Pasang Sherpa
Home valley: Khumbu, Solukhumbu
Twenty-two seasons on the EBC trail. IFMGA-certified, NMA-licensed climbing guide. Speaks English, Nepali and Sherpa. Has summited Cho Oyu and Ama Dablam.
IFMGA · NMA · Avalanche Level 3
Khumbu Valley, Solukhumbu · 4,250m · March 2024
Our Sherpa Team · Est. 2009
The guides who grew up on the route.
Meet the Sherpa-led team behind every Nepal Trekking Co. expedition — 38 licensed mountain guides and 112 trained porters on permanent payroll, headquartered in Kathmandu and walking the trails they were raised on.
Mingma Dorjee, Founder · Kathmandu office, 2024
Founded 2009 · Solukhumbu, Nepal
Founded in 2009 by Mingma Dorjee, a third-generation Sherpa guide from Solukhumbu.
Mingma was nine years old when he first walked to Everest Base Camp with his grandfather, a senior climbing sirdar who had guided expeditions on the Nepal side of the Himalaya since the 1960s. By seventeen he was leading trekkers himself. By twenty-four he had worked every major route the company now sells — Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, Manaslu, the Langtang Valley, Upper Dolpo, the Gokyo Lakes — for half a dozen Kathmandu outfitters, several of which subcontracted their porter teams to the lowest bidder.
He opened Nepal Trekking Co. in 2009 with three guides, fourteen porters and one stubborn premise: that the people carrying the loads and the people reading the maps deserved the same pay packet, the same insurance and the same hot meal at every camp. Fifteen years later that premise has carried 8,247 trekkers safely across forty-seven routes. The team is now thirty-eight guides and one hundred and twelve porters, all on permanent payroll, all based in Kathmandu, all trained by people who learned the trails the way Mingma did — on them.
— Mingma Dorjee, Founder & Managing Director
Read the 2022 Nepal Tourism Awards citation →Lead Guides · Six of thirty-eight
Six lead guides from the 38-strong roster — every itinerary led by someone who grew up on the route.
Below are six of the lead guides who run our most-booked departures. Every guide on our roster is either IFMGA-certified, NMA-licensed, or both — and every one of them is on permanent payroll, not subcontracted per trek.
Dawa Lhamo Sherpa
Home valley: Manang, Annapurna
Leads our Annapurna Circuit departures and Manaslu Circuit expeditions. NMA-licensed, Wilderness First Responder. Has completed the Circuit 47 times.
NMA · WFR · 47× Circuit
Tenzing Norgay Sherpa
Home valley: Dolpo, Karnali
Specialist on the restricted-area permits for Upper Dolpo, Lower Dolpo and the Mustang Lo-Manthang extension. NMA-licensed. Joined the company in 2011.
NMA · Restricted-Area Permit Lead
Mingma Tamang
Home valley: Langtang, Rasuwa
Born three kilometres from the Langtang trailhead. Leads every Langtang Valley and Gosainkunda departure. NMA-licensed, speaks English and Tamang.
NMA · Langtang Specialist
Plus 32 senior guides on the active roster, ranging from Everest summiteers to the four-language cultural specialists who lead our Langtang and Manaslu community-trek departures. Request the full roster PDF by email →
Porter Welfare Pledge · Revised 2024
Our porter welfare pledge — the standard every Sherpa-led outfitter should be held to.
In 2018 we signed and in 2024 we re-signed the International Porter Protection Group's Five Guidelines, and we have added four of our own. These apply on every Nepal Trekking Co. expedition, without exception, on every trail we operate.
The five IPPG standards
- Clothing and footwear. Every porter is issued a company-issue shell jacket, fleece, wool hat, gloves, sturdy boots above the ankle and a sleeping bag rated to −10°C — all replaced on a three-year cycle, all kept by the porter at the end of season.
- Weight limits. Maximum carried load is 30 kg on tea-house routes and 25 kg above 4,000m, including the porter's own 5 kg personal pack. We do not subcontract to any party that exceeds this.
- Insurance. Every porter is enrolled in Nepal's national Accident and Medical Insurance scheme plus our supplementary trekking-policy cover, paid in full by Nepal Trekking Co., with no employee contribution.
- Meals and shelter. Porters eat the same meal as the trekkers at every teahouse, sleep in the same lodge or in our company tent, and are paid a per-diem subsistence of NPR 1,200 above teahouse food.
- Medical care. Every porter carries the same altitude-sickness briefing as the trekkers and has direct radio contact with our expedition medic. Helicopter evacuation is coordinated via Simrik Air on the same priority as a paying client.
Our four additional commitments
- Permanent payroll, not day-rate. All 112 porters are on permanent monthly salary, not subcontracted per trek. Off-season they receive 60% of base pay and full medical cover.
- Documented gear library. Every piece of company-issued kit is logged in our Thamel gear library and audited annually in front of a TAAN observer.
- Family education fund. 2% of every trek fee is paid into the Nepal Trekking Co. Porter Family Education Fund, which has put 47 porter children through secondary school since 2016.
- No porter below 18. We do not employ any porter under 18 on any route at any altitude. This is audited at the Thamel office before every departure.
If you see a porter on a Nepal Trekking Co. trek who is not properly shod, properly fed or carrying more than 30 kg, hand them the radio and call our 24/7 ops line. We will solve it at the next village.
Kathmandu Operations · Verified figures
38 guides, 112 porters — all on permanent payroll, all based in Kathmandu.
38
Licensed mountain guides on permanent payroll
All IFMGA-certified or NMA-licensed. Not a single guide subcontracted per departure.
112
Trained porters on permanent payroll
Off-season salary, full medical cover, and the family education fund. Audited annually.
24 / 7
Thamel-based ops office & 24-bed guesthouse
Naxal Marg HQ plus a Thamel guesthouse where trekkers arrive the night before every departure.
98.4%
EBC summit-or-completion rate, 2023 audit
Verified by the Nepal Tourism Board across our 2022–2023 Everest Base Camp departures.
Member: Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal (TAAN #1-2847) · Nepal Mountaineering Association · IPPG signatory since 2018.
Book with the team you've just met
Trek with the team you've just met.
Tell us your route, your month and your party size. Within 24 hours a Kathmandu coordinator — usually Pasang, Dawa or Tenzing — will email a written quote, a day-by-day outline and two recent references from trekkers on the same itinerary.
No deposit taken at this stage. Your quote is held for 14 days while you confirm flights and time off.