Yolyn Am or Eagle valley is a deep and narrow gorge in the Gurvan Saikhan Mountains of southern Mongolia, near town Dalanzadgad in Gobi Desert; Shutterstock ID 1246836706; your: Sloane Tucker; gl: 65050; netsuite: Online Editorial; full: POI
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Yolyn Am Gorge

Top choice in The Gobi


A pleasant 2km path leads from the parking area to this gorge filled with blue ice, one of the park's can't-miss sights. You can hike, bike or hire a horse and ride here. Along the way, you'll see herds of shaggy yaks and, if you're lucky, an ibex. You'll have to dismount your horse or mountain bike near where vendors gather to sell handicrafts in order to walk far enough for photo ops of the stunning glacier.

Make sure to look out for white etchings on the rock walls – markings from ibex hooves scraping the face as they climb, like a four-legged Alex Honold, to the ridge above. If you fancy a full day hike, an experienced driver can pick you up on the other side of the gorge, roughly 8km away, but be careful, the footing is quite slippery in places. The surrounding hills also offer opportunities for some fine, if strenuous, day hikes where more ibexes and argali sheep roam the ridge line. A bit of history: it's said that Russian military units once used the gorge as a butchery and a kind of walk-in freezer where their meat would remain preserved from autumn until the summertime.