Why Himalayan Glacier?

Expert consultants guide you from day one on your physical and mental preparation. Based on your experience and fitness, they will assist with what to choose and recommend the best for you. Our travel experts provide even the smallest piece of information regarding the trip that leads to success. We have detailed information on each program as we understand that you may have lots of questions on travel dates, whether the full itinerary can fit in your work-off period or we need to customize the itinerary to suit your travel time, etc. Please remember we are always here to help you and answer any questions you may have. Our patrons choose us because of our unparalleled customer service, being a family-owned business. We care about each and every individual’s preference and make sure you are fully informed in detail before making a decision.

We craft all trekking and climbing itineraries with utmost care to allow sufficient acclimatization, which many companies fail to do. Without proper time for acclimatization trekkers can become ill if they are not used to the high altitudes. We wouldn’t have succeeded without focusing on itineraries designed to deal with acclimatizing for Everest Base Camp trek and many more. This is the main reason why we have the highest Everest Base Camp summit success, which is 98%. Can you believe it? Himalayan Glacier specializes in all the trekking and climbing tours in Everest, Annapurna, Bhutan, Tibet, and Kilimanjaro.

Traveling is to discover new places, meet different peoples, and experience local culture and taste new foods. Usually, many operators take you to the more touristic places, but all our itineraries are prepared to provide you the experiential tours. Our local guides will take you to the hidden markets where locals buy their needs and take you off the touristic places for you to have an authentic experience. We offer a wide range of tours all the way from South Asia and Mongolia to Africa and many more are yet to be announced as we embark on this journey of bringing people to their happy place.

When you are visiting remote places, things can be unpredictable and situations can change quickly. It is important to have a guide who can read those situations, communicate with you and take actions bearing your safety in mind. Our technically proficient government-certified local guides who are Wilderness First Aid (WFA) trained will safeguard you from all possible threats on a trip. Their well-informed instructions keep you moving forward to face every challenge and have a safe and successful trip. All our trekking & climbing guides are extremely experienced and knowledgeable, certified guides from the local government. Each of them has been to Everest Base Camp over 30 times. All our adventure guides are fluent in English and can explain to you about mountains, culture, and history of the destination you are visiting. Communication is very important while on the trek or tour. Yet, many cheap operators deploy inexperienced guides to lead the trek causing miscommunication and failure of the trek leaving you with a terrible experience. You can avoid the awful experience when you have a well-informed and a highly experienced guide along with you.

All Himalayan Glacier’s cultural, romantic & leisure experiences are guided by local government-certified guides in each destination. We do not use only one guide for a multi-country trip to cut down costs, but rather give you the maximum of local experiences. We have been getting positive feedbacks from our experiences in the past and we are continuing this further. It is quite obvious that a Myanmar local guide knows more about the local experiences and history than the guide from the US. Also, being a responsible company, we are more inclined to support local people and their income that will establish sustainable tourism. Because once the locals understand about the benefits from tourism, then they start becoming responsible towards protecting the environment and its conservation. This is why Himalayan Glacier is totally different from other luxury and expensive operators.

Trekking and climbing in the mountains is an enormous challenge and also risky without qualified and sufficient support team members. Being the #1 climbing service company, we have a lead guide, a support guide and a porter for every two members climb. If the members increase, the main lead guide will remain the same, but the assistant guides & porters will be increased accordingly. Let’s say if there are 4 people on the trek, you will have 1 lead guide, 2 assistant guides and 2 porters for your trip. In the event of anybody getting sick or injured, one assistant guide and one porter will stay behind with the affected person while the rest of the hikers will continue so that it doesn’t affect other members. Some cheap operators, as a way of cutting down costs, do not allocate sufficient crew members resulting in a trip failure. This applies to both treks and climbs in the Himalayas as well as Kilimanjaro. But in Kilimanjaro and some other bigger expeditions, we will have more porters because on these expeditions we need to carry lots of logistical equipment and gears. Usually, on culture & leisure tours, there will be one lead tour guide, driver and assistant guide each for the larger group.

Hiking is not just walking to cover up a certain distance set for the day. Trekkers wish to spend time around on the trails, take pictures of fascinating sceneries, and breathe in a sense of the fauna and flora species. Walk at your own pace – there is no time set to reach the day’s lodge. Rest when you are tired, take pictures at fascinating places. We don’t push slow walkers to go faster than their normal speed!

