CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
It goes by way of Upper Tsagaan Gol, Aral Tolgoi and back through Upper Tsagaan Gol. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The far west of Mongolia belongs to a different world from the grasslands near Ulaanbaatar. Bayan-Ölgii province lies in the Altai Mountains, close to the borders of Russia, China and Kazakhstan, and most of its people are ethnic Kazakhs who arrived in the nineteenth century and still keep eagles for hunting. In winter, riders on horseback go out with golden eagles on their arms to hunt foxes, a tradition that survives here more strongly than anywhere else. The air is dry and thin, and the sky seems enormous.
Read the complete Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor is where the day begins. Next is Upper Tsagaan Gol.
Far out in Mongolia's westernmost corner, where the country wedges itself between Russia, China and Kazakhstan, the Altai mountains rise to the glaciated crown of Tavan Bogd. Below them the Tsagaan Gol, the White River, runs through valleys of larch and bare rock, and on the walls above the water prehistoric hunters carved some of the finest petroglyphs in Central Asia. They are part of the Petroglyphic Complexes of the Mongolian Altai, a UNESCO listing that spans thousands of years, from around the end of the Ice Age through the Bronze Age to the early Turkic era. The images show ibex, aurochs, deer, camels, hunters with bows, and in the later layers horsemen and chariots.
Read the complete Upper Tsagaan Gol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Upper Tsagaan Gol comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Aral Tolgoi.
Aral Tolgoi sits on a bend of open ground in the Altai of western Mongolia, in the province of Bayan-Ulgii, where the land climbs steadily toward the borders with China and Russia. The name has the sound of a place: tolgoi means a hill or head, and aral an island, so think of a rise standing out in flat, braided ground, perhaps once surrounded by channels of the river nearby. It is part of the same ancient story as the petroglyph sites that lie along these valleys.
Read the complete Aral Tolgoi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Aral Tolgoi. Next is back through Upper Tsagaan Gol.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Upper Tsagaan Gol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Upper Tsagaan Gol, late in the day. Next is Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor. That is the ride.
Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor → Upper Tsagaan Gol is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Upper Tsagaan Gol → Aral Tolgoi is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aral Tolgoi → back through Upper Tsagaan Gol is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Upper Tsagaan Gol → Tsagaan Salaa-Baga Oigor is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.