chapter nine - The Epic Hike

The ‘green trail’ is what we followed first. So called for the green paint markers splashed every km or so on sporadic tree trunks. This was a good idea. Trails are always a good idea. It seemed to be mostly level, not in the least treacherous, and put us a few minutes ahead of schedule. Our destination was a 2,000 meter (6,500 foot) hill about 8 km (5 miles) away. It butted up against one end of the mountain range we had spied the previous day on our boat ride. It was marked by a curious zig-zag line leading to the top. Zig-zag, I knew what that meant.

It wasn’t long before we came to a clearing and made a break with the green trail. The events and sights following this break are a bit muddled in my memory. I can’t quite discern which came first or after, so I’m not going to bother you with specifics, just generalities.

I remember walking up. A lot, actually. Up, up, up – that seemed to be the one and only direction our bodies were propelled. It was a never ending landscape of steepness. But the further we walked and the more up we went, the more amazing everything seemed to become. Huvsgul opened to a vast sheet of glassy turquoise, valleys sunk into deep greens, and the hills and mountains were draped in hazy blues. Remarkable! I’d never seen anything like it.

If we weren’t walking up, we were walking through – through dense piney forest, springing along the spongy needled floor, hurdling fallen trees or thorny bushes. Through soggy marsh-lands that completely soaked my shoes, sidestepping animal poo all the way – yak poo, mostly. And they must have been big yaks if I remember correctly.

Up, through, up, through for hours as if we were a bunch of needles sewing up the landscape. Eventually, after plodding out of a marshy bit, the land widened and the Beast presented itself - all 2,000 meters of him. There was talk about following a tree line straight up the side clear to the top. Something died in me after hearing that and I quietly mourned, trying my best to look eager. We talked about whether or not to eat lunch before tackling the Beast. We decided to fuel up instead on a bit of chocolate and keep lunch till the top as a reward for our hard work.

So it began. We picked up walking sticks from the layer of fallen branches in the sparse forest at the foot of the Beast. By the time we reached the tree line and gazed toward its ending point at the top – it became clear that walking the zig-zag road was indefinitely a smarter move. However, Elisabeth had gone on ahead of us while we were eating chocolate, following the old plan straight up the side. So Ed, Charli, Tom and I set to work on the zig-zag and Ian followed after his wife.

One of the things I enjoy about hiking is the sense of accomplishment. Some hills seem too impossible, the incline too ridiculous and all you think is, how can this be remotely possible? But when you reach the top and see how far you’ve come and take stock of your current circumstances, you realize you’re not dead or too exhausted to tackle another hill. You wonder, Man! Did I just do all that? How? Let’s see if I can do it again

That was how I felt upon reaching the top of 2,000 meters. That and an overriding need to lie down. Elisabeth and Ian had made it there before us by just a few minutes and were setting things up for lunch (ramen noodles again – but this time the packages came with spoons). We happily stuffed ourselves and took in everything we possibly could: the clean, sun-baked air, the greens and blues of lake, tree and hillside, Huvsgul, her mountains and valleys, and the contentedness of being with good friends. I was joyously looking forward to walking down and back.

As it turned out, down and back did not occur in the same way up and through did. I naively expected we’d walk back the same route we took forward. Silly me – remember, you’re in the company of real hikers. So instead, we walked about two miles the opposite direction before beginning our slow decent and journey back to camp. Tom, anxious to get back to his wife (who is pregnant and didn’t come with us), broke from us early on and ran the whole way back.

The events of this return journey are again, somewhat muddled. But these are the things I clearly remember:

Down, down, down. I’m not sure which is worse: a steep incline or a steep decline. They both kind of suck. But that’s the direction our bodies were now propelled. The goal was to get back to the forest and pick up the green trail somewhere near the beach. Ah, the green trail! A relatively non-laborious walk and the quickest way back to camp, I remember that!

Before we came across any hint of the green trail though, a good portion of bushwhacking through forest had to be done. By this time, it felt like my hip joints had aged 50 or 60 years and my legs were on fire. My pack had also somehow increased in weight by 10 pounds. We had also almost run out of water and it was the hottest part of the afternoon. I hated bushwhacking. Why couldn’t we have just gone back the same way we came? It was a tough battle fighting off the grumps.

Eventually we met with the lake and filled our dry water bottles, then picked the green trail back up (joy!). But what we remembered as a smooth, kindly coast, had violently tipped itself in our absence and had become a horrible series of upward climbs. Was this even the same trail?! I don’t think my 80 year old hips can take it, I thought to myself. But they did. They had to. Ed and Charli and I whizzed through the green trail as fast as we possibly could. Ian and Liz had taken a more leisurely pace. For me, at least, it was absolutely no longer about the journey anymore, it was all about the destination. The quicker you go, the sooner it will all end.

And it did. When we hobbled through the front gate of our ger camp, we spied Tom lying dead-like on the steps of the shower house waiting for the hot water. Emily was sitting beside him. He had come into camp about an hour ahead of us and was clearly out of gas. He actually did run the whole way back. When I returned to my ger, I checked the clock: 7:13 pm. It had been nearly 10 hours since we departed that morning. I laughed to myself. 10 miles in 10 hours. Ian and Liz hobbled into the ger shortly after.

We looked like a bunch of zombies at dinner that night, except Emily, of course. It took a lot to even dunk a teabag. But I think we all agreed that it was a great way to spend our last day at Huvsgul. Well worth it. We treated ourselves to fizzy sodas and went to bed early in nice, warm gers.