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How to get there:
First drive to the small town named Urdgol. Next, follow the dirt track
that starts in town and ends at location N47.70581, E092.61479. There are several forks
where one may loose the correct track. Your best option is to trace this out
on the (digital) map before starting out. You may find a GPX driving track on
Peakbagger.
Route description:
From our parking, first head directly uphill, perhaps traversing a bit
left, in order to reach the very clear ridge higher up.
Next, follow this ridge,
first to the west (false) summit, then onwards to the summit, marked
with a good sized cairn.
The terrain is easy, a few sections that are rocky, near the west summit.
There are trail segments along most of the upper part of the route.
Comments:
Here is a quick summary of peaks climbed in Mongolia August 2024.
We drove from Khovd fairly late, well after lunch. First, we needed to wait
for the flight with Gangaa. She will now be with us for the rest of the trip.
Then we still decided to have lunch in the hotel and we knew it would take quite
long from our experience with dinner the night before.
Finally on the road, our drivers did well until we arrived at the small village Urdgol.
Steven had traced satellite tracks and made a good driving route to our planned
camp. However, our drivers were hard to convince that following this track would be
our best option. This resulted in numerous navigational errors and quite a waste of
time. Eventually, they did understand that following our track would be better and we
drove quite high to a camp at elevation 2512 meter. Thus, about 1300 meter vertical
to the summit.
Summit climb:
We had agreed to have breakfast at 0600 UB time, this is what my phone was showing
in the evening. I was therefore a bit surprised as Steven suddenly told me from outside
my tent, that breakfast was being served now. My phone had switched to Mongolia western
time during the night. Thus showing 0500. I got up rather quickly and we had a good
breakfast prepared by Gangaa.
Leaving around 0530, the hike was pretty easy, but 1300 meter vertical still takes time.
No need for lights, we left just as the sun broke
through the clouds in the east.
I arrived on the summit
at 0820. Unfortunately, the summit was in a cloud (fog), I had seen sunshine
and Steven up there shortly before. Steven descended soon after my arrival, but our two guides
took a bit more time. I had some drink and took a couple of photos
despite of the fog. Leaving after 20 minutes, I got back to camp at
1050, so a total trip time of 5:20.
One should keep in mind that our "guides" had never been even close to most of the
summits climbed on this trip. Thus, they should more precisely be regarded as team members.
Steven and I had and used high precision digital maps and GPS technology. Our guides would
mostly just look and see the immediate landscape ahead, less so if engulfed in fog.
We had lunch and cleared camp, preparing to drive to our next peak, Bumbat.
Already while having lunch, we could hear thunder and
observe a very black cloud up
near the peak. Later, we also noted that the peak had turned white, so new snow fell up
there after our descent. Our timing had been good, this peak needed to be climbed early morning.