Responsibility
Porter load limits, insured wages, local hiring, and where the money from a trek actually ends up.
6 sections
In Nepal, the answer is almost always the porter. Trekking is a labour business before it is anything else, and the easiest way for an operator to undercut a competitor's price is to pay the person carrying the bag less, insure them for less, or give them a heavier load. That is the single decision that separates operators in this country, and it is invisible from a price list.
Our position is that staff costs are not the variable we compete on. Guide and porter wages, their insurance, and their equipment sit inside the trek price rather than being pushed onto the individual or onto your tips. This page sets out what that means in practice.
| Commitment | What it means |
|---|---|
| Load limits | Porter loads are capped, and a porter carries for two trekkers rather than an open-ended pile |
| Insured wages | Wages follow TAAN recommended rates, and insurance is arranged and paid by us |
| Equipment | Cold-weather clothing and footwear for high routes are provided, not deducted from pay |
| Shelter and food | Accommodation and meals on the trail are covered for every staff member |
| Evacuation | Staff are covered for evacuation on the same terms as clients |
Tips are a bonus for good work, not a wage subsidy. If tipping disappeared tomorrow, nobody on our staff would be underpaid, which is the test we think the arrangement should meet. The sustainability page covers the load and welfare standards in more operational detail.
We are a Nepali company, registered in Kathmandu, staffed by Nepali guides, using Nepali-owned teahouses and Nepali domestic carriers. The money a trip generates largely stays in the country rather than being routed to a foreign parent company.
On the trail, that means we use community teahouses rather than building our own lodges to compete with them. Above the roadhead, a lodge is a family business, and a route full of trekkers who sleep and eat locally supports a village in a way that a self-contained camp does not. Where a route has a choice of lodges, our guides use the same ones repeatedly, because a predictable annual income is worth more to a lodge family than a one-off booking.
Guides are hired from the regions they work in wherever the licensing allows it, because a guide from the Khumbu knows the Khumbu in a way a guide sent up from Kathmandu does not. That local knowledge is also what makes the content on this site worth reading, so the hiring policy and the editorial policy point in the same direction.
Porters are hired directly rather than through a labour broker, so we know what they are paid and there is no intermediary taking a share. Every member of staff on a departure is on our books, not subcontracted anonymously.
Three things, none of them expensive:
If you want to do more, the most useful thing is usually to book a longer route in a quieter region during a quieter season. Off-peak departures in Langtang, Manaslu, and the far west spread income across the year and across the country, rather than concentrating it in six weeks on two trails.
We do not run a foundation, fund a school, or operate a charitable programme, and we are not going to invent one for a web page. What we do is employ people properly, pay for their insurance and equipment, keep the money in the local economy, and tell you honestly what your trip does and does not support.
If a claim about community impact appears on this site in future, it will name the project, the amount, and the year, or it will not appear at all. The same standard applies here as to the permit fees and cost ranges elsewhere on this site.