Mongolia Eagle Hunter Expedition

Overview

In the Altai Mountains of far western Mongolia, a handful of Kazakh families still practice berkutchi — the art of hunting with trained golden eagles. The eagles, taken as fledglings and trained over years, are used to hunt foxes and sometimes wolves across the winter steppe. Spending ten days following these families into the Altai backcountry is an encounter with one of the last truly pre-modern hunting cultures still practiced at any scale on earth. The expedition runs from Ulgii, Mongolia's westernmost city, into the Altai range with a small group of berkutchi families during the October-November hunting season. You travel by Russian 4WD UAZ van to the winter camps, then on horseback through the river valleys and across the high ridges where the hunters release their eagles from horseback at altitude, watching them stoop in 300 km/h dives onto prey below. This is not a performance for tourists. The families hunt to supplement their income and feed their animals. The eagles weigh 5–7kg, stand 90cm tall, and have a wingspan of over two metres. You will be close enough to see the yellow eye. On hunting days the cold is brutal — October in the Altai regularly reaches -25°C — but the landscape compensates: snow-dusted steppe, larch forests in autumn colour, the Altai peaks reflecting in frozen river bends. The Golden Eagle Festival in early October brings berkutchi families to Ulgii for competition riding and eagle demonstrations. The ten days following the festival then travel into the backcountry to see real hunting in real terrain. No festival performance is a substitute for the genuine article.

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