Riding into an iconic Mongolian Valley - Episode 7

In this episode, I have to ask some horses to please move. I tried to get to the top of a very, very steep hill, and I find a spectacular place to camp. Last time, Josh, John and I had stopped for some food at the market. I left before Josh and John, as I wanted to see if I could get a couple of photos before they caught back up. Ahead of me definitely had potential for a decent photo. There were a few mountain ranges in the distance. I pulled over. There might just be a photo here. Josh and John and a few others passed me when I was taking photos. I'd managed to catch back up. There was a new road being built beside us so I rode up to check if it was open. It didn't seem so so we went back down the way we came. I somehow got that wrong. We made it into the second town of the day. There was no fuel here today so we continued through the town. The GPS file said the track went straight ahead. But there was a new wall in the way, well the base of a new road. So new I gather it wasn't even here last year. We rode along the wall for a while to see if there was a way through until we got to a small stream that looked too deep to ride through. I continued along the stream to see if there was somewhere to cross. With the muddy water we couldn't tell how deep it was. It could be two to three feet and submerge the bike completely. I'll have a crack. Ha, ha, ha. I did make it across but forgot to film it under the muddy water. It wasn't that deep. Then we started heading across the grasslands. We did meet up with a new road base again but here the sides were only small so easy to cross and it looked like the GPS file was taking us up the right side of the hill ahead. Finally we made it back on the track. There were fields of crops which I hadn't seen many here as there's only a very short window to grow crops due to the long and extreme winters. We got to the stream again where there were a lot of horses. I got to the crossing and it was packed. I needed to do this delicately. I didn't want a horse to kick me. I slowly made my way across trying to make some noise to hopefully get them to move on. All the horses were bobbing their head so Josh tried that. It didn't help him get through so he used his horn. There was a pin marked on the GPS file which showed this was a decent place to camp. We made the campsite and it's relatively flat compared to some of the others. There are some trees up there but we've been camping in trees before so we're going to try something different. I'm going to set up camp here. I think the sun's going down that way so it might light up that mountain. I'll go for a spin later. Maybe not. Tent set up with plenty of light left. It's only about 4pm so. I decided to go for a ride and a bit of an explore. What I really wanted to check out was this ridge line to my left. A steep climb but with all my luggage off the bike I thought the bike should be able to make it. So I gunned the bike to get as much speed to see if I'd have enough to carry me to the top. It was steep enough that the front wheel started to lift off the ground. I was leaning as far forward as I could to try and keep the front wheel down. And also avoid the rather large rocks in the grass. Not a spot up here at all. Looking over the valley we're camping in, beside it you can see there's a really narrow tiny little creek a foot or two wide. There's another valley behind here that's not bad too. Yeah, me too. Yeah. A few horses as they all do. Oh, I don't know what they are. Cows or goats. It's cooling off now. I bet it's gonna be pretty cold tonight, but the other day it was quite warm. It's quite a variant in temperature. As we've been riding from early morning cold and all the day you want to be just in a t-shirt. I just thought I'd walk up a last little bit. There is something about the valleys in northern Mongolia. I'm not sure if it's the remoteness, the green or the way they roll one into another. I decided to check out the other side of the ridge. I was going down on an angle to lessen the steepness of the descent. Once I got past the steepest part I headed straight down. I went a bit further up the valley, but it looked pretty similar to the rest of it, so I decided to turn around and pulled up back at my tent. I was doing this when I came back and I looked up and I pulled my heel back and it got up and started crawling around and I'm going, holy ----, and then it came back around towards this leg and I'm going, I'm sitting here going like this. We don't have spiders that big in Alaska. So we've made camp just to fill you in. The guys I've been riding for the last two days with are the Alaskans. And we have Josh over here and John. We got John. Both were, are state troopers. Retired. You're mixing them up. I'm the only retired one. Okay. Yeah, I'm Anchorage Police. I'm still doing the job. Too dumb to retire. I'm tired. So this is what retirement looks like. Not too bad. I think we should all retire. Huh? We'll do it again on the return flight. More daily nuts. Surprisingly good. Did you