Bumthang Yak Herding and Highland Pasture Trek
Trek to the high summer pastures above Bumthang where yak herding families move their animals for the short mountain summer — a landscape of alpine meadows, glacial streams, and the traditional black yak-hair tents of semi-nomadic pastoralists who maintain a way of life unchanged for centuries.
- 1
Bumthang Valley Trail Start
Begin the trek from the valley floor, climbing steeply through blue pine forest as the farmland and dzong fall away below and the trail enters the mountain zone above agricultural settlement.
- 2
Rhododendron and Juniper Forest
Pass through dense rhododendron and juniper forest at mid-elevation, where Himalayan blood pheasants forage in the undergrowth and the high altitude makes breathing noticeably harder with each ascending step.
- 3
Alpine Meadow Transition
Emerge from the treeline onto open alpine meadows where the landscape suddenly opens — wide, grassy slopes dotted with wildflowers, the valley entirely invisible below, and the sky enormously present overhead.
- 4
Yak Herding Camp
Reach the summer yak camp where herding families have erected traditional black yak-hair tents, the yaks grazing nearby on the short alpine grass that appears only for the few summer months above 4,000 meters.
- 5
High Pasture Summit View
Climb to the ridge above the camp for a panoramic view spanning multiple valleys — the Bumthang landscape stretching below in one direction, unnamed high peaks in another, and the vast emptiness of the high plateau to the north.
- 6
Yak Cheese Making Demonstration
Watch the herding family make fresh yak cheese from the morning's milk — churning the butter in a traditional wooden cylinder, separating the curds, and pressing the fresh cheese into rounds to dry in the mountain air.