Horseback Trekking, Mongolian-style

International Herald Tribune By Edward Wong I began having second thoughts about riding a horse through northern Mongolia right around the moment I slammed into the tree trunk.

Without warning, my horse had bolted toward it, and I had no idea how to regain control. The impact flung me through the air. I landed hard on the forest floor as my horse scampered into the bush.

Then a crashing sound came from behind - Chuka, the Mongolian guide who had been bringing up the rear of our group of four travelers, had been thrown off his horse too. A short, round man, he picked himself up and shook his head to bring himself back to his senses, or maybe just to blow off the cobwebs of a bad hangover from a vodka binge the previous night.

So even Mongolians get tossed off horses, I thought, somewhat comforted.

It was an inauspicious start to what was to be a three-day horse trek last September in a wilderness area around Khovsgol Lake, a 2,750-square- kilometer, or 1,065-square-mile, patch of pristine blue water that lies just south of the border with Russia in the Siberian plain. My guidebook said it was the deepest lake in Central Asia and the world's 14th-largest source of fresh water. Surrounding the lake are pine forests, subalpine meadows and undulating mountain ranges. It had taken three days of hard driving across bone-jarring roads (and sometimes no roads at all) just to get here from Ulan Bator, the country's capital and only real urban center.

There are few countries in the world where it is as easy to get lost, to be completely drawn away from civilization, as Mongolia. I had planned to spend a month exploring the corners of the desolate land from which Genghis Khan and his kin once rode forth to conquer much of Asia, and which remains one of the world's least populated countries, with many of its people still leading nomadic lives. I was accompanied by my friend Tini and two backpackers we had met in Ulan Bator.

The plan was to rent horses and hire local guides after reaching Khovsgol Lake and strike out toward the Darkhad Depression, a mysterious plain of 300 lakes settled by the Tsaatan people, reindeer herders who still practiced shamanism. The campsite owner there, Ganbaa, suggested taking the horses through a protected forest area called the Khoridol Saridag Nuruu, to the west of the lake. He arranged for horses and two guides to start with us the next morning.

That night, we unrolled our sleeping bags in one of Ganbaa's gers, the round felt tents that Mongolian nomads erect and disassemble as they move their animals from pasture to pasture as seasons change. Mongolia has some of the coldest winters on earth, but people stay warm in these gers, with the help of a central stove, thick blankets and the company of family and friends.

When we met our horses and guides the next morning, we were all relieved to see that the saddles on our horses were leather and not wooden, the kind usually used by the Mongolians.

The horses simply fell in line with one another, not showing much imagination or initiative, and stubbornly refused to obey our efforts to direct them. We were still trying to figure out the proper way to handle them when the first raindrops began to fall. It soon turned into a steady drizzle, and we had to dismount in a clearing to throw plastic covers over our bags. As our guides cinched the bags tight, I noticed a white tepee in a grove of trees.

A tepee in the middle of Mongolia? Then we saw the two large animals tethered to ropes. One was white, the other half-gray and half-white, and both had enormous racks of horns that sprouted from their heads in fantastic shapes. It was the first time I had ever seen reindeer.

A woman in a thick black robe stood at the door of the tepee alongside her husband, who was dressed in a dirty smock. They were Tsaatan, also known as Dukha, the nomadic herders who used reindeer for every necessity in their lives, from milk to the leather that formed the walls of their tents. My guidebook said there were only 200 of them left in northern Mongolia, and only a handful wandered this close to Khovsgol Lake.

We made camp farther up the valley, setting up tents in the cold rain. Chuka boiled soup for dinner. The next morning, we climbed over a low pass and descended through a windswept bog, a wall of mountains in the distance.

On our third and final day, we came across a small Mongolian camp in a green pasture. A smiling, fresh-faced couple invited us into their new ger. They had just married, and for the summer they lived alone in this ger, affording them some privacy, while other family members stayed in a log cabin next door. The wife, Ulaanaa, made fresh mutton dumplings for us, her belly swollen with their first child.

In the coming months, the entire family would move into the ger, finding warmth together. That was the key to survival here in Mongolia - taking refuge in the goodwill of family, friends and even strangers.

As Ulaanaa ladled out steaming bowls of milk tea and dumplings for us, the wind began to howl outside. Winter was not far off.

Edward Wong is a reporter for The New York Times based in Baghdad.