Lake Hövsgöl Ice Festival

- horse sledge supported -

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Few, if any foreigners visit our country in the winter. Mongolia is cold in the winter. Temperatures may be freezing but we usually have sunny skies during that period. In February- March locals in Lake Hövsgöl usually celebrate a small Ice Festival. It takes place after Tsaagan Sar (Mongolian New Year usually held before February 20th) and before the spring migration of the local nomads with their yaks and horses across the Horidol Saridag Mountains (usually after March 10th).

Lake Hövsgöl is one of the most pristine large waterbodies of Asia situated at 1645 meters above sea level. It is the twin lake of Baikal that lie only 200km away across the border in Russia. The setting is spectacular with Siberian taiga and the Horidal Saridag Mountain Range to the west. It stretches some 125km from north to south and is 262 meters deep. It is not as deep as Baikal, but part of the Baikal Rift system, which resulted from the pressures associated with the collision between India and Asia some 55 million years ago.

This journey on horse sledges is a close encounter with Mongolian nomads and their life at their winter pastures. The trip have been designed for all our visitor's who have already visited us many times, and now wants to experience something truly unique and unfold the hidden agenda of nomadic life in the winter time.

Brief Outline Itinerary

This is a Nomadic Journey, e.g. a trip without vehicle support. We will travel on the ice covered Lake Hövsgöl by horse sledges. Our luggage will be loaded on the sledges. The beginning of the journey will bring us up the Lake Hövsgöl western shore. Winter yurts, or log cabins, have been prepared, and you need to bring your own thermo wear and winter sleeping bag. A cook and a Mongolian interpreter guide will follow

Day 01, Ulaanbaatar

Arrive in Ulaanbaatar. Transfer to your hotel. Tour briefing after dinner.

Day 02, To Hatgal

Pick up at your hotel in Ulaanbaatar and transfer to the airport. Fly 1,5 hours to Mörön.  You will be met and one or several jeeps will bring you 102km across a jeep track north through the Eg River Valley to Hatgal village.  We will overnight in a very basic guest house. It is heated. But outdoor toilets and many beds in each room. Hatgal is located at the southern tip of the lake.  You can probably purchase some local handicraft direct from the locals.

Day 03, Lake Hövsgöl Ice

We will continue the drive by jeeps on the ice of Lake Hövsgöl for one hour, and meet up with our local host’s with their horses and sledges. Tonight we will overnight in heated rustic log cabins, same as used by local Darhad Mongols. Prepared for us on the shore of the lake. Felts are spread on the floor and you will sleep on double mattresses on the floor. Today we will be introduced to the local horsemen, who all are nomads from the area. They in turn will introduce you to their horses. Numerous Darhad Mongol nomads live on the western shore with their animals throughout the winter. By horse-sledges we will visit these nomads today.

Day 04-05, Lake Hövsgöl Ice

During two days we will make use of our horse sleds to travel on the lake. Visiting the locals in their log cabins.

Our base camp is located on the western shore below the sacred Uran Dosh Mountain.

We visit Har Us, which is a sacred site where cold water spring pumping out a kubic metre per second from the underground, why there is also a lagoon of open water with a few birds.  It is like a natural sanctuary, with a huge wooden ovoo at the source of the river, that do not freeze over. 

We may also decide to trek up the sides of the Horidol Saridag, or search out some ski in locations. Ice skating is fantastic. We will also load all provisions onto sledges. Two-three persons will share one sledge.  We will then make our way north out on to the transparent ice of the lake. The ice is some 1.30 meters thick, and transparent so that near shore, one can see the bottom of the lake as well as fishes swimming!
 
Along the entire western shore live Darhad Mongols nomads of Renchinhümbl soum that have their winter pastures here. In mid March they will migrate back across the Horidol Saridag Mountains through Jiglig Pass to the Darhad depression where their spring, summer and fall pastures are located. The migration takes several days, using yaks and horses as pack animals. One of the longest spring migrations in Mongolia. No people live along most parts of the coastlines of Lake Hövsgöl in the summer. We will have the opportunity to befriend and get to know these hardy people, and visit the families in their camps.

Day 06-07, Ice Festival

Once every year a small Ice Festival is arranged by the local people that live around the lake. It is a time to get together, when the hardest wintertime is getting easier, daylight longer. After the Mongolian New Year of Tsaagan Sar and before the spring migration this small Ice Festival takes place somewhere on the ice of the lake.

