The wind only howls when you’re inside. Something about the pipes and cavities in a building seems to cause the eerie wail that changes pitch like a theremin in a fifties sci-fi classic. Outside, at nearly 4,000 meters, above a glacier and far from the nearest building, the wind just roars. It’s less like a vintage cinema score and more like standing behind a jet airliner at the end of a runway; a relentless loud roar that varies only in how hard it buffets you as you balance – or try to – on a path made of loose boulders on a twenty degree slope. That’s all I was aware of, that and the fiercely bright blue sky, as I made my way up the shoulder of Malchin Peak, a 4,050 meter high pile of grey boulders above the Potani Glacier in the far west of Mongolia. The altitude didn’t bother me; the boulders didn’t bother me. But that roar was so loud it seemed to consume the very oxygen around. The summit seemed so close, the visual definition crystal clear in the frighteningly bright and blinding sun. But I knew I wasn’t going to reach it. That roaring wind literally blew it from my grasp.
Malchin Peak is at the right; Potani Glacier in the middle.
Base camp for Malchin Peak is little more than a huddle of tents around a glaciologist’s yurt. It’s a lonely corner of a lonely country, wedged in between Russia and China. The Potani Glacier, rather than the surrounding mountains, dominates the landscape and sets the scene for all that follows.
But first, you have to get there.
The Approach
The typical approach is on foot from the boundary of the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park, around 12 kilometers downhill from base camp. There is a rough road, and the walking is straightforward, but the weather is highly variable. Loads are usually packed in by camel, or by vehicle, as in our case because supposedly no camels were available despite the apparent large number of them at base camp (I suspected our outfit preferred the comfort of the vehicle…). Vehicles cannot stay overnight, so after dropping off our gear, the driver left.
Some people struggle with that walk, mainly travellers for whom hiking is something they only do on their travels. We found it easy enough, Yon doing it mostly in bare feet and me switching between pack-carrying our then two-and-a-half year old and watching her tramp as well as her little legs would carry her. Bota, our cheerful guide, accompanied us.
 Mongolia with a toddler |
 Huayna Potosi |
 Western Mongolia |
Speed, or its absence, is the true beauty of walking. However briefly, you become part of the landscape. You don’t watch it pass you from a window, or even the back of an animal or bicycle. No. You move through it; it doesn’t move past you. Over your shoulder, you see the hillside slowly fall away behind you, the reward for your effort. Ahead, the view shortens as you come to a ridge; below you, another reward, a lake or a beautiful valley. When you set out, the sky is blue, and as you gain height the sensation is deepened as the blue is consumed by grey, the sky literally coming down on you. And always, far above, the small shapes of another party ahead of you, just dots on the immediate horizon.
As the day dissolved, we crested the last ridge and stopped at a starkly beautiful shrine, complete with prayer flags and our first view of the glacier. We also saw our support gang, who had already set up the tent. That was a welcome sight, especially for our daughter who was now tired and getting a bit cold. As always, she was a great sport, but it had been a long day. She was happy we’d arrived.
Malchin Peak is at the right.
Base Camp
The name “base camp” conjures up wild parties at high elevation, discarded oxygen bottles, and tent cities complete with satellite dishes and beer by the crateload. Base camp at Malchin Peak is far more modest, with just two fixed installations: a glaciologist’s yurt and connexe which was off limits to most visitors but open to us because our guide was friends with the scientists; and a mountain pit toilet.
Beyond that, a huddle of dome shaped hiking tents was home to perhaps 30 or 40 trekkers, probably three quarters of them young Israelis who, here like other such wild places, enjoy the freedom of being as far as humanly possible from their recently completed military service. At least while we were there, it was a quiet place, with nothing to disturb the peace but the occasional groan from a camel resisting its load and the yells from its wrangler in response.
These were two-humpers – Bactrian camels of central Asia rather than the one-humped dromedaries of the Middle East. Our daughter was delighted, having recently enjoyed the book “Everybody Poos” in which she learned that “a one-humped camel makes a one-humped poo, and a two-humped camel makes a two-humped poo…only joking”! What fun to introduce her to a real two-humped camel, and verify by scientific means at close quarters precisely how many humps its poo contained.
We set up our own base about a kilometer away from the little community at Base Camp. With a young child we thought it better for all concerned to keep our distance, so our kid had a chance of sleeping without disruption, and so she would not disrupt the others in her sleep deprived state. A bit of give and take is key to a happy trip with a child this age.
High on the hillside above Base Camp we were blessed with a stunning view of the glacier; the sun set right over the peak. And at night, with the sun long gone and the moon nowhere to be seen, the sky was the brightest I think I have ever seen. I looked at the Milky Way with its uncountable points of light and thought of the line from the Johnny Cash song: one hundred million angels singing. A spiritual moment, though unlike the song, neither religious nor remotely apocalyptic. Just beautiful, or more truthfully, awe-inspiring, as though all the emotional response to music, art and natural beauty I’d experienced in my life came down from infinity in the single instant my eyes beheld it.
