The year is 2012—time to get working on that end-of-the-world bucket list. Dog sledding in Mongolia is a good place to start.

Mongolia in winter is a massive deep freeze―probably the closest you will ever get to Antarctica. Nighttime temps dip down to -40 degrees Celsius. It’s a dry cold, but that hardly matters when the sharpest coldest wind you’ve ever felt slices right through all of your technologically sophisticated winter garments. Pure wool―layers and layers of it―is the only way to keep yourself from freezing into a solid block on the Mongolian plateau. Hopefully when you finish your dog sled trip you’ll leave with your nose, toes and earlobes intact. Some people don’t.

Are You Crazy?

There are rewards for this kind of insane adventure trekking. Those who’ve done it speak in reverential tones of the isolation, the silence, the natural beauty and the friendliness of the nomads you meet along the way. They also gush about the unique relationship you develop with the huskies who pull the sleds. Dog sleds used to be the only way to cross the earth’s great white voids. Doing it puts you in touch with something deep, primordial and powerful.

How to Do It

There are a number of reputable companies which do dog sled trips, everything from four-day quickies to nine-day epics. Nomads and Panoramic Journeys have built good reputations running trips to Mongolia for the last decade (essential when you’re dealing with a place with limited tourism infrastructure and facing a journey which has some life-or-death element to it). We also recommend Wind of Mongolia, the tour operator founded by Frenchman Joel Rauzy who kicked off Mongolian dog sled orienteering with a monumental trip around Lake Khovsgol in 2009.

The Trek

Most dog sled trips take place in and around the Gorkhi-Terelj National Park, a mere 40 kilometers from Ulan Bataar by paved road. This is where the Tuul River flows through scenery of rolling hills, pine forests and huge chunks of granite (such as famed Turtle Rock). Of course, in winter it’s completely frozen over with ice which can change color from sky blue to deep black depending on the time of day.

What to Expect

On a typical dog sled trip, you cover 20-30 kilometers a day, overnighting in stove-heated felt yurts along the way. The sleds are pulled by packs of huskies and can achieve speeds up to 10 kilometers per hour. And that’s where you can lose fingers and toes if you’re not careful. But if you wrap up tight, and make plenty of hot water pit stops, you’re the master of the frozen plain, mushing with the best of them under that incomparable, endless blue sky Mongolia is famous for.

Nomads has trips running almost every week in January through March in both Gorkhi-Terelj and Lake Khovsgol. Their April 18 departure looks especially cool, taking nine days to cross Lake Khovsgol (US$2,144 per person, excludes transport to and from Ulan Batar).

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