We flew into Hovd, on the west side of Mongolia, then we drove for 8 hours and made it into camp in the pitch black, got a few hours of sleep then headed out yesterday for our first day of hunting. Yesterday we did a lot of driving and circling around the mountain range out here. It's rough, huge, monstrous country with beautiful green from all the rain. The mountains are all green until you get near the top where it's all rocks and snow now. Lots of rolling mountains and a lot of these places can be reached by vehicle. We circled the entire mountain to glass and saw two wolves, 20 ewes and lambs, but no rams. 

I was so jet lagged and tired, some of the worst jet lag that I've ever had, so I was nodding off the whole time. We got in at about 6pm yesterday, had dinner and just crashed. Now it's 2am, I'm standing outside and it's been raining most of the night and it's been cloudy, so we'll see what happens once morning arrives. They plan to get up at 3am to get the horses ready, which we'll be using for the rest of the day. 

So far, everything here is excellent though. I shot my Thompson Center Encore off a few times yesterday and it's shooting perfectly now. It was shooting a little bit high because we're up at 8000ft elevation, and my body can also tell this is the first serious, high altitude hunt of the year because I am hurting bad already and I can tell it's going to get worse. 

We're living like kings in a little gur, it's circular like a yurt. Matty and I have our own gur and we're using Yak poo for firewood to keep it warm in there. It's definitely cold up here and windy and frosty, but we've got our fingers crossed that we're going to find a High Altai argali. Last year we failed, so this year we're back to try again. 

Two days later… 

Standing outside at about 4am, I can see all the stars above the Mongolian sky. I can see the Big Dipper and the North Star so I know which way home is. It's going to be a beautiful, hot day today. 

Yesterday was a long day. We went out on the horses, which are actually tiny, tiny, tiny Mongolian ponies with hard, hard saddles. It's pretty brutal and we're getting pounded by these little things all day long. We saw two wolves, no sheep at all and saw some ibex in the far distance. We found some wild mushrooms so we had those for dinner and they were excellent. The wildflowers are pretty grazed-off around here from the sheep and goat herds but I counted 13 different species of wildflowers, but they're all really low down to the ground from the grazing. 

It's big, huge country around here. It's rocky, but you can get around pretty good by vehicle and by horseback you can get just about anywhere, even up on the tops of the mountains which are all rounded off, ancient, old hills. But anyways, not too many sheep so far but we're working on it. Back to my gur to warm up before we head out again today.