 Warren Pole checks out Mongolia, the latest Land Rover G4 expedition destination.
I'm sitting back at the end of another exhausting day trawling the untamed vastness of the Gobi desert in a dusty Land Rover. The vista before me is breathtaking, as I gaze down the empty valley ahead while the sun’s dying rays softly withdraw their caressing warmth as evening approaches.
The silence is absolute and a deep sense of peace settles as the wind
rustles the thin grass spotting the valley’s sandy floor. Out here the
intrusions of modern life barely register. Mongolia is wild in a way
our Western minds can barely comprehend.
I’m with the recce team for Land Rover’s G4 Challenge, one of the world’s hardest adventure events, which for 2009 will make Mongolia its home. Next summer 18 teams will spend three weeks and 2000 miles tackling the toughest off-road savagery this country can serve up pausing only to take on a motley assortment of harsh adventure sports tests. After 21 days of navigating, driving, climbing, kayaking, running, abseiling and mountain biking, not to mention 21 nights sleeping in the wilderness, a winner will be crowned.
Before that though, someone has to work out where the event will go. When your potential playground’s the size of Mongolia this takes some doing, which is where the G4 recce team come in. Bristling with enough outdoor experience to make Rambo look like a Sunday rambler and tooled up for every eventuality, these guys are a class act and clearly never more at home than when plonked in the middle of a foreign wilderness and told to get on with it.
 “This recce is a massive adventure, but if anything goes wrong we’re so far from anything even close to civilisation we have to be able to deal with everything ourselves,” explains Challenge director Ed Tilston when I arrive at the team’s remote Gobi base camp. Looking around I see what he means. All the vehicles are kitted up with electric winches, full bash plates, more headlights than a U2 stage set and snorkel-style raised air intakes to stop the motors drowning themselves through deep river crossings, of which there will be many. One car carries more medical gear than most doctors’ surgeries, another enough tools to keep this show on the road.
And then come the toys. Kayaks, mountain bikes, kites, ropes, land boards, you name it, these boys are carrying it because the only way to work out what events can be held where is by giving them a go. I couldn’t wait to get to work.
Although I felt rather less gung ho at six the following morning after a sketchy night’s sleep in a tent that felt like it was going to take off as the famous Mongolian winds picked up, but this changed as soon as I clambered out and remembered I was in the Gobi with the keys to a bright orange Defender in my pocket.
Driving here is an experience. Tarmac and road signs are luxuries reserved for the capital only leaving the rest of the country criss-crossed by unmarked narrow wheeltracks which routinely peter out as abruptly as they begin. Add the fact these ‘roads’ are constantly rerouted with time, weather and a nomadic population and it’s no surprise Mongolian road maps are the least accurate in the world.
“At best the roads on our maps are 50 metres out, at worst they don’t exist at all,” operations manager John Limb tells me as he pores over a series of maps, GPS in hand after yet another road vanishes from beneath our wheels. The driving isn’t fast either – 25mph is a good average as we bounce, slam, scrape and slide through the desert – but it needs concentration because one wrong rut could see a wheel ripped off.
Keep going though and the wildlife is incredible. Herds of goats freely roam the plains (there are no fences in Mongolia), eagles and vultures soar overhead while cliff faces everywhere are littered with their nests and camels, sheep and bulls all make regular appearances as we rumble by.
Stopping at the top of a major canyon, John announces it could be good for mountain biking. Iñigo de Lara, a former Challenge competitor now on the recce team, and myself need no further invitation and are on top of our vehicles unstrapping our bikes before pointing them down into the valley. We tear down like kids, racing, shouting and hollering, our way through this uncharted empty territory. It’s a huge thrill and we’re grinning like idiots 20 minutes later when the downhill finally runs out.
“Put your bloody helmet on next time,” Jamie the medic tells me. At first I think he’s joking but his deadpan tells me I’m wrong. “You’re 1000 miles from the nearest hospital and it’ll be my night stuffed patching you up when you get it wrong”. He’s laughing now, but the point’s been made – this recce is not at home to stupid and avoidable injuries. I don’t forget the helmet again.
 Camping that night next to some epic sand dunes the team’s Mongolian fixer Uuggii offers to take me to visit the neighbours. ‘Neighbours’ out here means anyone you can see and they’ll generally be several miles away. This is the least densely populated country on earth and it shows. Driving over I ask how he knows these people. “I don’t,” he tells me, “but in Mongolia everyone is a neighbour. Living here people have to help each other, you’ll see”.
On arrival at the tent or ‘ger’ Uuggi marches past the assembled goats outside and straight in. “If the door isn’t locked there’s no need to knock” he later explains. Inside it’s warm, clean, and the eye-watering smell of goat permeates everything. The family are not at all surprised two blokes and a photographer have just wandered into their lounge.
We’re treated to salty tea which is as bad as it sounds and curd cheese which is worse but it’s humbling these people have almost nothing yet willingly give what they do have to uninvited strangers. I take both gratefully. The tea I manage but the cheese takes my breath away. I slip it into my pocket and give it to a goat on the way out.
The following day we search fruitlessly for lakes to canoe on. They’re on the map, but in reality they’re dried up. “This is what the recce’s for – maps and the internet can tell you a lot, but there’s no substitute for first hand knowledge,” says John as we hit the trail again.
Later that evening sat around the campfire and I’m just setting up to knock together some boil in the bag gourmet, perhaps washed down with a shot or two of the superbly smooth pound-a-bottle local vodka which has found its way into the catering stash, but Uuggii has other ideas and introduces me to a local on horseback. After a lot of gesturing, I understand he’s offering me a ride on his horse. Problem is I’ve never ridden and am pretty certain this is no trainer pony, especially as I’ve just seen it tear over to us from the middle distance at mach three.
But in a land where horses outnumber people six to one and a man isn’t a man unless he can ride a wild horse from birth, I can’t turn this down so as its owner proffers the reins I struggle aboard with what I hope looks like expert skill (I’m told later it looked more like total fear) and try to keep very still to avoid doing anything which may cause the small horse to return to its previous low-flying ground fighter impression. Thankfully it doesn’t and after a chat neither of us understand but which has a lot of smiling and laughing in it, the owner lets me dismount. I can’t find the vodka fast enough.
Three days later my time with the team is at an end and I’m at the tiny Bayanhongor airport where the same small plane that brought me to the Gobi is waiting to take me back to Ulaan Baatar. Crossing the tarmac I turn for one last look at the majestic landscape I’m leaving and realise just how much I’m going to miss this wild and beautiful place.
The Land Rover G4 Challenge
If you fancy a crack at the G4 head to www.landroverg4challenge.com for more details. The application deadline for selection for the UK team is September 30. Successful candidates will move on to an international selection in early '09 with the final successful pairing representing the UK in the three-week event in Mongolia next summer, all expenses paid.
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