Day 6

After the full night of rain, the clouds hang lighter in the sky. The horses are incredible and we could have picked any on the line and been happy! Its cool and gray and we ride out with Tiffany and Sean. We have what will turn out to the be the crux of the navigation ahead. Many folks will get lost in the mountains we’re heading through. There are multiple valleys running NE to SW. I look and while there is one straightforward way through them I opt for another route that will take us further NW along the valley before cutting into the mountains. I confer with the group and give them the options and everyone is fine with the alternate route through the mountain valley. I have major doubts along the way that I’ve made the wrong choice. Riding with anyone other than Willemien feels like it adds more pressure to make the “right” nav choice. She reminds me everyone has their own GPS and they’re all capable of making their own choices. Just ride our race.

We ride in the on & off rain through the most beautiful mountain valley passing gers and animals along the way. “San-ban-oo” we holler to everyone we see. They always look confused but wave none the less. A boy no older than 6 who is riding on his own comes and races alongside us for a ways. Our last climb to the top of the pass has patches of birch trees. Feels like being in the mountains with the aspen at home. At the top there is an ovoo, a stack of stones that acts as an altar or shine, which we circle three times clockwise for good luck. Need every bit we can get. There is a beautiful horse head fiddle laid as an offering on it (See photo). We ride down the other side of the pass and out into the open to HS 17. The 2km walk into each station is agonizing for me. I’m not a patient person and it feels like wasting time, even though I know its necessary for our horses, and every rider is doing it. I use this time at each leg to plan the route for the next one. I walk along with my head buried in the GPS and Willemien yells “right” or “left” if I start wandering off. The horses vet through immediately.

HS17 is event manager Erik Cooper’s best friend’s home. Sarod welcomes us into his ger and we have some food and chat with him a bit. They are a renowned nadaam family as evidenced by the collection of medals hanging behind him in the ger. As we’re getting ready to leave, he offers us a shot of Vodka. It’s impolite to refuse and so we each take what turns out to be an enormous shot. Feels a bit like riding across the big meadow into Lower drinking on a rainy morning IYKYK. Sarod accompanies us out to the horse line and helps select excellent horses. Erik is on Facebook Live and I’m distracted by names from home that are commenting and watching. It makes me well up to know friends are up late at night watching this. I get to say hello and I feel a world so far away get close for a moment.

I’m on a gold medal winning bay horse as we head out to HS 18 which will require crossing sand dunes and 2 rivers. The family has pointed in the general direction and we all have fast horses to get us there. It’s still me, Willemien, Tiffany and Sean. As we approach the sand, the marked crossing on the gps doesn’t jive with what we’re seeing. It would have us cross 1km to the right in the middle of the dunes. Nope. We’re riding on a jeep track that crosses on the flat. We decide to ignore the gps point and ride straight ahead. The remainder of the route has us along a river valley. The river makes a large bend and while we could follow it, we cut over the hills to keep on the straight line. Works out again and we drop back into meet up with the river and cross a bog to get to the road. We walk into HS 18 and as we’re getting there Chris and Patrick are headed out. We’re close enough to hear them say “shit” and gallop off. Now we’re close enough, the strategy becomes to simply push, push, push.

My horse takes a few minutes to pulse down and while I’m waiting, Willemien is filling our waters and scoping out the horse line. I saw a long legged grey when I pulled in I liked. We forgo food again and select horses. The herders select one for me that once mounted I don’t like. I jump off and go with my first choice - the grey at the end of the line. Sean is waiting for his horse to pulse down, and it hasn’t by the time we’re mounted and ready to go. So we’re back to 3 of us together and we head back down to the river onto HS 19. My grey turns out to be an absolutely machine. After his initial run off bolting down the hill, he goes at any pace I set him at, which is mostly a ground eating trot. He cruises the entire leg and I can still feel how much energy he has in the tank. We cut away from the boys’ tracks early, then join them again as we climb a pass. I’ve found a shorter way! Tiffany and Willemien’s horses are having trouble keeping up with my machine. At the top of the pass is another Ovoo. Willemien and I circle it 3 times while Tiffany lets her horse rest. Turns out this one is the geographical center of Mongolia. Good luck again.

