Mo's Mongolia Winter Wildlife Watching Tour to South Gobi

A winter wildlife expedition into the far western Gobi, driving yourself in a Land Cruiser the operator provides, with wild camping almost throughout. Sold as fifteen days of about 2,500 kilometres or eighteen of about 2,800, and the animals are the point of it.

It opens with Przewalski’s horses at Khustai National Park, the species that was extinct in the wild and reintroduced there, along with marmots and raptors. Then the route goes off-road into the Gobi-Altai and on into Great Gobi A, one of the largest protected areas in Asia, where Eej Mountain holds ibex and argali and Bayan Tooroi is the place to look for wild Bactrian camels, khulan and gazelles.

The landscape matches the wildlife. The Ekh River oasis sits in Gobi bear range, and Khermen Tsav is a red canyon system that gets two nights purely for sunrise and sunset photography. Fossil valleys in the Nemegt Mountains and the dunes at Khongoryn Els follow. On the eighteen day version, more than four nights are given to a camp in the Baga Bogd mountains for snow leopard tracking alone, which is the kind of time that species actually requires.

Explorer.Company supply the Land Cruiser for up to four travellers, camping equipment, airport transfers, the prearranged route with navigation support, and the camps along it. No nights count, departure dates or formal inclusions list is published, so settle those at enquiry. Wildlife is never guaranteed anywhere, as the operator would be the first to say, but very few trips give it this much patience.