https://backcountryostomy.com/backcountry-lessons/

Yesterday was National Ostomy Awareness Day. It was also 5 years since my last abdominal surgery!

In celebration of yesterday, I decided to write about a stunning trip I took this year. It’s a trip where my ostomy and Crohn’s decided not to act up. This trip felt like a triumph and highlighted to me, my resolution to pursue my passions and thrive in this life.

Today’s post with be part 1 of 3, discussing trip preparations and the first week of a trip spent in the Mongolian Steppe. I plan to let the photos do most of the talking.

Objective: Sister trip to Mongolia. ~10 days bike packing. The rest of the time spent unpacking, putting bikes together, and site seeing (in typical adventure travel fashion, this entire plan ended up changing)

Trip Length: 24 days, including travel to/from Mongolia (Charlotte from Alaska, Jeanine from Colorado)

Trip Type: Planned for bikepacking (27.5+ mountain bikes). Ended up including bikepacking, Gobi Desert tour, site seeing and day trip biking around Ulaanbataar).

Group Size: 2

Dates: May 25-June 16, 2018

The most common question before and after our trip is, “Why Mongolia?” In a way, I have to credit my fat bike being stolen 2 years ago with sparking my interest in Mongolia. After my fat bike was stolen, I started looking into what type of bike I would want as a replacement. Did I want another fat bike? Did I want a mountain bike? At some point in my search I stumbled upon Tumbleweed Bicycle Co. and a video they produced titled, “Bikepacking the Mongolian Steppe.” I was mesmerized by the landscape, and immediately decided that I needed to go there. First I would have to acquire a new bike capable of biking there and then, I would have to find a partner in crime. I do also have to credit my old roommate for having a Mongolia guide book hanging around the house from his time spent working there. The combination of inspiring bike travel and a book that provided a daily reminder of the far off destination, kept this trip constantly on my mind.

At some point along the way, my sister Jeanine and I discovered that she would have enough time to go on a long trip, and we started planning together. We spent the winter working and accruing time off and of course, packing and planning for the trip. Jeanine took local classes in Colorado, and I took bike maintenance classes at Susitna Bicycle Institute in Anchorage and felt confident in managing my bike overseas.

We signed up for Global Rescue Memberships to make ourselves feel safer (I did a lot of research on travel insurance and found out that my insurance company would pay for medical expenses overseas! But I knew I’d want a way to actually travel to receive more modern medical care if I needed it). I also set up appointments with all of my medical providers ahead of time (PCP, GI, colorectal surgery). I was prescribed antibiotics for anything that I might encounter, updated my travel vaccinations, and prepared my body for 10 days of very heavy bikepacking. In fact, up until the trip, I had been having issues with peri-rectal abscesses and intestinal blockages, and knew that those were a priority to manage before leaving the western medical system. My surgeon helped me problem solve what to do if I encountered an abscess. At first she said, soak in a tub or hot water. Then she looked at me and said, “Oh, you’re probably going to be out in the wilderness without access, right? Well, just heat up some stones, and put hot stones over the abscess.” She provided me with further instructions, but I love that my providers know me well enough at this point that they have to test their own creative problem solving to provide me with options for managing my Crohn’s in the wilderness.

On the non-medical side of things, I met up with my roommate and his friend who provided us with a ton of information on Ulaanbataar and Mongolia. Jeanine and I came up with the following plan: Fly into Ulaanbataar Sunday night, acquire food, money, etc. in the city on Monday. Head out to Tsetserleg in the Arkhangai province Tuesday. Stay at the Fairfield Guesthouse, and start biking Wednesday. This was a lofty goal, but we built in flexibility on the back end of our trip to spend more time in Tsetserleg or Ulaanbataar as needed. Our original plan was to follow the Khangai Mountain Traverse route from bikepacking.com (https://bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-mongolia-khangai-mountains/).

After all of the planning and stress of packing, we were finally on our way. Jeanine and I were supposed to meet in Seattle and fly to Incheon, South Korea together. Unfortunately because of flight delays on her end, we spent the 12 hour flight on separate planes and met up in South Korea to fly to Ulaanbataar, Mongolia together.

Travel Tip: If flying through Asia, try to have a layover in Incheon. The airport and accommodations are amazing. We spent both layovers (to and from) napping in the nap zone and we were able to take a transit tour (4 hour tour) into South Korea on our way back to the states.

After days of traveling, we and our bikes finally made it to Ulaanbataar in the middle of the night. Erdene with Montrails Tours was able to drive us to and from the airport in a mini bus that accommodated our bikes and luggage. Erdene ended up being a wonderful resource, and he made us feel welcome and safe in an unfamiliar place.