say that? Present surprise. Present surprise, yes. We were like it's not going to look like that inside. It didn't but still tasted okay. Am I going to another market? I'm going to grab another tube. Another tube? Another tube of nuts. I don't know. Well second tube yeah they must be good. Oh they're making a real bonfire. What? Who? I'm going to put the reading in here just a little bit. What what's your um currency? Wow, deers are good. So there is scarce wood but seeing we were here first, John over here's um acquired most of the wood from the area now he's trading it for beers. The rest of the guys were around the rather large campfire. The support vehicle had made it to camp with the mechanics. I don't think I necessarily want to do it but it would be a fun adventure to do this whole route. I don't know how to put it back in like that. So another great day here in Mongolia. It was a bit of road today, but that first section past the volcano, that's a lot of fun. And this last one in, it was almost like a golf course. It was so smooth, some of the grass sections. Stunningly beautiful, as everywhere in Mongolia seems to be. Tomorrow, it's a shorter one, probably 130 kilometres, but apparently we leave the trees and we're back into the grasslands and flatlands. There's a mini Gobi desert, I think it's called. So not the big one, there's a little one somewhere. So we're going to end up there. Yeah, I might have to camp. Somewhere near the desert, maybe right beside it, but now I'll go back to the fire watch this blast into the light. These clouds pretend to threaten to rain hopefully they don't. Another good one. Woke up at five like normal and started back up and it started to rain. Well very light rain so also because there's cloud it's a lot darker this morning so probably have to give it another 20-30 minutes to get enough light. Hopefully in that time a slight rain eases off but we'll see what happens. Anyway get on the track and go exploring again. The weather's not playing ball this morning. Just about to put the last of the tent down. I've still got the fly up but everything else is starting to get a bit heavier. So I don't know if I should just wait or just get on with it. The last time it just started raining all day. If I'd left early I'd been fine. Now it's raining right at 5 50 a.m. Ah decisions. Finally it eased off so with everything packed on the bike I headed off. Everyone else was still tucked into their tents. I found the trail and headed for the gap between the hills. Suspicions were right, rain does love having a valley to hang out in. Just got over the next sort of crest and it seems to be a little less rain or nothing actually at the moment. Kind of a peak up here. I might quickly do a side track to see what that's like. I made my way back onto the track I came across a herd of horses on the descent down into the valley. I was stuck so I got off the bike to reduce the weight and pushed the bike out of the mud. I decided to think about this one a bit more before charging in. Just pulled over to put my rain jacket back on. I've got the lightest drizzle following me. I'm just on the edge of this storm sort of right now the clouds coming this way. Anyway we'll put jacket back on. Rookie error back there, didn't stop before the hazard got in it and just bogged out so I jumped off. Still got mud on my boots. It's getting heavier I'm gonna keep moving. I pulled up to the market and got something to drink and a snack. Made it for the first town and only town for the day. Grabbed myself a few nuts from the little store here. Looks like going that direction we've got some more Josh and John and a few others had caught up so we rode out together. A late call in direction change by the cow but I only brushed it and Josh said the cow was fine. Josh then couldn't stop laughing for the next 10 minutes. We had another bike go down ahead by the mud you can see why but all was good. Rain cleared so I got a better look at the sand dunes. Mongolia is really good At being completely drenched with rain and with half an hour. Blue sky turned out to another stunning evening. Oh tomorrow too is supposed to be quite sunny all day so that's a good news story. Right now though I have to adjust a chain it's a little loose now that's what you call it just a bit too much play in the chain. I started loosening the bolts to be able to pull the wheel back then the mechanic came and helped. Thank you. Thanks, boys. You're welcome. That should be the last maintenance job done with only two days left, let's hope it is. I went up to where they had dinner waiting, everyone was there filling up and talking about the going-ons of the day. Dinner was actually really good, it's good to get some meat every now and then. The leftover sunlight just creeping over the horizon is quite spectacular amongst all the gears. Well tomorrow means two more days left, should be good. In the next episode someone flies over the handlebars and there's some banging to do. The hood ornament is laid to rest. I ride through fields and the journey comes to an end.