Experience and certification are two different values. What does certification on climb and trek mean? There are lots of mountain guides who possess only certification and work for cheap operators, but Himalayan Glacier guides are highly experienced and knowledgeable because they have started their careers as porters and finally becoming full-fledged government certified guides. Himalayan Glacier guides are Wilderness First Aids (WFA) trained leaders possessing proven safety records and are competent in all WFA operations with expertise in personal protection equipment.

With several years of practical experience & knowledge in the mountains, Himalayan Glacier guides are highly professional and experienced to lead climbs and treks such as the Everest Base Camp Trek, Annapurna Base Camp Trek, Annapurna Circle Trek, Manaslu Trek, Everest Three Pass Trek, Everest Base Camp Climb via Gokyo & Cho La Pass, Island Peak Climb, Mera Peak Climb, Bhutan Trek, Ladakh Trek, Tibet Trek, Kilimanjaro Climb, etc. They are technically proficient for safe, enjoyable and successful climbs.

The right number of trekking guides and porters ensures the highest standard of safety and well-being, as well as record success in a group of travelers. We do not fail to allocate sufficient number of leaders, guides, assistants, and porters to facilitate smooth operations. The staff ratio on Himalayan Glacier Lodge to Lodge Trek, not applicable for Kilimanjaro climb and other extreme expeditions is:
2 trekkers – I lead guide, 1 assistant guide, and 1 porter
4 trekkers – 1 lead guide, 2 assistant guides, and 2 porters

Communication is a vital element where there is limited road access and other facilities in the remote mountain regions. Our guides are equipped with cell phones and satellite phones during trekking and peak-climbing. They stay connected with the department of operations at the Kathmandu office with everyday updates. This will allow the office to track the real-time situation whether clients are doing well or if there is any difficulty in a member’s health. Regular communication between the guides and the office helps to make the right decision on trying time in case of emergency. Also, Himalayan Glacier operational team contacts the clients regularly to know about their real feelings and experiences in the mountains. By doing so, we get to know more about the comfort of lodging, and whether they are enjoying their food, or if they are facing any difficulties, or anything about the staff.

“First Safety then Adventure.” There are no medical facilities along the trekking trails and in case of injury, severe altitude sickness, or natural disaster, there is no other alternative other than air ambulance to bring you back to the city for advanced treatment. Himalayan Glacier has a good partnership with helicopter companies for your immediate rescue during these conditions.

Change your itinerary or the travel date or even your travel destination, we do not levy you any form of cancellation fee unless otherwise stated under our booking Terms & Conditions, but we will keep your money as lifetime DEPOSIT for future trips.

In case of cancellation or inability to make it in the current year or even in the next few years, you can easily pass on your booked trip (deposit or full amount) to your friends, family or relatives as per your will, unless stated otherwise. If things don’t turn up right and you need to reschedule your travel date to a later time, you can keep your deposit for a lifetime. Usually other operators do not allow you this privilege; they either charge a minimum of 25-40 % of the trip cost, or if you cancel before a month, you lose all the payment.

If it happens that you need to cancel or delay your trip for any reason, your deposit will remain safe and valid until you plan for a future trip.

Our guide and support team are trained as much as possible to minimize the impacts through our activities. We also advise travelers to minimize carbon footprints, reduce air travel, use minimum water as possible, discourage plastic packaging, bring back the non-bio-degradable waste with them, and not to use plastic bottles for drinking water. We encourage using boiled or purified water for drinking and not to disturb the wildlife while traveling. We work together with our team, local people and local lodge owners “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints”! “SAVE THE MOUNTAIN FOR FUTURE GENERATION”

Local Staffs: We do our best to support the local communities by employing local people for the local offices and field guides. Even in the mountains, their aspirations are diverse and we try to help those people get the support they need to achieve their dreams:

Support Children’s Education: We support local communities where we are traveling. We must give something back to the people. In 2002, our founder started a non-profit and a non-governmental organization named Child Environment Nepal (www.cennepal.org.np) to work for supporting the mountain children’s education. We supported hundreds of children’s school education, built more than 5 schools, and provided electricity where students had been using kerosene lamps. We also helped with students’ health and sanitation especially for the poor and the under-privileged.