People come in horse sledges from all around (and a few jeeps) and competitions in ice-skating, horse sledge racing, and tug-of-war is being organized.  Arms wrestling on ice slabs is a favourite of the women. And everybody enjoy the “Happy Sumo” wrestling on ice Mongols who mimic Japanese wrestlers and compete on the ice. Mongols are ice-skaters and use their inner felt boots and ice skates in their traditional dresses when skating. It is an impressive sight with Horidol Saridag Mountains as a powerful backdrop to the shiny ice of Lake Hövsgöl.

During the Ice Festival it is likely that the Dukha (Tsaatan) people will send a few from their people. They are reindeer breeders, and most of them have not been to the lakeside before.  In 2002, one of their chiefs, Gomboyol, 57 years old came with his reindeers. He had never been there, and stated that he would send another group in 2004.  It is also likely to have one of the famous Darhat shamans in location.

Day 08, To Hatgal

We will return back into Hatgal on the horse sledges or in jeeps. We will here visit the Lake Hövsgöl National Park visitor center that has no visitors this time of the year. Hatgal village is a cluster of wooden log cabins and has an interesting frontier kind of air around it. Overnight in Hatgal.

We will spend the night in the local bed & breakfast facility of this frontier town.

Day 09, To Ulaanbaatar

Early drive in vehicles south 102km to Mörön, where there is a local Black Market. Mörön is the main town of Hövsgöl province. We will have time to see some of it. Depart by domestic flight (1½) hours back to Ulaanbaatar. Transfer to the hotel and shower!

Day 10, To Hustai National Park

A.m. Przewalski´s horse (Equus przewalskii), or the takhi, as the Mongols calls this wild horse, was seen in the 1960s for the last time in the wild. In the Dzungarian Gobi. A sizable population of takhi have been kept in zoos around the world, and for the last years, a unique attempt to reintroduce these horses back into the wild have been launched in Mongolia. We will try to see the free roaming herds of these endangered truly wild horses. Overnight in comfortable ger and the park headquarters.

Day 11, To Hustai National Park

Return to Ulaanbaatar and check into the hotel. See the capital city on your own. Distances are short. The local guide is standing by to assist you to where your points of interest are located.

Day 12, Fly out

Transfer out to your next destination.

Nomadic Journeys Style

Nomadic Journeys have introduced a concept of practical and desirable ways of travel in Mongolia, which is the synergy of Western and Mongolian ideas brought about after many years experience of travel all across Mongolia. We emphasize the quality of human contacts and encounters with local people. Respect for the horse and local equestrian traditions, from which many lessons can be learnt. Shared adventures. To travel with Nomadic Journeys means travel with the horses and the local people in the great outdoors, choosing the life of the nomad. It is an active holiday calling for some effort but with moments of complete relaxation and pleasure.

Staff:  A local guide who speaks English and Mongolian will accompany the group at all times. A cook will follow, with an assistant.  In addition, the services of the local herdsmen will be hired along with their animals. The horsemen follow a traditional lifestyle in the areas where we will be traveling. 

Meals: Our cook will prepare the meals.  We pride ourselves in having cooks adapt to both western and Mongolian cooking on our trips. We have no problem accommodating vegetarians on our trips.

To bring: It is essential to bring appropriate thermo wear and a winter sleeping bag. Perhaps two sleeping bags in one. Temperatures can reach 30 degrees subzero centigrade! Ice skating is fantastic and do bring your own equipment of skates and cross country skis.

PRICE ex Ulaanbaatar

USD 1690 per person (4/10 members)

Includes: Leadership, breakfast every day, and all meals outside Ulaanbaatar. All overnights in hotels (3n.) in shared double, gers (1n.) and rustic ger (4n.) and Hatgal basic Bed & Breakfast (2n.). Camping equipment and all local transport.

Excludes:  Drinks, airport tax on departure (2006: approx. USD 12:50 p.p. but now usually included in your international airfare), laundry, Lunch and dinner in Ulaanbaatar. Air or train tickets in and out of Mongolia. Visa fee. Single room supplement USD 20 per night  in Ulaanbaatar. Other than this privacy can’t be guaranteed.  

Any additional nights in Ulaanbaatar directly in connection with this trip is USD 90 per double room and USD 65 for single room, which also includes breakfast and local taxes.

Pls. note, single occupancy is only possible in Ulaanbaatar. In Hatgal you will stay in a bed in perhaps a shared rooms with other tour members. In Hustai you will stay in gers accommodating three or four persons. On the lake, local people have prepared winter gers and many of us will sleep in the same ger. On the floor.

DATES ex Ulaanbaatar 2007:

Wed 14Feb - Sun 25Jul

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