Don Nelson has learned that yaks are not particularly nice animals, but they certainly make trekking through one of the world’s most intimidating mountain ranges a more comfortable experience.

As a Himalayan travel guide, Nelson, 65, relies on the animals and their drivers to create a hiking expedition for his clients that is rugged but civilized at the same time.

“It’s really pleasant,” he said. “We have a guide to make sure we go to the right place, the yak drivers take care of the gear, they cook, there is tea ready by the time you get to camp and the tents are set up.”

Nelson was born and raised in Whitefish, and was co-owner of Nelson’s Ace Hardware for nearly 30 years. He’s forged a very different career for himself during the latter part of his working life, leading tours in Nepal, Sikkim (an Indian state bordering Nepal), Tibet, Bhutan and Burma. Since his first trip to the region in 1997 in the company of a friend, Nelson has been back 26 times.

It’s usually a 32-hour journey, which includes 26 hours of flight time. A typical trip sees him flying out of the Flathead Valley to San Francisco or Los Angeles, then often to Bangkok, and from there to Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.

He has an apartment in Kathmandu where he stores his trekking gear, and he has established numerous professional relationships and friendships with Nepalese guides.

His organized tours, which began informally when he first took a few friends back to the area, have progressed from traditional trekking expeditions into something more cultural and spiritual.

“I’ve come to love and be involved more with the people,” Nelson said.

A Buddhist organization in California helps organize some of the trips, which might involve stays in locals’ homes and monasteries, or take place partly in the company of Tibetan monks.

“My trips are generally to introduce the people and the culture that we visit,” he said. “I do this by immersing our group into the place, and hopefully into the spirit of the place.

“The Dalai Lama says that we can’t go to a place like Tibet and not understand that the place is a Buddhist place.”

The spiritual nature of the culture, plus the diversity — Nepal alone has 26 different cultural groups and 17 different languages — make the region intriguing. The natural environment is stunning, he said — “like taking Glacier Park and multiplying by three, that’s the kind of vertical relief there is in the Himalayas.”

His connection to the people is the most meaningful draw, he said. Though he has trouble retaining his limited Nepali and Tibetan language skills, he has still made a host of friends traveling with local guides and interpreters.

To offset some of the costs when he first began traveling to the Himalayan region, Nelson imported Tibetan carpets and jewelry and sold the items throughout the valley, mostly on a consignment basis. In 2008, though, sales “took a dive,” Nelson said. He still has roughly 100 high-quality, handloomed Tibetan carpets stored.

Nelson’s venture into importing was a natural fit, as he has a great deal of retail experience, as well as fond memories from his decades as co-owner of Nelson’s Hardware. He sold his share of the store in 2005 because he said it was “time for a change in my life.”

“I loved the hardware business and had a wonderful career with my brother,” he said.

Nelson has made it a priority to give back to Whitefish as more than just a businessman, serving on the Whitefish City Council for four years and working on other civic projects.

His forays to the other side of the world have only increased his love of home.

“Whitefish remains the best place in the world as far as I’m concerned. I love to come back here, and I love to travel. The ability to compare to what we have here is invaluable.”

Nelson had started his life as a traveler earlier than his first Nepal trip in 1997, taking in a great deal of Europe in his six years as a Naval officer in the 1970s.

His own children followed their father’s lead and started traveling as young adults. His daughter, Jennifer Golan, a graphic designer in Columbia Falls, and son, Chris Nelson, who is an engineer with River Design Group in Whitefish, have traveled extensively in Nepal and Tibet and each spent time living abroad.

But his grandson Noah has started to see the world much earlier, taking a trip to Nepal with Nelson at age 7.

“It’s a wonderful experience for relatively small children,” Nelson said.

Nelson said traveling with a guide such as himself can give travelers great peace of mind.

During his July 2012 six-week Oxford University Anthropological Research expedition (see sidebar), for example, Nelson said he spent five weeks above 15,000 feet of altitude.

“I’m an expert on altitude sickness,” he said. “Almost all altitude sickness is brought on by improper climatization. If you treat the altitude with respect, you’re not going to have trouble with it.”

Nelson’s guided treks, of which he’ll take two or three a year, average three weeks. After one trip in which he ended up with 24 travelers, he’s limited his expeditions to a dozen, though usually the group averages seven to eight people.

The usual itinerary starts off with the two-day commute to Kathmandu followed by a two-day rest period, then about two weeks of “moving along” the vast landscape.

Nelson is also a semiprofessional photographer, and provides a photo book of the trip with high-quality images to each of his clients. His last personal trip was to India, where he served as a still photographer to a film crew documenting the world’s biggest Buddhist monk convention.

For more information on Going to the Sun Trekking & Trading, visit www.goingtothesun.net