We encourage hikers to volunteer in building schools and teach English language, music or sports as public schools have neither good English teachers nor music and sports facilities. Please join with us to make a difference. Your small help of penny, participation, and support will also encourage us to keep continuing with our projects.

Ultimately, a job is required to sustain a livelihood and everyone in this world deserves a fair pay for their contributions. Himalayan Glacier is one of the very few operators protecting porter rights and offering fair wages without any discrimination as we know they are the ones carrying the major portion of the merchandise required during the climb. They are the strong foundation and backbones of the company and they always deserve the best while working with us again and again, each time with a great smile.

The load to the porter at Himalayan Glacier is always made sure to fit the porter. There is a strong guideline to all our guides and crew, as well as to our clients regarding the limit of the weight in the mountain that goes towards the porters. There is always an option of adding another porter if you have extra gear like cameras, tripods, etc. Even if you do not want to carry your day pack, we can arrange that accordingly, but we will never overload the porters to cut down costs. This is why we have a limit on the duffel bag weights for each client to 15 kg / 33 lbs and the porter will be carrying two-person’s bags with a total weight of 30 kgs / 66 lbs. But, sadly cheap operators compel their porters to carry up to 45 kg / 99 lbs and in some cases even more, to save money. We continue to lead by example to ensure that our unsung heroes are not forgotten.

A lot of operators try to keep the porters out of your sight to avoid questions like how much are they carrying, where they sleep, and what they eat. Himalayan Glacier’s guides always make sure that the entire crew is eating and sleeping well. If they don’t have enough food, they will become weak in the mountains as they are carrying most of your load on the trek. Food in the mountain is relatively expensive and porters want to save money eating less. This is why we allocate enough budget to them to make sure that they eat enough as well as save money for their families.

As you know, the condition while trekking in the high mountains is windy and cold. So, do the porters have a good shelter for sleeping? Do they have beds and blankets warm enough? It is one of the key responsibilities of Himalayan Glacier to make sure that the porters have a good night’s sleep to be ready and healthy throughout the trek.

Porters work seasonally and if a company doesn’t have enough business for them, they will look for jobs in different other companies. This is the biggest challenge in the industry, but Himalayan Glacier produces enough quality jobs for the porters and they are happy to work with us every year. We provide them with Himalaya Glacier’s jackets and trousers annually and make sure that they have the right items of clothing including shoes, jackets, windproof tops, warm hats, good boots, sunglasses, sun hats, warm socks, warm gloves, etc.

Are your porters insured? It is very important to take care of the liabilities of our porters. As a preventive measure against any untoward incidents that may happen while in the mountains, we have insured all our porters for medical, death, and evacuation claims. So, while trekking or climbing with Himalayan Glacier, you don’t have anything to worry about.

Most of our local trekking and climbing guides in the Himalayas and Kilimanjaro started their career as porters. From porters, they become assistant guides, then guides and finally the LEAD GUIDE or the LEADER. We always implement skill development plans for every staff ensuring them a hope of promotion and gradual career growth. This is why all our guides are with us for more than 10 years and some even more than 20 years. The reason why people continue to work with us for so many years is because there are opportunities. Learning and getting trained is a personal growth as well as the company’s overall growth. We enhance skill development programs and technical competencies to our porters. In due course of time, we upgrade and promote them as trekking assistants and eventually have them remarked as future trekking guides and group leaders. We also offer management trainee-programs if they do not want to be a guide and want to work in other aspects of operation like adventure consultants, IT etc.

All through the years, our expert guides belonging to the local communities have constantly struggled to enhance trips with authentic experiences, true discoveries, and cultural switchovers. We have come this far owing to our impartial advice, safety priorities, and amazing successful experiences to our clients.

Most of our adventurous trips such as the Everest Base Camp Climb, apart from the short day tours, are full-board inclusive trips. We take care of every detail from the very beginning of the trip. Picking up you at the airport, mouth-watering meals, comfortable private transport, comfortable accommodation, expert guides, and other top-notch service are all included in the trip cost. You only pay for your personal expenses while on an adventurous trip with us, nothing else!!