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Two founders, one high line

Of These Mountains

El Yak is a Nepali mountain-bike expedition company built by two friends, Mangal Krishna Lama and Pawan Dhakal — joining fifteen years of high-altitude riding, mechanical craft and racing with long-standing community and educational roots in the trans-Himalaya.

2013
Founded in Kathmandu by Mangal Krishna Lama
1,700 km
First solo GHT high-route MTB traverse (2022)
22 passes
Crossed above 5,000 m from Kangchenjunga to Hilsa
2025
Inaugural state Mountain Bike Guide licence cohort (NMA)

“Much of the high line is not rideable at all — where the trail left rideable ground, the bike went across the cols on his back. That honesty is how every El Yak route is built.”

Mangal's line

Mangal Krishna Lama grew up in a farming family in Kakani, on the ridge north of Kathmandu. At fifteen he left school after ninth grade to help support his family in the city, working three months unpaid as an apprentice mechanic in a Thamel bicycle workshop and riding down from Kakani at 4:30 every morning so he could open the shutters at dawn. He taught himself to race before sunrise, borrowed twenty-five thousand rupees from his father and brother to buy his first bike when the workshop owner threatened to fire him for entering a race in Sikkim, and went on to compete in twenty-two national and international races, winning ten titles and standing on the podium of the Yak Attack. Alongside the racing, he spent more than a dozen years guiding riders and film crews — including the Global Cycling Network (GCN) and Swiss riders with Globetrotter — through Annapurna, Manang, Lower and Upper Mustang, Solu, Langtang and the Kathmandu Valley. He founded El Yak Adventures in 2013, and in 2025 became one of the first guides in Nepal licensed through the Nepal Mountain Academy's inaugural government Mountain Bike Guide Training programme. In 2022 he made the first solo mountain-bike traverse of the Great Himalaya Trail high route, from Kangchenjunga Base Camp in the east to Hilsa on the western Tibetan border. It took 88 riding days and roughly 1,700 kilometres across twenty-two passes above 5,000 metres — through Makalu, Everest, Rolwaling, Manaslu, Annapurna, and across the remote caravan passes of Dolpo and Mugu. Where he could not ride, he carried the bike. What he learned on that line goes into every route El Yak runs.

Morning light on the 2022 Great Himalaya Trail solo traverse, with the Garmin inReach satellite tracker on his pack strap.
KANGCHENJUNGAHILSA
22 PASSES ABOVE 5,000 M6,100+ m · AT WEST COL
The record ride · Kangchenjunga → Hilsa · #ghtonwheels →

Pawan's line

Pawan Dhakal grew up in Syangja, in the hills of western Nepal, and studied physics at Dartmouth College and The Ohio State University. In 2016–17 he taught science and computers in village schools in Upper Mustang and Dolpo — including at Crystal Mountain School in Dho Tarap — and has worked on rural education and contextual sciences in those communities ever since through the Himalayan Institute for Contextual Sciences (HICS). After the 2015 earthquake, Pawan and Mangal met on the same volunteer team in Dolakha, building a temporary learning centre. They became close friends on the road. When Pawan returned to Nepal in 2020, they restarted El Yak together, combining Mangal's decades on the trails of Annapurna and Mustang with their shared ties to the high valleys of the trans-Himalaya.

Pawan in the high valleys.

Together

When Mangal set out on the Great Himalaya Trail in April 2022, Pawan helped plan the high-route logistics and held the satellite emergency line for all 88 days he was in the mountains. Every Signature Tour and GHT chapter on this site is built the same way: led in the field by the rider who crossed the country solo, and planned directly with the villages, lodges and crews along the line. We run El Yak deliberately small: fair pay and mountain equipment for every mechanic, porter and driver on the crew, routes planned with the communities we pass through, and unhurried days in the saddle for riders who come for the mountains as they actually are.

Mangal points out the line to a rider.
High on the Great Himalaya Trail during the 88-day solo crossing of Nepal.

The Line to Here

  1. 2005–08

    Thamel Workshop to Sikkim Podiums

    Leaving school in Kakani at fifteen, Mangal apprentices in a Thamel bike workshop, commutes at 4:30 am to train before dawn, and wins both Singles and Team titles at the 2008 Kanchenjunga MTB Expedition.

  2. 2009–12

    The Yak Attack & International Guiding

    Podium finishes at the Yak Attack around Annapurna lead to over a decade guiding riders across Manang, Mustang, Solu and Langtang, and racing in Davos Klosters with Swiss partner Globetrotter.

  3. 2013–15

    Founding El Yak & Meeting in Dolakha

    Mangal founds El Yak Adventures in 2013. After the 2015 earthquake halts tourism, Mangal and Pawan meet on the same volunteer team building a temporary learning centre in Dolakha.

  4. 2016–20

    Village Schools in Mustang & Dolpo

    Pawan teaches science and computing in village schools in Upper Mustang and Dho Tarap (Upper Dolpo) before studying physics in the United States and returning home in 2020 to restart El Yak with Mangal.

  5. 2022

    #ghtonwheels — 88 Days Across Nepal

    From 1 April to 16 July 2022, Mangal completes the first solo mountain-bike traverse of the Great Himalaya Trail high route from Kangchenjunga Base Camp to Hilsa, while Pawan holds the route and satellite emergency desk.

  6. 2025

    First Official State MTB Guide Licence

    Mangal completes Nepal Mountain Academy's first government-certified Mountain Bike Guide Training programme under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation.

The signature tours are where that record becomes a route you can ride.

The signature tours →

Elsewhere