A skiadventure to Mongolia…

Travelling the world – what a great opportunity in life of getting to know different cultures & landscapes, opening up your mind for new experiences, seeing life from a different angle and appreciating what you’ve got back home…

And how lucky I am: combining skiing with travelling, capturing the adventures on film and photo, sharing the memories with a broad and interested community… Thanks a lot to my sponsors for making this happen and having the trust in what I do!

Therefore I’m really thankful!

I could now write a very long story about our adventures but I’m trying to keep it short, also because our movie will be coming out in October and our stories will be published in some magazines ;-)…

I thought I’d take out one specific topic – in my case what problems I had to deal with during the days @ basecamp, the rest is just written in keywords, giving a lot of space for your own thoughts 😉 Pictures are mostly taken and edited by myself, a few are from Liz, Zlu our photographer has many, many more but they are planned for the magazines 😉 Haven’t seem them yet but looking forward to!

ULAANBATAAR – Capital of Mongolia

Big city life, modern inner city, outskirts – Gers, lots of imported goods, Nutella, Milka chocolate, nice guesthouse, western-oriented, traffic lights – for what?, museums, monasteries, departement store, Souvenirs, interesting, different Asian food.

our hairdresser of trust when we came back from the mountains…

strolling aroun in town…

ÖLGII

Far west of Mongolia, Kazakh, Erika, 1700 km’s away from UB, 50 hours bus ride, 2,5 hours flight from UB, windy, sandy, special.

LIFE @ BASECAMP UP ON 3000 meters…

12 days in a tent, COLD, windy, sleepless nights, cold feet, freezing body, heat pads, down jacket, beanie.

If I read my diary and try to sort out my memories, mother nature has given me a hard time up on the mountain… I suffered extremely from the COLD… Especially the first few nights in the tent I had sleepless nights – cold feet, freezing body… In a down sleeping bag with a comfort zone of – 13 degrees, limit – 18 degrees, a perfect, warm down jacket and down shoes upon my feet, no chance of warming up during the night…
Although my body adapted better from day to day – without Heat pads that I taped onto my feet, I would have had no chance of sleeping and recovering during the night… My ability level went from high up to very low… But I’m strong in my head and hardly anything can stop me…
Also Liz had trouble with the cold, not as bad as me but still and getting into the skiboots in the mornings was always a MISSION! Just the guys got along with the conditions much, much better than us girls! Lucky them! Although at some nights (coldest night was around – 17 degrees), they where also cold… Maybe my thyroid hypofunction had also something to do with the cryesthesia? Who knows… It’s actually said so…

Also my knee has given me sometimes a hard time. Pain is my friend but my meniscus came out once while hiking up – not good but I got it in again and kept on walking… Skiing is definetely not the best Sport to do when having a wasted knee… Five knee surgeries within the past ten years, trouble in winter – year by year… But I love what I do and as I said, I’m strong in my head 🙂

BC @ arrival…

cold…

BC after several snowstorms hit us… Taking the Ger down, leaving BC…

MOUNTAINS

Tavan Bogd National Park, Khuiten (4374m), Naramdal (4104m), Naran (3884m), 160 km’s = 6 hours from Ölgii, 5 hours hike to BC, Colouirs, icy, windy, fresh powder, windblown, skiing, hiking, long, moraine, Potanin glacier, Alexander glacier.

Tavan Bogd NP…

Michi, Mel, Liz & Steph scouting mountains and lines…

@ Potanin glacier… before the snow came…

cold & windy…

Nameless mountain… Icy conditions everywhere…

FOOD

Meat – lots of meat! Minimum twice a day… Horse, lamb, yak, horse, horse, horse. (I guess everybody of us ate a horse during this month in Mongolia ;-)) Tante grazie Uka! Best cook ever!

MEAT…

PEOPLE

Nice, friendly, deep-rooted, affiliated with nature, nomads, simple life, religious, traditional.

@ Ölgii…

people @ the market in Ölgii…

cute Kazakh girl…

visiting a Kazakh family…

LANDSCAPE

beautiful, amazing, stunning, fastly changing, big sky, huge, quiet, peaceful.

WHAT ELSE?

Erika, Music, Michi singing, Shithead, reading, Ger, horses, timees (camels), yak, sheep, eagle, russian mini-van, bumpy roads, MNT = Mongolian Tugrik, Mongolian Expeditions – bayarlaa (thank you)!

timeeeeeee….

beauty…

That was a short review with some impressions of a great, awesome, impressive country…

I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to the whole Team: Michi, Steph, Liz, Tom (Cameraman), Zlu (photographer)

We had a great time together! Bayarlaa!