Larch forest, extinct volcanoes and the deepest water in the country — the part people call Mongolian Switzerland, and the only place you will meet reindeer herders.
North of the Khangai the grass gives way to larch and the horizon closes in, which after a week in the Gobi is a genuine relief. Khuvsgul holds more fresh water than anywhere else in Mongolia — a hundred and thirty-six kilometres long, thirty-six across, sitting at 1,645 metres and clear enough to see the bottom a long way out.
Beyond the lake, up against the Russian border, the Tsaatan keep reindeer in the tundra. Around fifty families are left and they move several times a season, so reaching them means a border permit and four days on horseback. Nothing about it is comfortable, and it is the trip people talk about for years afterwards.
The blue pearl: two million years old, formed when the earthquake split the basin, and the deepest and cleanest water in the country. Swim, ride, cycle or take a boat far enough out to see how little of the shore is built on.
One of twenty ethnic groups in Mongolia and the only one with reindeer, living in ortz — teepees — in the tundra near the Russian border. Reached on horseback, and only with a border permit arranged in Murun.
Six hundred kilometres north-west of the capital, protected since 1965. Khangai peaks to three thousand metres, poplar and peach forest, wild berries, deer and ibex — and a volcanic crater above the lake you can climb into.
Four extinct volcanoes sixty kilometres west of Bulgan town. The main crater is five to six hundred metres across and fifty deep, half an hour's walk up to the rim.
Fourteen deer stones standing in a single north–south line seventeen kilometres west of Murun, carrying a hundred and nine carved deer between them, with arches, shields, knives, a sun and a moon.
The valley you cross to reach the taiga, kept by the Darkhad — a distinct culture with its own dress, food and shamanic tradition, quite separate from the Khalkh majority.
The north is the shortest season in the country. The lake ice goes late and comes back early, and the taiga is only reachable on horseback in summer. June to September is the window; July and August are the warmest and the busiest.
Tell us your dates and how long you have. We'll shape a route around them, or point you at the group departure that fits.
