Of all the surprises the Gobi holds, few are as baffling as Yolyn Am. You arrive after crossing a desert that can approach 40 degrees, head into a narrow canyon between mountains, and suddenly, between the shaded rock walls, a river of bluish ice appears, holding out against the summer despite the scorching heat a few kilometres away. It is one of those images that sum up why the Gobi is not the flat, monotonous desert you might imagine, but a world of extreme contrasts: ice and fire, mountain and sand, in the same landscape.
Yolyn Am means 'the gorge of the yol', the lammergeier, which is why it is known as the 'valley of the vultures': high above its walls glide these huge scavengers with a wingspan of almost three metres, along with other vultures and raptors, while ibex — wild goats with long horns — climb the slopes and pikas, little rodents that look like soft toys, peek out from between the rocks. As well as a geological marvel, the canyon is a sanctuary of life in the middle of the desert, protected within Mongolia's largest national park.
This guide covers the essentials of Yolyn Am: when to go to see the ice, how to get there from Dalanzadgad, what the walk through the gorge is like, what wildlife to expect and what to pack for a canyon that, even in high summer, is cool and shady. Just 46 km from the capital of the South Gobi, it is one of the most accessible and rewarding trips in the desert, and the best proof that the Gobi, far from being a void, hides some of the most surprising and beautiful corners of Mongolia.
Yolyn Am is part of Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park, but its protection has older roots: the area was declared a protected area back in the mid-20th century, originally to conserve its rich birdlife — hence its link with the yol, the lammergeier that gives it its name — before its fame shifted to the spectacular ice phenomenon. The canyon opens up in the Zuun Saikhan mountains, one of the three ranges of the Gurvan Saikhan massif ('the three beauties'), a mountainous outcrop that rises above the desert plain of the Gobi and, thanks to its altitude, creates a cooler, more humid microclimate. That microclimate is the key to the marvel: the stream that runs down the gorge freezes over the long winter and, hemmed in between walls that barely get any sun, the ice persists for much of the summer. For the nomadic herders of the Gobi, these mountains have always been a refuge of pasture and water amid the aridity, and the canyon a place full of beauty and life. With the creation of Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park in 1993, after Mongolia's democratic opening, Yolyn Am became part of the country's largest protected area and turned into one of the desert's signature tourist attractions. The natural history of the Gobi is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The great desert of the south, and much more than dunes: steppe, mountains and icy canyons, dinosaur graveyards and the singing dunes of Khongoryn Els, explored by 4x4 and on the back of a Bactrian camel from the town of Dalanzadgad.
Read the history of The Gobi (south) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Picture the Gobi Desert in the middle of July: the sun beating straight down, the gravel shimmering with heat, the thermometer edging towards forty degrees, the horizon wavering in the air. Now picture yourself heading into a canyon between mountains and suddenly, between rock walls in deep shade, finding a river of thick, solid, bluish ice that crunches under your feet. It's no mirage and no trick: this is Yolyn Am, the frozen gorge of the Gobi, one of the most astonishing contrasts in Mongolia's natural world. Ice in the heart of the fire.
The explanation for this marvel is pure geography. Yolyn Am cuts into the Zuun Saikhan mountains, a massif that rises from the desert plain to more than two thousand metres. Up there it's much colder than on the flat desert, and the long, brutal Mongolian winter freezes the stream running along the bottom of the gorge solid, forming a corridor of ice several metres thick. When spring and summer arrive, the ice starts to melt... but not completely. In the deepest, narrowest parts of the canyon, where the walls almost touch and the sun gets in for only a few minutes a day, the ice holds out for much of the summer, shielded by shade and cool air.
That phenomenon, as simple to explain as it is spectacular to experience, is what made Yolyn Am famous. But it would be a mistake to reduce the place to its ice. This gorge is also a sanctuary of life in the middle of the drylands, a refuge of water and cool air where animals and plants gather that could never survive in the open desert. And its story begins not with the ice, but with the birds.
The name Yolyn Am says nothing about ice. 'Yol' is the Mongolian name for the bearded vulture, also known as the lammergeier, one of the largest birds of prey in the world, with a wingspan of almost three metres. 'Am' means gorge, or the mouth of a valley. So Yolyn Am is 'the gorge of the bearded vulture', which is why it's popularly known as the 'valley of the vultures'. The name tells you what first drew attention to this place: not the ice, but its extraordinary wealth of birds of prey.
The bearded vulture is a fascinating and slightly sinister bird: it feeds mainly on bones, which it swallows whole or, if they're too big, drops from the air onto the rocks to smash them open and eat the marrow, a technique that earned it its Spanish name, 'bone-breaker'. It glides majestically over the mountains on thermal currents, and the sheer walls of canyons like Yolyn Am give it the perfect habitat for nesting and hunting. Alongside it fly griffon and cinereous vultures, golden eagles and falcons: the sky over the canyon is a parade of great raptors.
