Climb Mera Peak in Nepal expedition

Planet

Mera Peak is located in the Makalu Baruntse National Park. The park’s biodiversity ranges from tropical forests to snow capped peaks and our permit fees go towards the maintenance and upkeep of the park.

We enforce a strict Leave no Trace policy on all expeditions. We educate all our clients in how to minimise their negative impact in the environments in which they travel and offer leave no trace training on every expedition. We encourage them to take ownership of their interactions with the environment and consciously make every effort to leave it as found. Whatever is brought with us on expedition from equipment to food, must be taken away again. Tracks and trails are followed as much as possible to avoid any additional disturbance to local ecosystems. All clients are encouraged to give any animals they encounter a wide berth, to avoid unnecessary trauma to the animal and potential danger to themselves.

We provide all water on the expedition trails, which is first filtered with a katadyn filter, boiled or treated with purification tablets. We encourage all clients to bring their own water-bladders and water bottles to be filled each day in an effort to eliminate or minimise the need for the purchase of single use plastic water bottles along the trail. A Nalgene filled with freshly boiled water makes a great hot-water bottle in your sleeping bag at night.

We minimise the amount of canned and packaged goods on our expeditions, reducing our non-biodegradable waste. We need to bring very little with us on this expedition as we are only camping for a limited number of nights. All biodegradable waste is buried deep in the ground, far from water sources, breaking down over a short period of time. All other waste is disposed of carefully by the teahouses in which we stay.

People

On all our trips we want to put money directly back into the local communities we visit. We stay in small, locally run hotels in Kathmandu, avoiding big international chains. We encourage clients to visit the local markets and to pay market price, where fair and reasonable. All food supplied on the trail is sourced fresh from local markets and more often than not in the adjoining farm and prepared in the tea houses we stay in each night. All the tea houses are operated by local families and a huge source of income to the local economy along the trail. We place a strong emphasis on the importance of sourcing locally wherever possible and illustrate the value of this for the local communities to our clients.

Local teams of sherpas and porters are employed to lead and assist our expeditions on the ground in tandem with the international guide and doctor who travel with each trip. Our local guides are highly experienced and very familiar with the expedition route, local history, cultures and customs of the region.

We have clear and transparent payment policies across all our destinations. We pay industry-standard wages or above to our Sherpas and porters. We offer advice on tipping to all our clients. We ensure the money is divided fairly between the local Sherpas and porters. We offer specific tipping advice for Nepal in keeping with the local guidelines on best practice.

We participate in cultural and social events such as traditional dance and song and frequent local festivals and celebrations whenever possible. We encourage our clients to partake in local traditions and visit several traditional Nepalese monasteries along the trail.