Colette's Grand Detour

Today we departed the Khongor Sand Dunes heading to Yolyn Am (or Yol Valley), a drive of around 180km through open desert plains, rocky hills and badlands. This was one of the bumpiest drives we have had so far, but the scenery continues to be spectacular so time tends to pass quickly.

At about 11am we stumbled upon civilisation. Bayandalai is a small district center that lies on one of the main routes across the southern Gobi and based on the excellent coffee shop and supermarket, is popular among overland travellers. The coffee shop was excellent serving barista coffee and freshly-made yoghurt smoothies. It also meant that for the rest of today’s drive we were a wonderful tarmacked road – what a luxury!

From here we headed into the rocky foothills of the Gobi Gurvansaikan National Park. Yol Valley sits in the National Park, within the Zuun Saikhan Mountains. The valley is quite a surprising landscape after days in the barren Gobi Desert. Once entering the cool, narrow mountain gorge, you are surrounded by green grass, towering granite and limestone cliffs and flowing streams. Why does this cool valley exist in the middle of the Gobi? The Zuun Saikhan Mountains intercept what little moisture reaches southern Mongolia, creating a much cooler, wetter micro-climate.

Over millions of years, meltwater and streams have cut deeply into the limestone and granite, creating a gorge whose walls rise up to 200m. Uniquely, this allows ice build-up over the winter to survive long after winter has ended. Today. because of warmer summers, the permanent ice has become much much smaller (the group that walked all the way to the ice, showed me a photo of just a really tiny patch remaining and it’s only early July). This ice retreat is often cited as one of Mongolia’s visible examples of climate change.

The walk through the valley is very easy. There is a small visitor center/museum full of stuffed animals at the entrance to the valley and then it’s a 15 minute drive to the start of the walk. The walk is gently down-hill and easy going until the gorge narrows to just a few feet wide that require a bit of clambering around and getting wet feet. Apparently (I did not go down this bit) after the gorge opens up further down, this is where the permanent ice field used to be.

There is lots of wildlife to look out for on the walk. There are lammergeigers (old world vultures) gliding high above the cliffs, and although we didn’t see any there are also Siberian Ibex (with big curved horns), Argali sheep (the world’s largest wild sheep), and even the elusive snow leopard. The animal we did see loads of the super cute Pika – a relative of the rabbit that lives among the rocks. They have tiny round ears, and run around making high-pitched whistles. And they are absolutely everywhere so it was quite easy to get a good photo!

Yol Valley was a welcome change of scenery from the desert and made a nice change of pace for an afternoon.