After sleeping in and reminding ourselves of our busy schedule ahead, we set to work caffeinating ourselves, finding fuel, food, and any other items we needed. We spent most of the day trying to figure out how to acquire cash because our debit cards kept being declined at ATMs around the city. We figured it out in the end.

After a hilarious and slightly unnerving morning the next morning trying to fit us, our two bikes in cases (the guesthouse in Tsetserleg told us to keep them in the cases and that they would provide a mini bus), and three Mongolian locals into a very small vehicle, we were on the road to Tsetserleg. It took about 10 hours to get there with only 1 flat tire along the way.

You can’t travel in Mongolia without car issues.

We were excited to arrive in Tsetserleg, and had communicated frequently with the guesthouse before our arrival. There appeared to be some confusion about our bikes when we arrived and where to the store them. We ended up opting to keep them in our room, so that they would be safe. We then set to work unpacking our bikes and putting them together. After a day of getting everything in order and realizing that because of a packing oversight on my part, my brake fluid was leaking rendering my rear brake unusable, we decided to stay in Tsetserleg for another day before heading out on our bike journey. We spent most of the day attempting and partially succeeding in communicating with the locals to fix my bike. I ended up at a small ‘bike shop’ which was really an old van full of a hodge podge of bike parts. Some very well intended individuals attempted to assist me with my brakes, but ended up accidentally draining all of my rear brake fluid. At that point I decided I would just deal with using my front brakes for the rest of the trip and enjoy the rest of the day. Jeanine and I walked around Tsetserleg and oriented ourselves to the small ‘city.’ We chatted with a woman from Denmark who was solo adventuring and a group of from Germany who had grand plans to drive from Mongolia back to Germany over a span of five months.

Exploring Tsetserleg before heading out on our bikes.

The next day (Thursday), we geared up and headed out of the city on our bikes. The first portion of the trip was spent on a paved road, up and over a mountain pass, down the the town of Ikh Tamir, and then out onto the dirt roads of the Steppe.

Jeanine kicked my butt on our first uphill climb.

We expected the steppe to be a quiet place, but initially found it full of motor bikes, Prius and small trucks, horses, herds of sheep, goat, and yak, and an abundance of ger. As we continued along, things did start to calm down a bit, and were were excited to be on our own in this wild place. The sun was shining and we enjoyed our time taking in the sites. As the afternoon arrived, so did the thunderstorms. We debated about what to do and finally made our way over to an abandoned stable. Just as we were poking around, a couple arrived in their truck and after Jeanine communicated with them using hand gestures, they invited us to wait out the storm at their ger about a half mile or so away. This was one of the most memorable experiences of our trip, interacting with a genuinely hospitable nomadic couple. Their ger was the most ornate of all the ger we saw on the trip and they offered us food and drink while we waited for the storm to pass.

After the storm, we headed back out on our bikes to find a place to camp for the night. After being chased down to a river by a pack of wild looking dogs, we decided to stop and make dinner before continuing on for the evening. The river where we started cooking was so serene, and I imagined setting up camp, reading in our tent, and soundly sleeping until we hit the road the next morning. Unfortunately, that did not end up being the case. After an uncomfortable interaction with 4 herder men, we decided that we needed to keep going and set up camp where nobody could see us. We waited until dark, hiked our bikes up into the mountains, set up camp, and spent the night with one of us awake at all times. After going back and forth about what to do about our planned 10 day bikepacking trip, we decided that we could either feel uncomfortable for 10 days in a row, or we could head back to Testerleg and re-evaluate the goals of our trip.

What we thought was a peaceful campsite.

We opted to bike back to Tsetserleg. I think we were both disappointed that we would not continue biking. For one, we are both fairly stubborn and don’t like to give up on goals, and seeing more of the steppe region. Second, we were both looking forward to a human powered trip, and feeling our bodies put to work for 10 days in a row. Finally, we both had to sort through a lot of emotions about ourselves, including our belief systems about being independent women, cultural norms and values, and the privilege of traveling in a remote region of the world.

After having made our decision, we looked at our maps and found an alternative route back to Tsetserleg. After a cold night, the day ended up being warm, and sunny, and provided us with breathtaking scenery as we traveled through a wide open river valley. Back on the main road, I started feeling the effects of no sleep and the rush of adrenaline from the night before that drained my body. We had planned on traveling about 30 miles a day on our trip, and this day turned into about 85 or so miles with a strenuous climb back up and over the pass and into town. The guesthouse was a welcome reprieve from the elements and emotions of the day before.

After settling back in at the guesthouse we put the prior day aside, and dove right into creating a plan for the rest of our trip. We emailed the guesthouse owner about setting up a Gobi tour and while he worked on arranging the tour, we did what we do best. We picked a mountain in the distance and decided to hike to the top. It felt like such a relief to get away from the busy streets of town and surround ourselves with the familiarity of trees, coarse rock, and fresh air whipping through the mountains.