Tsagaan Suvarga

Tsagaan Suvarga, the white stupa, is an escarpment of sedimentary rock about four hundred metres long and up to sixty metres high, eroded into fins, gullies and pinnacles that from a distance read as a ruined citadel. The rock is banded in white, cream, orange and pink from different sediment layers laid down when this was a sea bed, and fossils and shells are found in it. The face is best seen from the eastern side where it catches the morning sun, and the wall runs away in a curve with the desert floor below. Erosion is active and the shapes change over years. A path descends to the base for the view looking up. There is nothing here beyond a ger camp or two and the escarpment, and it sits on the route between the central provinces and the southern Gobi.

What you actually see

• The banded escarpment - a sixty-metre wall in white, orange and pink.
• Eroded pinnacles - fins and gullies cut into the face.
• The descent path - a route to the base for the upward view.
• Marine sediments - fossil shells in the rock from an ancient sea bed.

When to go

May to September; morning light on the eastern face is the best time and the reason to camp nearby. Summer heat is severe with no shade. Spring winds carry dust.

Honest expectations

The cliff edge is unstable and crumbling; standing close to the lip is dangerous. There is no shade and no water. Tracks in are rough. Facilities are basic ger camps. The site is smaller than photographs suggest and an hour or two at the right light covers it.

Nearby

Mandalgovi is northwest; the southern Gobi and Dalanzadgad lie southwest.