Eight days in the Altai with Kazakh eagle hunters, private access to the Golden Eagle Festival, and domestic flights included.
In the far west of Mongolia, where the Altai mountains hold the border with three countries, Kazakh families still hunt with golden eagles. The birds are taken young, trained over years, and released back to the wild when their working life is done. Fathers teach sons and, increasingly, daughters. The eagle rides on a gloved arm, hooded, until the hunter sees movement on the slope below.
This journey takes you into that world for eight days in October, when the Golden Eagle Festival gathers hunters from across the province and the first snow sits on the high ridges. You fly from Ulaanbaatar to Ulgii, then travel by vehicle and on horseback to stay near an eagle hunter family in the mountains. You ride out with them, watch the birds fly, and share the long evenings in the family home.
The festival itself is loud, dusty and glorious: eagles stooping to the lure, camel races, horseback games. With private access arranged, you watch it from among the hunters rather than behind a rope. Numbers on this journey are kept small, a maximum of eight guests, because a family home and a mountainside are not places for a crowd.
The Golden Eagle Festival is the first weekend of October in Ulgii. We hold flights, the family stay and a private viewing position from June, and we build the days before and after around the hunters themselves, riding out with a bird before the crowds arrive.
A starting point. Every day is rebuilt around your party, your pace and the season you travel in.
Day 1: Ulaanbaatar
Arrive in Ulaanbaatar and transfer to your hotel. An afternoon walk through the city centre and Gandan Monastery if time allows, then dinner and a briefing on the week ahead: the flight west, the riding, the cold, and how to behave around a working eagle.
Day 2: Fly to Ulgii, into the Altai
A morning domestic flight from Ulaanbaatar to Ulgii, capital of Mongolia's Kazakh far west. Drive out of town into the Altai foothills to the autumn camp of an eagle hunter family. Evening by the stove, meeting the household and the birds.
Day 3: First day with the hunters
Ride out with the hunters into the valleys around camp. Watch how the eagle is carried, cast and called back, and how horse, hunter and bird work as one animal. Lunch on the mountainside. Evening meal with the family, with time to ask everything you have wanted to ask.
Day 4: Riding deeper
A longer riding day into the higher country, following the hunters as they work the slopes for fox and hare. October light, early snow on the ridgelines, and the particular silence of the Altai. Return to camp at dusk.
Day 5: Golden Eagle Festival, day one
Drive to the festival grounds outside Ulgii. Hunters arrive in embroidered coats, eagles on their arms, from every corner of the province. Watch the opening parade and the first calling competitions from among the competitors, with your guide translating the judges and the gossip alike.
Day 6: Golden Eagle Festival, day two
The main competition: eagles stooping from the cliff to the gloved fist, horseback games, camel racing, and the awards. Time to walk among the hunters, meet the family's rivals and kin, and photograph properly. Farewell dinner with your hosts.
Day 7: Fly to Ulaanbaatar
Return to Ulgii and fly back to Ulaanbaatar. Afternoon at leisure: the National Museum, a cashmere fitting, or simply a long bath. Farewell dinner in the city.
Day 8: Departure
Private transfer to the airport for your flight home, or stay on: winter in Mongolia is only beginning, and we are glad to extend.
