SNAPSHOT: PAMIR MOUNTAINS, AFGHANISTAN

Mountains This picture puts the weekly supermarket shop into perspective: the supplies the yaks are carrying through a high Himalayan pass must last for an entire winter. They will ensure the survival of a group of about 800 Kyrgyz people, whose ancestors settled about 150 years ago on an inhospitable, inhumanly high plateau in Afghanistan. The average height is 4,300 metres above sea level, and nothing grows but grass.

During the summer months, before the white curtain of winter descends and cuts them off completely, they cross the border into Pakistan and go down into the valleys to barter some of their yaks—their most valuable possessions. In exchange they get basic goods such as flour, matches and wood from the local Wakhi people. Yaks are hardy animals, weighing up to 800 kilos and ready to dig under the snow with their hooves to reach the grass. But even they may have nosebleeds as they cross the 4,930-metre pass; horses making the journey have been known to die of altitude sickness. The three-to- five-day trek is particularly testing, with several hazardous river crossings, but all aspects of life are harsh on a barely habitable plateau almost half the height of Everest. It’s tough at the top of the world.

The French photographer Matthieu Paley has made seven journeys to the area. To take pictures such as this one, he had to show a yak-like determination. “You can’t just arrive and go straight up to the pass,” he says. “You have to spend quite a time in the valleys lower down to acclimatise.” And it turns out that yaks can move faster than you might expect. “The difficulty is keeping up with the caravan while carrying a heavy backpack and stopping to take photos.”

~ REBECCA WILLIS

Picture Credit: Matthieu Paley