Valere Bouchaud >> Russian and Mongolian road trip with Laurent, Pierre and Iselle
Beginning of June, we prepared the van, we cleaned it, painted it and strongly attached all the boxes to carry all the gear we needed.
7th of June: All right, we were ready to hit the road: 10000 kilometres, 8000 to Mongolia, and another 2000 of dusty tracks to reach Ulan Bataar.
8th of June: Unfortunately, we had a car accident. Near Berlin on the highway a really fast BMW hit us in the back, we lost control, the van felt on the side, and kept sliding on the highway. We thought the trip was over, Pierre who was near the window was hurt on both elbows and the back, the van looked dead!
But, a good German guy came with his truck to get us out of the highway, while Pierre was treated in the hospital. He and his son succeeded to restart the engine, we fixed plastic on the broken windows and decided to keep continuing with our journey.
10th to 13th of June: We were staying in Poland to repair the van correctly.
13th of June: On the road again. We crossed Lithuania Leetonia, Estonia, we were in Russia! We spent 2 days in Novgorod, 2 days in Moscow, then crossed all south Siberia.
22nd of June: We arrived around the Mongolian boarder, we were in the mountains, happy, but the van started to have an engine problem, so we left it at a mechanic and spent 4 days at a base camp in Russian Altai. There were two beautiful glaciers around us, Mashey and Aktrou rising 4000 metres high. On the 1st day with Laurent we climbed to 3500 metres high. On the top of the glacier, there was good wind, pretty good let’s kite!
Then we decided to go to Aktrou, 4050m. In 2 days, we first carried the gear to a little refuge, where we slept at 2900m and the second day we climbed the big glacier which goes to Aktrou. The top was cloudy but there was strong wind so I could kite the huge glacier, it was fantastic!
Arriving in Mongolia…but not in better shape.
29th June: When we came down the mountains the van wasn’t repaired, we needed a spare part from France. Some friends were going to Ulan Bataar, so they could bring us the spare part, we tried to continue like that. But we didn’t really continue, we arrived at the boarder, the van stopped, it was finished. We asked people to trail us through the 20 kilometers “No man’s land” of the Russian/Mongolian boarder.
1st July: It was really complex to arrive here. But now we are in Mongolia! We stopped in the traditional Mongolian house, the Ger. The wind is blowing, I tried the mountain board with the 7m², and it’s a really good kite, very stable. It was hard work for me with the old mountain board. Straight away all kids of the village ran from everywhere to meet us. I brought out the IMP 2 line and 5m², they tried and they loved it, they are really good “kids from the wind”. After 10 minutes one of them jumped on the mountain board and succeed to ride downwind. So I gave him the 4m² Pure and gave the IMP to the younger ones. We had a wonderful moment with all theses kids; Mongolia seems to be an incredible country.
2nd July: The Mongolians friends arrive to trail us to Olgy, a little town where we can park the van. We have 4 days before the plane which will bring the spare part. Let’s go to the mountains.
3rd July: We crossed a long part of steppe and arrive in a wonderful place with big open glaciers with some nice summits all higher than 4000m, one of them is the highest of Mongolia at 4374m.
4th July: Wake up 4pm, we climb on this big glacier, with a light wind I decided to take the kite. Laurent tried for the first time with the 7m². It was so big, I continued to climb with the downhill wind and Laurent put his skins back on. At the top we were at a really special place, 4117m, it is the point between Russia, Mongolia and China, lots of emotions. We skied back down, tired but so happy.
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