Telmen Lake
Mongolia, June – July 2019
Day 12 – 2 Jul: Great White Lake – Telmen Lake
We left the Great White Lake area and crossed over a mountain range down into the extensive plains of western Mongolia, home to some of the world’s largest lakes.
Click any of the photos for full screen view and to scroll through the gallery.
Most Mongolian lakes and water bodies are sacred and fishing is more or less taboo. Nobody lives direct along the lake shores and most of the lakes are therefor rather isolated, so we thought that some of the lakes would be great for camping in the wild. Telmen Lake was perfect.
Shortly after we had setup camp and while scouting the surrounding fields we noticed some animal movement. It turned out to be marmots, which are fairly common on the large plains of Mongolia. Upon closer investigation we noticed something else though and a much more exciting discovery: Corsac foxes! A whole den, with puppies… It took a lot of patience and crawling to get anywhere nearby for some photos, and eventually I set up my camera closer to the den and used my remote trigger.
Camping in the wild on the shore of Lake Telmen was as peaceful as it can get. The nearest village must have been a few hours away and there were only a handful of people living anywhere near the lake. Nobody else in sight, no buildings, no roads, just mother nature. The sunset was nothing short of breathtaking… This is Mongolia at its best!
