Yak Week, Part 2

Welcome back to Yak Week. For your viewing pleasure, please find above another picture of a yak.

Yak trains are something of a fixture on the walking trails of the Everest region. We saw plenty of people carrying heavy loads up the mountains on their backs (about which more later), but clearly those who can are wise to let their yak do the carrying. We regularly passed packs of yaks on the trail, usually in groups of five or so, carrying bags of produce or gear for Everest expeditions. The yaks range from well-shorn to quite wooly, with above examples staking out a sensible middle ground.

Among the more unique souvenirs available at all variety of small shops along the trail were yak bells, which are usually a lot like cow bells, except: you know, for yaks. Upon deciding that acquiring an attractive yak bell on the door would be a prudent anti-theft device for some theoretical future home, we became obsessed with getting a suitable-for-framing picture of the sincerest yak with bell that we could. So we wound up with a lot of yak pictures, and our guide probably thought we were a little crazy for so thoroughly documenting the yak population. This turned out to be a pretty darn sincere yak, whether despite or because of the North Face duffel bag.