Beyond the end of the road: A four-hour horse ride to stay with Mongolia's reindeer herders

Deep in Mongolia's taiga, reaching the Tsaatan takes multiple days by road, 4x4 and horse – but the reward is two nights immersed in one of the country's most remote communities

I duck as a pine branch whips over my head. The stocky horse beneath me pushes through a shallow stream, scrambles up the rock and crests the embankment. Tightening my grip on the saddle, we follow Zaya Oldov, our guide, across northern Mongolia's taiga awash in golden hour light. The silence breaks as hundreds of reindeer begin melting out of the forest around us. Soon, we're immersed in a sea of antlers and soft footfalls as the herds come home. Beyond them, a dozen conical ortz, reminiscent of North American teepees, sit along the far tree line, grey smoke snaking from their roofs.

A wave of relief washes over me. After three days of travel, we've finally reached the Tsaatan camp.

Mongolia's reindeer herders

Around 80 Dukha families, commonly known as the Tsaatan, live in a restricted border region near Russia, in one of Mongolia's most isolated landscapes. Unlike the country's traditional steppe pastoralists who move ger-to-ger only a few times per year, the tiny reindeer-herding community traverses harsh, uninhabited landscapes six to 40 times a year in search of fresh mountain moss and suitable weather for their herds.

Oldov is Tsaatan by marriage and Mongolian American by birth. Before she arrived in the taiga more than two decades ago, tourism here was rare. But today, thanks to her work developing the TCVC (Tsaatan Community and Visitors Center), visitors can stay with local families while supporting their livelihoods. Travellers sleep in an ortz, share tea and meals with them and learn about daily life with the reindeer herds. The only way to book is via WhatsApp with Oldov.

Three friends and I had organised two nights with the community while we were road tripping through Mongolia. That horseback ride was only the last stage of a much longer journey to reach the Tsaatan.

From Ulaanbataar, we hired a car and drove 630km (391 miles) north to Mürün, the regional gateway to the taiga, following a paved road through Mongolia's open grasslands. There, we collected the permits required to enter the restricted border region before continuing towards the "town" of Tsagaannuur. 

The next leg took us two days off-road, across deep river crossings, swampy traverses, mountainous climbs and a nearly entirely map-less route. By the time we reached a wooden homestay near Tsagaannuur's deep-blue lake, we had been on the road for 22 hours.

Oldov arrived early the next morning to meet us, several small horses in tow. "They aren't the easiest horses to ride," she warned, "they tend to spook at anything white in the grass." As a relatively inexperienced rider, I braced myself for the four-hour trot. Raw, rugged and completely undeveloped, the landscape oscillated from wild coniferous forest to grassy hills cut by streams and waterlogged wetlands. Our horses picked their way across the changing terrain, saddlebags bulging with supplies, until we finally arrived at our destination.

Stepping inside our ortz, four narrow........

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