Why Bear Valley Adventures?
Real Adventure
A "tour" with Bear Valley Adventures is a true adventure. You never quite know what is going to happen.
Sometimes, our horse trekkers will have sunshine for most of their trip - at other times, you might have to battle the elements and find out exactly why the locals wear lots of thick furs and heavy felt clothing. (If you have a look at the "About Us" page, you'll see a picture of Rick modelling just how to wear fox fur...)
The local wildlife is another unpredictable factor - you might get the chance to see a wild eagle soaring above the steppes or hear wolves in the distan... or have a fox attempt to raid your food supplies in the middle of the night when you're on a trek!
It's human and horse against the elements, rough, raw and ready - just the way an adventure ought to be.
However, we take safety seriously, and we always do our best to make sure that we have a trained first aid specialist with every tour (and hot showers and real coffee for when you come back to base).
Sustainable Tourism
Bear Valley Adventures is sensitive in the forms of transport we use to get around the steppes.
The last thing we want to do is to destroy the wilderness we love by damaging it through excessive use of technology. Where appropriate, we'll use 4x4 vehicles, keeping to established trails to minimise damage to the local steppe environment.
At other times, we'll use the same sort of sustainable transport that the locals use: the tough little Mongolian horses and camels.
We also work in partnership with the local people, and a lot of the profit made by the tours goes into improving the local community, especially in the areas of health and education, while still preserving and encouraging their traditional nomadic lifestyle and values.