Charla and Chase woke up as the sun was beginning to illuminate the amazing landscapes around our camp. Unfortunately, we are early risers, and we knew that it would take a long time for all of the other teams to get prepared to leave; taking advantage of this extra time, and following up on something he’d wanted to do for weeks, Chase started walking away from camp.
Our camp was surrounded by large hills or small mountains, however you wish to describe them, and Chase wanted to climb one. He picked one nearby, and just started climbing; it was gradual at first, but the top third of the mountain involved quite a scramble. After stopping to catch his breath a couple times he completed the final scramble up the hill, and was able to look around and enjoy the surroundings. Looking back the way we had come last night, Chase could still see the border area structures and further could see Siberia’s snow-capped peaks to the north. In the other direction, he could see the road we were going to take today winding into the distance before passing behind more hills; the road passed a couple lakes and a few yurts before it disappeared. And, by looking back where he had just climbed, he could see his camp very small below him. However, the most magical sight was looking over the other side of the mountain: on the other side of the mountain there were no structures, no major roads, and few indications that other humans had ever set foot on that steppe before. It was beautiful. Chase, alone and on top of the hill, sat and breathed it all in for a few minutes. Eventually he could see movement in camp, and he certainly didn’t want to miss breakfast, so he gathered his thoughts and his camera, placed one more stone on the cairn on top of the hill, and descended back to camp, picking wildflowers for Charla has he went.
Unfortunately for Team Turnagain, the entire day didn’t match that magical feel. We started having exhaust problems back in Kazakhstan, but today was the day when an ill-placed rock actually tore the exhaust pipe off the engine. Oh no! Our first idea was simply to break the exhaust completely off the car right there, but of course it wouldn’t be that easy; the exhaust pipe passed over the rear axle on its way to the muffler, which meant we couldn’t remove it from the front or the rear. Luckily Daniel, a Norwegian solo-driver of team Mongol Viking whom we’d met earlier in the day, had some metal wire that we used to tie the exhaust to the underbody. Our thought was that if we could make it to the next town we could find a mechanic who could cut the exhaust from the muffler, thus allowing us to remove them in two pieces. It was a great plan, until the wire job only held for approximately forty or fifty feet before we were back on the side of the road. Now understanding that we needed some type of roadside fix, we had to start getting creative. (It’s what the Mongol Rally is all about!) Daniel brought a crowbar out from the back of his Alto, and with a serious amount of effort we were finally able to use the crowbar to break the weld connecting the exhaust and the muffler. Once the weld was finally broken and we could remove both pieces separately, it was time to get back on the road. We had suffered an hour delay, but at least it was in a beautiful location!
Throughout the afternoon we had been slowly but steadily gaining elevation, and when we finally stopped for the night we were well and truly in the mountains. Our camp was under two beautifully snow-capped peaks, and the views all around were spectacular. The only problem with our camp, though, was that temperatures tend to get a little chilly when you’re at over 8,000 feet elevation. In our not-very-thorough planning, we had pictured Mongolia to be full of deserts and warm temperatures, and we were woefully ill-prepared for a night that would see ice forming on the outside of the tent. We didn’t all hang out around camp as much as usual, since it was much warmer in our sleeping bags, but we did spare a little time to take in the majestic mountains before putting on every article of clothing we had and shivering ourselves to sleep.