The glacier by starlight, seen from our tent (try viewing in a darkened room)
The Summit Attempt
Clear still skies greeted us as we finished a big breakfast and set off through Base Camp towards Malchin Peak. We were behind schedule by the time we got moving but not concerned, and enjoyed the slow walk from base camp alongside the glacier towards the mountain. Horses grazed in a pool of snowmelt, wild flowers stood to attention in the bright sun and ground squirrels kept an eagle eye on us. By the time we reached the flat area before the first real climb, the sun had passed the zenith and our daughter was sound asleep on my back. A soft breeze came from somewhere, welcome at first but not for long.
After the last small river, the climb began. It was tough. The path was really just a line of small boulders that had moved aside under the weight of previous hikers, and each step required care. With the steepness came physical effort and with that came, at last, the first effects of altitude. We were already well above 3,700 meters elevation here, a height at which we’d seen people get altitude sickness (in Borneo, for example, on the popular Mt Kinabalu climb).
Worse than that, the wind really picked up. Before long, it was a buffeting roar that made normal conversation very hard and balancing on the unstable surface just as tricky. Our kid slept soundly, wrapped warmly in her backpack and protected from the blast by my head. Several things became clear: one, at that pace we’d struggle to reach the summit with enough time to safely return; two, the higher we got, the worse the wind would become, especially once we crested the first shoulder of the mountain; and three, if our daughter woke in that wind, she would be quite the opposite of the “happy camper” we needed her to be.
Yon decided, very kindly, to give me a shot at reaching the top by stopping where we were, at about 3,800 meters, and waiting until I came back in a hollow we found that defeated some of the wind. We propped our daughter’s backpack with its back to the wind, and I set out with our guide Bota on a quicky summit push. Yon, meanwhile, relaxed into the stunning view.
I left Y & W at this point, with W sound asleep and quite warm.
The view from where Y & W waited was exceptional.
Bota on the uphill leg, not far short of where the wind brought us to a stop. Sky colour has not been adjusted.
I felt strong at this point but the calculation was changing. First, we were a bit behind time. Some quick maths in my head told me that there was a risk we’d come down late in the day if I continued to the summit. Although reasonably close, there was a lot of walking between me and it. And, of course, there was the jetblast wind. When we reached a crest some way above, and popped our heads over it, boom! A new degree of raw power smacked us in the face. By now, it was so loud we had to yell in each other’s face simply to communicate, and I knew that it would only get worse further along. This path was precariously wobbly, and though there was no danger of falling off the mountain, there was a plenty good chance of falling over. That could lead to a twisted ankle and a very tricky situation.
Safety always comes first. So it was that at about 3,900 meters we decided to turn around. I pulled out my little Tibetan prayer flags – the ones I’d taken to the summit of Stok Kangri (6.137m) in 2014 and dedicated to my then unborn daughter; the ones that were tied to Yon’s hospital bed when W arrived – and strung them out for a quick not-quite-the-summit shot. And then we turned around.
Coming down was easy enough though I developed an uneasy worry that a slip might set off a rockfall down onto my waiting family. This was not based in reality, as there was almost no chance of that actually happening. It prompted me to take it carefully which, in places like this, never hurts.
The downclimb offered non-stop incredible views.
I discovered Yon happily chatting to a couple of young Israeli guys who’d stopped on their own way down (they’d passed us earlier and told us about the summit conditions). After I arrived, we chatted a bit. They left, and we had a little relax on the mountainside before the walk down.
Down on the rocks under the wind, lying in the sun was lovely.
W was still sound asleep under the pink coat.
Back at Base Camp
Little W woke up along the way back into base camp. We still had some time to play there, and now it was her turn for some fun. We ate a late lunch (we’d left that in the yurt with Bota’s scientist friends) and then it was camel time and play in the stream time. In the beautiful sun, and with none of the wind we’d endured higher up, it was a glorious afternoon.
With just an hour of sun left, we walked back up to our own camp for dinner.
Y & W departing Base Camp for our own camp, still under a glorious sky.
The Walk Out
We woke not to the glorious sun we’d quickly come to expect but to a dusting of snow and a real chill in the air. Wrapping ourselves and our kid in the warmest gear we had, we polished off a quick breakfast, packed, and left. Oko had arrived in the Landcruiser and he showed great care and skill in driving us out on the boggy terrain. Further downhill, the snow stopped falling so we bailed out and walked the rest of the way. By some lovely miracle, our daughter had fallen asleep so we left her in the car.
And then we moved on. Back at the ranger station, we bundled into the Landcruiser, and headed into the mountains.
