Sacred Mountains of Mongolia

I am honoured to be the first to describe this tentative WHS site. No wonder, though, because if it ever makes it to the list, it will surely be one of the toughest and most laborious to tick off in its entirety: Mongolia is huge and extremely sparse, and each of these peaks easily requires days of travel hiring local drivers to go there, and travelling is never an easy nor a fast task in Mongolia.

I realised to have been lucky enough to ascend one of these "dear ones", as many mountains are euphemistically called (traditionally, out of respect you should not utter the names of mountais or passes, especially difficult ones, when you are near them, so as not to attract misfortunes), namely the Khan Bayanzürkh (Хан баянзүрх xайрхан) mountain back in August 2018. The name more or less means "King Rich-Heart", and one of its symbols is a crown. On the same journey, I also should have seen from afar the imposing (4021m) and snow-capped Otgontengger (Отгонтэнгэр, "youngest son sky") in the north-western mountainous region of Zavkhan (Завхан), consecrated to the wrathful deity Ochirvaan' (Очирваань, better known as Vajrapāṇi), and one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the country. So my recount and considerations will be mainly based on the former. Just as a comment, the Otgontengger itself is not accessible because of its sacredness, and this might apply to other Mountains of this TWHS too.

Khan Bayanzürkh lies in the south-east, in …