We just returned from a trek to Mardi Himal with Nepal Hiking Team. It was an amazing experience from start to finish. Ganga answered all our questions promptly and clearly and organized a fairly-priced trek that met our needs perfectly. Our guide Pabam is a wonderful person, we enjoyed being with him and trusted him completely - he was committed to making each step work for us, flexible and extremely helpful, always friendly and optimistic, and informative and kind when we struggled with altitude acclimation or anything else. Our porter Bikas is good-natured, kind, and always attentive and available, a real pleasure to be with. We’re older hikers and pushed ourselves to complete this trek, which we only could have done with Pabam and Bikas’ help. As amazing as it was to hike in and see these mountains, our most lasting memory of the trip will be the competence and kindness of the Nepal Hiking Team staff.

Overall: 5-stars. Highly recommended. Planning and Logistics: Ganga from Nepal Hiking arranged everything exactly to plan and with great professionalism. Logistics were somewhat complicated with multiple airline arrival and departure times for our group. We also pre-booked a tour of Kathmandu valley. Everything went off without a hitch. Ganga met us personally before and after the trek to help answer any questions. He clearly cares about his customers and strives to maintain first rate services. Trek Support: Pre-trek tours of Kathmandu valley were handled flawlessly with excellent drivers and guides. Our transit to and from the trailhead was by jeep. Vehicles were all on-time, in good repair, and professionally driven. Our main guide (Arun) and assistant guide (Shree) were both highly professional, experienced, friendly, and worked well as a team. They did everything possible to make our trek enjoyable and were clearly familiar with the trails and current trail conditions. They efficiently arranged all details of our tea house stays and worked with the porters to assure our luggage was always available upon arrival. Trek Route: I highly recommend the Tsum Valley with Manaslu Circuit trek. Our package was 22 days with some extra time in Kathmandu both before and after the trek. We started in early November and completed at the end of the month. Weather was excellent throughout with only one rainy afternoon after we had finished walking for the day. I appreciated going a little late in the season as temperatures at the lower elevations were more reasonable while conditions at the Larke-La pass remained moderate with little snow or ice. Tsum valley was a highlight with its many secluded small villages and zero roads. Manaslu Circuit was more crowded than Tsum valley, but not objectionable. Views of Manaslu and Annapurna were epic. Tea houses throughout varied but were uniformly comfortable and well maintained. Food was quite good with a wide variety of standard meal offerings. Trail conditions were generally good, but narrow landslide areas and steep sections requiring some technical skills are present. Larke-La pass day is challenging with a very long steep descent. Travel to and from the trailheads were daylong overland rides and somewhat uncomfortable given the mostly poor road conditions- bring Dramamine.

We had an amazing experience. The guides were very knowledgeable, friendly and extremely helpful. They built an itinerary and planned its execution to best meet the needs of our entire group.