It was this wealth of birdlife that led to the area's first protection, in the mid-20th century, when Mongolia was a socialist republic. A protected area was created with conserving the birds and their habitat as its main goal. Over time, the place's fame shifted towards the more eye-catching phenomenon of the ice, but the heart of Yolyn Am is still its vultures: the same ones that, centuries before any tourist arrived, soared over the gorge and gave it its name in the language of the Gobi herders.
To understand Yolyn Am, you need to understand the mountains that hold it: the Gurvan Saikhan massif, 'the three beauties', three mountain ranges rising above the southern Gobi Desert. In a setting where water and pasture are the most precious and scarcest resources, these mountains have always been a vital refuge. Their altitude traps a bit more moisture than the plain, and in their valleys streams spring up, grass grows and, in summer, flowers carpet the slopes. For the nomadic herders of the Gobi, moving up into the mountains in the warm season has for centuries been a way to find water and fodder when the desert dries out.
So around Yolyn Am and throughout Gurvan Saikhan, the same age-old nomadic life that defines Mongolia has developed, adapted to the extreme conditions of the Gobi. Families raise Bactrian camels, goats — including those prized for their cashmere wool — sheep and a few horses, moving between desert and mountain with the seasons. The herders know every valley, every spring, every pass, and that knowledge, handed down from generation to generation, is what has made human life possible in one of the harshest environments on the planet.
The mountains are also a refuge for wildlife. Besides the vultures, Gurvan Saikhan is home to ibex (wild goats with long horns that climb impossible ledges), argali (the largest wild sheep in the world), pikas among the rocks and, in the highest and most inaccessible areas, the elusive snow leopard, the ghost of Central Asia's mountains. All that life, concentrated in a desert that looks dead, is what makes these mountains — and the Yolyn Am gorge in particular — a natural treasure.
The protection of Yolyn Am is part of a wider story: that of nature conservation in Mongolia, which has surprisingly ancient roots. Mongolians have protected sacred places for centuries — Bogd Khan mountain, near Ulaanbaatar, has been protected since the 18th century, making it one of the oldest protected natural areas in the world — and that tradition, a mix of religious respect and practical sense, was modernised in the 20th century. The Yolyn Am area was declared a protected area in the mid-century, mainly because of its birds.
The big step came in 1993, after the fall of communism and Mongolia's democratic opening, with the creation of Gobi Gurvan Saikhan National Park. It brought Yolyn Am and the mountains of the 'three beauties' into a protected area of enormous size — the largest national park in the country — which, after later extensions, also takes in the Khongoryn Els dunes and vast stretches of desert and mountain. The aim: to conserve the Gobi's unique ecosystems, its extreme wildlife and its landscapes, at a time when the country was opening up to the world and to new pressures.
That protection has been key. The Gobi faces growing threats: climate change, which worsens drought; overgrazing; and above all large-scale mining, which in the South Gobi province — with gigantic projects such as Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi — competes for water and reshapes the land. In that context, having a great national park that shields places like Yolyn Am is essential if the desert is to keep its jewels. The modest admission fee each visitor pays contributes to that conservation.
21st-century Yolyn Am is one of the best-loved and most accessible attractions in the Gobi, and with good reason. Just 46 kilometres from Dalanzadgad, the capital of the South Gobi with its airport, it's easy to reach and is usually the first stop on desert tours: the perfect introduction to the Gobi's unexpected variety. Travellers arrive expecting dunes and dryness and find a cool, shady canyon where the ice holds out through summer, vultures glide above the walls and ibex climb the ledges. It's the best proof that the Gobi isn't the flat, monotonous desert of the popular imagination.
The experience is simple and memorable: you arrive by 4x4 along the track, visit the valley's small natural history museum, and walk into the gorge following the stream, heading between walls that narrow towards the heart of the canyon, with the ice (in season) crunching underfoot and raptors crossing the sky. If you don't want to walk the whole way, you can do it on horseback, like the local herders. There's no big infrastructure and no crowds: just silence, rock, water, ice and wildlife.
Yolyn Am packs into a single place much of what makes the Gobi unique: extreme contrasts, life clinging to scarce water, the unexpected beauty of a desert that hides ice, the astonishing wildlife of a hostile environment. For travellers heading into the great southern desert, the gorge of the vultures is the first hint that the Gobi is going to surprise them again and again. And it's perhaps the image that best sums up Mongolia: a land of extremes, where ice and fire, dryness and life, share the same vast and bewildering landscape. A corner where nature, against all logic, keeps ice in the middle of the desert for anyone curious enough to go looking for it.
