The deer here are made of stone and are about three thousand years old. Across the grasslands of northern Mongolia stand granite pillars carved with leaping deer, their long antlers streaming back like flames or birds' wings, with sometimes a belt, a knife or a pair of earrings scratched below. These are deer stones, raised by Bronze Age herders in the second and early first millennium BC, and Mongolia has more than a thousand of them, most in the northern provinces. Nobody is sure what they meant. One theory says they were memorials to dead warriors, another that they were altars where the soul was carried to the sky by the deer. Around them are rings and rectangles of stone and low mounds called khirigsuur, burials of the same people.
This site is near Tsetserleg, the capital of Arkhangai province, a small town of around six thousand at the foot of a wooded hill, with a pleasant museum in an old monastery building. Fuel is available in town, and it is the last reliable supply for a good distance, so fill both tank and spare can before heading out. The land beyond is steppe and valley, rolling and enormous, with the sky doing most of the work. Gers dot the hills, herds of horses and yaks drift along the rivers and eagles perch on the roadside posts.
Riding here is a matter of paved main road giving way to wide gravel tracks, river crossings and improvised routes where the main skill is route-finding. The weather can change in an hour, with summer storms, hail and a surprising chill even in July. Nights at this altitude, around a kilometre and a half above sea level, are cold. Pack warm clothes and plenty of water, and ask locals about river levels before crossing.
The nearby Orkhon Valley is a World Heritage landscape of its own, with the ruins of Karakorum, the thirteenth-century capital of the Mongol Empire, and the monastery of Erdene Zuu close by. Combined with the deer stones, it makes a rich week of history.
Traditional food is mutton and dairy: salty milk tea, hard curd, dumplings called buuz. Accept whatever you are offered in a ger. Summer is the season, with wildflowers in June and a warm blur in July.