This isolated and barren landscape is home to Buddhist communities who have lived, farmed and traded here for centuries.
But in the last few years, this peaceful region has been rocked by jealousy, crime and murder.
All this is down to Yarsagumba, the small, fragile, mummified body of the Himalayan bat moth caterpillar that has been invaded by a fungus – and which is famous throughout the Himalayas as a powerful medicine.