A word or two on yaks

A short or long commentary on the Tibetan and Northern Himalayan yak. And my experience the last 2 weeks with them and the people and herders and yak wranglers that live with them. ( wouldn’t that be great to put on a resume….. I worked as a waiter at Applebees, ummmm ,,,,,, I had a paper route for a bit, and O’ ya I’m an accomplished YAK WRANGLER!! If there is such a thing)
Any how, a brief lesson to you all on how and why the yak is so important to the mountain villages and tribes. Because I found it all so amusing. And at some point went from wanting to strangle those hairy little buggers. To practically giving them a big I love you abominable snowman like hug.
First the yak provides a great means of transportation. Not by carrying people though. A yak is far too proud for that, though he or she has no problem carrying everything and I mean everything to anything you can think of. There are no cars, no roads, no streetlights, no telephone lines, or electrical lines, or anything of that sort leading from one village to another. Just good old fashioned muscle and feet or in this case hooves. So it is all carried in by Yak or by sherpa. These little guys (because Nepalese or sherpas are small by nature) carry the most unbelievably immense loads. Sometimes more then 4 times the size of themselves. Which is an odd and funny thing to see but also admirable.
But we are talking about yaks here. Yaks also provide warmth in their wool. Yak wool gloves (which I bought and love,-they also soak up snot well…..I had a bad cold-your hiking… A little snot rocket-Tissue is very expensive, they get you on that one-but the ground is free), Yak hats (a big seller!), Yak blankets ( God bless yak blankets-saved my skinny frozen butt), and a whole assortment of other wool goods they charge 10x the price for, the closer you get to Everest base camp.
Then there are the foods. Awww yes….Yak cheese-hard to stomach at first because it strangely enough has the taste and smell of yak Manure…….only slightly but its there. My lovely sister pointed this out to me on day 2 of 14. Made my meals very enjoyable, I couldn’t thank her enough for that insight. Then there is yak steak,,,,,,Wjich I had. You see ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Yaks don’t laze about, like cows in the states on a nice quilted pasture land. Soft and supple, fat and lazy. Nope, yaks pull, and heft, and tug, and carry till the day they “accidentally” fall off a cliff(because your not supposed to kill a yak, they’re sacred-too close to cows really) So the meat you get is pure mountain muscle. The American Cow is like ….. well it’s like an American, well most Americans. A little to much sofa time watching American Idol or the like. Where as in the yak is like sven the Austrian mountaineer with his jiggly muscles, red suspenders, and stripped tubed socks. As he spends his free time doing cartwheels and handsprings up and down the mountains. So eating a yak steak can be like chewing on a car tire. Just the texture. Not that it tasted like that-God No! It was covered in chili peppers, So I didn’t taste a thing. ……………. For like 5 more hours. But at least I didn’t taste any manure. Which brings me to our final lesson on yaks for tonight. ……….. …….. ……… …… Yak POOP!
Yes yak poop or manure if you feel more comfortable hearing it that way. Well,,,, first off it’s everywhere. And not just the trails either. O’ sure it’s there to. Every tenth step is a step to dodge a yak pie in the middle of the trail. Which is a futile effort when your taking probably 500,000 or more steps in a trek or expedition of such length. So what would the math be on that you ask. How many yak pies am I vainly trying to escape? Well that would be 50,000 yak leftovers. But let me tell you it felt like 100,000. And for some reason they all have a knack for dropping a load at that bottom of the hill. As if they were carrying that heavy load and looked up all those steps, or that hill, or valley, or inevitably mountain. And just thought, O’ SH*#!!!! And let me tell you, when your hiking up to the tallest mountain in the world. Well,,, that’s a lot of ups. Which tells you that’s a lot yak….hmmmmm… leftovers on the trail. But like I said it’s everywhere.
Point in fact. While me and shell were walking through one of the sherpa villages being white western tourists we saw something I have never seen before. But something I very shortly came to appreciate and have a certain fondness for. We walked along watching some of the women in their thirties who looked to be in their fifties, digging for potatoes. And at the same time stopped to lean against a stone fence. Stones cleared from the fields. To watch some sherpa boys with their red sunburned cheeks, play a game of cricket on a field of cold dry dirt (Everything every where is dirt or stone). But anyhow normal day in the sherpa khumbu township. Harvesting, playing……….. you know life! So as we walked, an elderly local gentleman was walking the beat just like us. Bent over from years of carrying this, that, and everything else, from here to there, and a leathery face with so many wrinkles that his eyes and nose seemed to disappear in the folds. A face with a dozen pairs of crows feet on the sides of his eye, but a kind and gentle fellow with years of character and wisdom that I could only stand in awe and admiration of.
As he walked toward us, I saw that in one hand he was thumbing through his Buddhist prayer beads (Kind of like a rosary) and mumblig some prayers I couldn’t understand. But then suddenly, All those wrinkles parted from his face with huge smile of joy. And a grin bearing a tooth or two appeared. And being a smug Idiot, I thought “ It’s me! The tall American kid has brought this old tree a moment of Joy!” But then he stopped in the middle of the dirt road. Shoved his prayer beads in his waist coat pocket. And slowly stooping over scooped up a pile of fresh steaming yak pie as new as the morning. The smile on my face disappeared at the same rate of my eyes turning to the size of plates. And he just kept walking but stopped long enough to hoist it up to me. To show me what a catch, what a prize, what a great pile of yak poop he had just come upon before anyone else could get their hands on it.
Well I scratched my head and thought “ You’re in a different country! Things are different here!” I didn’t understand, but I was willing to live with that. Until I got a little further into town. Now in the sherpa towns there are miles of stone fences. And all the houses, lodges, smoke houses, sheds, outhouses, and the like are also made from stone cleared from the fields and pastures. So we’re talking millions of stones pulled, carried, and placed. And covering most of them are nice circular yak pies (Yak Poop!). Smashed, smushed, hammered, and beat onto these stones to dry out. We came to find out it was a daily chore. Clean your room, dust off the antique collection, do the dishes, and pound yak poop for a few hours. Or just flip them over like flapjacks! To dry the other side. So whole houses are covered in yak poop. And thus I found the last coveted contribution that the yak gives. Yak POOP! Which when dried is used like the American buffaloes poop was by the plains Indians. (Buffalo chips= firewood ….. or firepoop). But in this case yak chips. To keep all those family’s warm on many a cold winter nights. Especially when you live high above the tree line.
And let me tell you there were many a night I was calling, practically begging for more yaks coals to keep my cold little bum warm. That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily ready to pocket a handful yet. But I can appreciate how the Sherpa people live by the yak in every way. Much like the old plains Indians did with the buffalo. So long live the mighty yak. Provider of transportation, clothes, dairy products of (milk, cheese, and such), meat, and yes poop as well! So eat up fella’s I gotta keep warm at night. And speaking of night, it’s long past my bedtime and I’m staying up talking about yak poop! Too many days in the mountains……….