About Us

HimalayanTrails is a dynamic and young adventure and travel company located in the Himalayan mountain village Old Manali. The innovative, energetic and experienced team of Himalayan Trails offer all kinds of outdoor sports including trekking, Mountain biking, Rafting, Fishing, River crossing, Paragliding, Skiing, Snowboarding and Rock climbing and expeditions, as well as Sightseeing tours in the local area. Furthermore they provide Bike and Jeep safaris into the remote Regions of Spiti and Lahaul Valley and Ladakh.

The Company has created many tour and group packages, including the popular outdoor sports and Honeymoon packages as well as a variety of school programs. It was established in November 2010 by the two young local men Ramesh Kumar and Pinku Guddu.

Since early childhood the two nature enthusiastic friends enjoyed to explore their homeland by doing lots of treks in the high mountain region on their own. As both of them are habitants of the Kullu Manali region, they are familiar with the religious and traditional life of the local villagers and know how to behave in a good and friendly manner with them and can help when it might come to misunderstandings between guests and the local residents. Both are highly educated and experienced in the outdoor sports and tourism field.

Ramesh Kumar, 28, a passionate mountaineer and outdoor sportsman completed successfully the Basic Mountaineering course as well as the Advanced and Method of Instruction course at the highly recognized Mountaineering Institute in Manali in the years 2004 to 2005 after he graduated from college. Later he attended the Alpine Climbing course in the Nehru Mountaineering Institute in Uttarkashi. From 2006 to 2007 he participated in all Skiing courses (basic, intermediate, advanced) and tried himself in Paragliding and did the Basic course in 2008.

While joining all the courses, he started working for the acknowledged outdoor education company YOUREKA. From 2004 to 2010 Ramesh took part in the school programs as a technical skill leader as well as a program leader. Here he was teaching children, aged between 9 and 18, in outdoor, personal and hard skills through experiential education. Furthermore he designed the programs accordingly to the respective challenge levels.

Until 2010 he worked as a freelancer for several different Adventure companies in Manali. During that time he got a perfect inside in the large field of adventure and outdoor tourism and gained lot of experience.

From 2008 to 2009 Ramesh attended a three month tourist guide training conducted by the Himachal Consultancy Organization (HIMCON). Through this he gained knowledge in developing tourist programs and learned everything about the local highlights in Kullu Manali. 2011 he completed a local guide training course delivered by World challenge. World Challenge is a British company providing educational expeditions in the developing countries to teach youngsters in life skills.

Ramesh Kumar, always eager to do something new and never tired of taking another challenge, participated successfully in the 7 days Hercules Mountain biking race in Shimla in 2010. It is said to be the hardest MTB race in India. He secured the 10th position in the men category.

Ramesh’s friend Pinku Guddo worked many years as a local tourist guide. Thus he is highly educated in the local history and knows about the best places of interest in Kullu Manali. He was owner of a Taxi company. Driving himself through whole Himachal Pradesh, he is well experienced in planning all kinds of Sightseeing Safaris.

In 2009 he completed the Basic Mountaineering course in Manali.

Himalayan trails only works together with trained professionals who have many years of experience. All our guides are locals, who are fluent in English and have at least the Basic course in Mountaineering completed. Thus, they are highly educated in all the Mountain manners (environmental protection, behavior with local people etc.) and they know about rescue and safety in the mountain regions as well about the trekking region itself as it is their homeland. We also work together with female guides in case women guests feel more comfortable with that.

Furthermore we have staff which is educated in first aid through the Red Cross and employees who gained special training in wilderness and children first aid through a program conducted by the American institution NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School). For the river rafting we can provide life guards.

During our activities we provide healthy and nutritious food for our clients. Our guest can decide on they own, whether they rather want to have western style or Indian food. In both cases we ensure it to be very tasty and more than enough. All our cooks are professional, clean and hygienic.

We are very conscious of the fact that we are extremely fortunate to be able to live and work in such a beautiful and diverse area of Himachal Pradesh. But we are only too aware of the fragile nature of our environment with rapidly receding glaciers, water shortages and strains on the delicate flora and fauna of the mountain areas. Therefore our company puts lot of strength into protecting the nature. Our aim is to help protecting and preserving this beautiful environment for future generations of local people and guests to enjoy.

We carry out all our garbage, apart from that which can be safely and easily burnt at the campsite. Furthermore we only use kerosene instead of wood to cook, as deforestation is one of the biggest problems in the Himalayas. Wherever possible and if we have enough space, we collect the rubbish left behind at campsites by other groups. Our office in old Manali is the only place where guests can get purified drinking water to refill, so that they don’t need to buy plastic bottles.

We expect donkey drivers to take good care of their donkeys and horses and that the animals will be well fed and are in good condition. The maximum allowable weight distributed to a donkey is 40 kg or less.

We provide the best possible working conditions for our trek staff including limiting the load that we give to the porters to 20kg. We provide our porters and donkey drivers with waterproof tents and plenty of nutritious food. Porters and staff are provided with the same food our clients are eating during trekking and climbing. We employ local people and pay them a fair (above average) wage. All trekking staff is paid punctually at the end of each trek.

We always give all our energy to provide a one in a lifetime experience in the Himalayan Mountain world to our guests.