Tuva Day 5- Western Sayan mountains

There were two highlights to this trip, the people and the scenery. On our last day we left Ak Dovurak to drive back to Abakan. Since we were already in the west of Tuva we took the road less traveled, through the Sayan Mountains. Between Ak Dovurak and Abaza in the south of Khakassia there is very little population. The scant population is near both ends of the road. In the middle, there is nothing. There used to be a couple of outposts, but they are gone now. The road is 250 kms long. This might not sound far, but the road is windy and snowy. It takes about 4 hours to drive. But of course we took plenty of photo stops, so it took us 5.
There are only a few times that I have felt like I was at the end of the world. The first was on the Dempster Highway in the Yukon, Canada. The second was driving through outback Tuva last Summer and the third was our trip through the Sayan mountains.
Apparently, the yurts do pop out on the hills in the Summer time. But it's even quieter in the Winter. It was still -40 when we began the journey. Through out the whole day we only saw 6 trucks, no cars. But Jim has a good four wheel drive. The road was paved a lot of the way though. When it was gravel it was wide and good quality.

Tom has a panorama setting on his camera, but the batteries ran out, so we only got a few shots in. These two show the start of the mountains, once again quite stark, the geographic boundary between central Asia and Siberia. The second photo shows the asbestos mine in the far right.



The road into the mountains begins. It is quite rocky. We were really out in the middle of nowhere.


A short way in to the trip, Tim told Jim to stop the car. We all jumped out, Tim with his tv camera in hand, and we began snapping away.

What a photo op. This has to be one of the most exotic things my eyes have seen thus far in my short life. A herder taking his cattle through the Sayan mountains at -40. Wow.

As if that was not exotic enough, a little further down the road came another surprise. Two mean carrying sticks on the their backs in the middle of nowhere. What were they doing?

These men were on their way to an outpost where a tourist retreat is being built. In reality it is still close to the Ak Dovurak end of the road. They are watchmen hired to keep the fires going.




The last check point on the road before we reached Abaza.


One of the places where Shamanist people pay homage to the spirits for protection on their trip. As we were traveling with the protection of the God of the universe, we had a look and moved on. The view itself was far more impressive and a reminder of the greatness of the Creator.


The weather had already warmed up to -25, so I didn't bother putting on my coat every time I got out of the car.


The mountains on the Tuvan side of the pass are quite rocky.



One of the very few signs of life we saw. (We didn't actually see any wild life.)


The border between Tuva and Khakassia. This was the old border between the Chinese and Russian empires. Why would two armies bother crossing such a mountain range? The pass is at 2206 metres. For a comparison, the Coquihalla pass in British Columbia is 1244 metres and Mt Kosciuszko in Australia is 2228 metres high.
Don't worry by the sight of the bonnet/ hood going up. Tom and Jim were just performing some preventative mechanics. The turboline had melted because it was installed wrong. They reattached the hose and then we had more power in the diesel 4WD.


Once we passed into the Khakas side of the Sayan range the landscape changed quite dramatically to be covered in forest. It's a strange phenomena that the landscape changes so dramatically at the borders of two cultures.



We arrived to visit Wolfgang and his family in Tashtyp at 3:30pm. We spent a couple hours there before leaving for our train in Abakan which left at 8pm. It was a rare chance to see one of the most beautiful roads in the world.