplished French filmmaker and I, Stephan Skrobar, run a Freeride Center in Austria.

Organizing the trip was obviously a drag, but part of the experience. Getting immunization shots (expensive), obtaining visa and border permits (complicated), brushing up on rescue technique (necessary), wooing sponsors for gear (part of the game) and finally trying to fit everything into bags that won’t exceed airline limitations and won’t freak out airport staff. We failed miserably at the last point, and would like to apologize to the guy behind the desk at Munich airport whose day we definitely ruined.
Once in Ulan Bator, capital of Mongolia, we hooked up with Mongolia Expeditions who handled the logistics of our trip to the Altai.  A local partner who organized food and transport and who would, eventually, bring us a lot closer to the Mongolian culture and way of life was an absolute necessity.

It was a one-day trip through the steppe in one of those indestructible Russian vans, designed to go on roads where there are no roads. The end of the “road” marked the end of the day, so we camped and individually contemplated what lied ahead and what animals roamed these parts of the world beyond the tent flaps. Wild horses, sheep, yak, wolves, bears, wolverines. Camels took our gear up to base camp as we started the six hour hike, regularly stopping wide-eyed and drooling while scoping the mountains. Bigger, icier, wider, colder, windier than anticipated.

Preparing for the mountains of the Tavan Bogd range was difficult. The only map we had was a Russian scribble, “published” in 1969. Literature was rare, as far as we knew the first time a ski touched these areas was only ten years ago. We relied on our eyes, judgment, the daily weather report from Innsbruck via satellite. Snow conditions were different than expected, the exposure and hard winds coming in from China affected the snowpack immensely. The skiing, quite bluntly, sucked.

We set up camp at just under 3100 meters altitude, behind the moraine of the massive Potanin glacier. Life at base camp meant getting used to constantly living in various layers of down jackets, eating lots of horse meat and discussing how to deal with the thick sheets of ice that covered pretty much every mountain face we looked at. At least that last problem was going to be partly solved by the snowstorms that hit us later on.
We started exploring the area by climbing the mountain furthest away from base camp, Nairamdal. This peak is an easy but long hike to the end of Potanin glacier and marks the border between Mongolia, China and Russia. That’s about the only interesting thing to say about it, apart from the fact that the view is nice from up there. Russia to your right, China to your left, that is cool.

After five days in the camp snowstorms hit the mountain range. We spent two days in crisis management, debating weather reports, moving our base camp to a Ger – a sturdy Mongolian tent, playing cards and hiding in the sleeping bag.

When the skies finally cleared it got even colder, the snowpack was deeper and wind affected. We stoically skied big faces that looked good on camera but turned out to be fairly difficult to ski. And finally, on our last day, we left camp early to hike up Khuiten and ski its impressive North East face. Khuiten is Mongolia’s highest peak, and the weather report promised a sunny, albeit cold and windy day. Turned out the weather report was only partly right. When we reached the summit ridge after a seven-hour hike, another snowstorm hit us from China. We did the thing everyone will later tell you was “smart and responsible” and turned around just below the summit, but naturally it was a bit frustrating at the moment.

We returned to base camp and then back to Olgii a few days later, with a mixed feeling of achievement and failure. Of course it was neither. In reality it was an unbelievable trip to a great country.