We ride along a main road for a while and I have to rein in my grey for the others to keep pace. I wish I could have let him go and really seen what he was made of. We cut up and over a quiet mountain valley and at the top just when we’re in desperate need of water for the horses, a small pond appears. After that, another eagle feather, where again I holler out and loop back for it. My third of the trip. Now we each have one. The good luck keeps coming, but I’m also a believer preparation makes for good luck.

We ride into HS 19, which as I’m writing this, I can’t even picture. We pick some more horses, which are now nondescript, and ride out onto a desolate looking leg at 5:45pm. I prayed a lot during this race. I’m not religious, and what I was praying to was not a God of organized religion but more requests to the universe. My yoga teacher Seane Corn calls it the “God of your own unique understanding”, which I think is a lovely way for people to feel spiritual even without aligning with something organized. I’m a big believer in the universe and a higher consciousness/plan for things. I pray things like “please let the rain storms on Day3 pass around us because I can’t dismount my horse to get rain gear”, and “please please let my little bay at HS 16 pulse down at the very last second”, and many nights it is “please let a ger appear before us with somewhere safe for us to stay”. Every time during the race, those requests have been answered. This night was no different. The leg began very desolate but as we crested a pass at about 6:35pm there was a large group of gers that appeared, however it was still 6:35 and we had 25 mins still to ride. There were also loads of cars and a few tents so it looked like they already had the guests they were expecting. We rode on.

After much staring into the setting sun, we saw 2 gers a ways off and galloped to them, arriving at 6:55pm. We were greeted gracefully by the family, and same as before, told we could stay. This would turn out to be the strangest night we had the entire race. Maggie and her translator arrived and did the same explaining on our behalf per usual. The family raised race horses, and Maggie dispensed some valuable vet knowledge about treating a young horse that appeared to be over-raced. They fed us, gave us Airag, and a bottle of snuff. We tried our best to communicate. I carried postcards with the Tetons on them that had a printed paragraph in Mongolian describing our family and home. This helped bridge the gap. The Frozen stickers also came in handy again to the little girls that are there.

As we settled in for the night we had a few things happen that gave me serious pause. One of the men, not much older than I, with a pretty macho attitude, offered to water our horses for us at the nearby pond. His thew his young son up on one of the horses, jumped on mine bareback and ponied Williemien’s. They took off at full gallop to the pond. It was clear to us they were taking our horses for a joy ride to see what they were made of. We prayed no one fell off or went lame in the course. After they came back, there was much discussion about how to secure the horses for the night. Theirs were loose. There was no horse line or catch pen, and only a small calf pen we could have tied to. They were INSISTENT we hobble ours and let them loose. Not over my dead body. I have chased down enough hobbled horses over my years in the mountains to know just how that works out. Not well, is the answer. There was some discussion among Tiffany and Willemien and I about what to do, but I was set that no matter how they decided to handle their horses, mine was not going loose. The men finally offered to picket the horses (this is a stake in the ground with a rope tied one end to the stake and the other to the horse’s leg, so they can graze in a circle). I can live with that. So our horses were secured for the night.

As we settled down, many of the family got in vehicles and headed off. It was unclear to us who lived there, and who was visiting to observe the gringos, but camp got very quiet. There have also been instances where the families will relocate to give you privacy in their own ger. Very generous. We thought that maybe was the case and settled in to sleep. Come 1:30am all the vehicles roll up. Lights turn on and people flood into the ger. A boy begins churning the Airag (fermented mare’s milk) in the churn by the door for no less than 30 mins. A woman drunkenly falls on me as she makes her way into the bed beside me. The activity didn’t die down till about 3:30am and I pretended to be sleeping most of the time. Not a great night, but we still appreciated the hospitality. We’re halfway between HS 19 and 20.