Oyuntugs Leads Us to New Heights (and one low caught on video)

Our friend Oyuntugs [pr. Oy-un-toogs], the English teacher counterpart of our site mate Tysen, is from Bayankhongor but has a degree in tourism from a university in UB. She's in her early to mid-twenties and moved back to Bayankhongor last summer to look after her aging parents - as is her duty as the youngest child, though other siblings lived in Bayankhongor already.

To stretch her tour guide legs while she's out of the game, she started a class at the business school where she and Tysen teach. Part of that class was to a hike up the mountain shaped like a sleeping tiger. It's a stretch, but if you look just right, you can see it. It's the same mountain Tysen and I took our infamous smog pictures from not long ago.

We met at the business school for the estimated departure time of 11:00 am. Tysen, Leslie, our friend Leila who was in from her nearby village, and I met Oyuntugs at about 10 after the hour. We waited for the students to arrive and soon after 11:30, when no one else did arrive, the five of us happily headed across the frozen ground toward our sleeping beast.

Along the way, the shallow, delta-like winding river was mostly frozen but slushy and wet in points as the sun warmed it with temperatures in the teens Fahrenheit.

It was even a little colder than we thought it would be since the weather here in the afternoons recently had felt like jacket weather. Without the sun and with a stiff breeze, most of us were a few layers short, even though we were layered up. Luckily as the ground below us began to tilt up with the topography, and we got as warm as we wanted.

As we approached the peak of one part of the mountain (after some thought of turning back because they didn't think they could do it), we did have to leave Leila and her dress shoes to fend for themselves among the slippery, snowy terrain. In her defense, she didn't know beforehand that we'd be hiking and she managed to get almost all the way to the top.






Those of us who did make it, were treated to a fantastic view on a clear, crisp day as we enjoyed some much-earned snacks. Check out Leslie texting her brother Chris in the middle of the night about her triumphant ascent.


Interestingly, after we sat on the top for a about 15 minutes, a slew of students who'd chosen a different path joined us at the top. They apparently left about a half hour after we did, and I'm glad we weren't walking with them because we never could have kept up their pace. We shared our snacks and some laughs, and then they took off for another peak while we headed back down.



The hardest part was over, but we still had to get down the mountain and over the ice. The ice was still thick in parts, especially toward the mountain where the sun had been blocked the longest.

The farther we got from the moutain, the path we'd taken over the ice a few hours previous was too wet now to traverse, so we choose another route, which happily took us toward a group of children playing on the ice. Oyuntugs taught us a game where the players slide smaller pieces of ice to knock away bigger pieces of ice set in a row a few meters away. Think bowling with ice.

Fortunately, I switched our camera to video at the perfect time just after a demonstration to catch a rogue piece of ice as it came to our direction. Watch Tysen try his best David Beckam balance on the ice. (Sorry, Tysen.)



Toward the end of our return, we ran into some sheep and goats, and Leila was tickled she got to pet one. We were almost back, when out of nowhere, Oyuntugs' husband picked us up in his car not far from the business school. We trolled around for a while trying eat some lunch, but the power was out all over town. Eventually we found a place to enjoy our much awaited (but cold) huushuur.

Oyuntugs proved to be quite the tour guide to the top of the mountain and all points between. We're hoping to tackle the Bayankhongor museum soon. Hopefully she's a good indoor guide too.