By: Tyler Hartman, Roanoke College
We left for Battogtokh’s second fall camp at about 10:00 am. Battogtokh is a ranger at the Horidol Saridag Strictly Protected Area, and also an artist!! Four of us were crammed onto the backwards seats in the Furgon while the other three sat very peacefully across from us. One of those three was our interpreter for this trip, Burnee. Jamie, who was fortunate enough to sit facing forward, had baby kitty in a bag on his lap. She was not very happy. Battogtokh had agreed to take baby kitty in since we would be leaving soon and none of us could take her home.
Once we arrived, we unloaded the furgon and unpacked our things in the ger. We would only be staying two nights, so none of us had a lot of stuff. We went on a walk and got to look at some awesome stone artifacts around his camp.
The next day, we had a discussion in the morning, followed by a drawing competition in Battogtokh’s daughter’s brand new marital ger!
We were each assigned an animal, and when we were all finished, he would rank them out of six (since there are six of us). I got to draw sheep!
Owen ended up placing first, Dave second, Milana was third, Erin got fourth, I got fifth, and Jamie got sixth. As a reward, Owen got a cool bag and a REALLY cool pendant carved from a reindeer antler. After we finished that up, we got to eat some delicious beef and lamb with one very long and wide noodle that was cut into smaller portions. I got to try yak liver; it was okay.
After that was wrapped up, we went outside and gathered piles of Argal (dung) to be collected and used for fuel! Yes, we did have gloves, and yes, we did turn it into a competition.
Erin and Milana with their pile, followed by Jamie and Owen, then myself. Photo credits: Dave Barrington Marquis
Those dung piles were what kept us nice and warm inside our ger all night long.
We left Battogtokh’s camp the next day at about 10:00 am, but not before saying our “thank yous and goodbye” to our sweet baby kitty.
We got back to Ulaan-Uul around noon, ate lunch, took showers (yay!), and did some homework. We heard that they ended up killing the bear that was causing problems around Ulaan-Uul. It was really sad, but we got to go out and look at the body inside of a cage. It was caged up just so other animals didn’t eat it. They’re probably going to taxidermy it for the visitor center.
We went to a cultural event on Thursday following our return to town. It was essentially a talent show put on by the different classes of the local schools and performed at the cultural center. We saw people sing, dance, and even a bit of beatboxing! All the performers were in traditional clothing, and it was incredible to watch.
However, once we got back to our classroom, it was crunching time. We finished up our last Humans & the Environment discussion. The second draft for our papers was due (except for mine, since I hadn’t gotten my results just yet), but luckily our due date for our presentation was moved back to Monday. I got to work on the bits of writing I could do and prepared my discussion for the next day (35 pages by the way) while everyone worked on finalizing their papers.
The following Friday and Saturday were made up of mostly just working and class time. We finished our last discussions and continued to work on our papers. The lab that was analyzing my core samples told us that I’d get my data to me by Tuesday (the night before presentations) and that they’ll help with analysis. I continued to do everything that I could for my paper and presentation while waiting. I still submitted my draft so I could have some feedback while I waited. Friday, we heard that they were taking the bear corpse out of its cage. We immediately ran out to take a look. It was smaller than I was expecting. Although it weighed 147 kilograms, they were taking measurements, and the paws were 15 cm wide. We got to look at it, and it was awesome to see a real brown bear up close, although sad it had to be under such circumstances.
Saturday was shower day, and it felt so nice to be clean. You really don’t realize how awesome warm showers are until you only get them once or twice a week.
On Sunday we did a tourist hike near where we have been collecting research, and it was so cool. It’s called “the cliffs,” so I’m sure you can guess where it goes. The ground was still covered in snow, and it got so steep at points that we had to crawl up the side of the hill. We gained about 600m of elevation in about 400m. The view once we got to the first overlook was absolutely beautiful. Once we got back to the student room, my final results for my tree core analysis were waiting for me! I was so excited and immediately got to finishing my presentation.
We finished up our presentations and gave them on the following Tuesday. The presentation room was pretty much full, but everything went well! We had a big dinner that night, and everything was delicious. We finished our papers over the next couple of days, wrote an exam, and officially left the Darhad Valley on Friday, November 6th.
