Deepak Thapa
Founder & Senior Guide
A Life Spent in the Himalaya
Deepak Thapa grew up in a village on the edge of the Solu-Khumbu region, where the trails that now carry our trekkers were simply the way to school, to market, and to visit family in the next valley over. Long before he ever thought of mountaineering as a career, he knew these paths the way most people know their own street.
He started as a porter in his late teens, carrying loads for trekking groups passing through his home region. It was on those early trips - watching how guides worked, how routes were planned, how groups were cared for - that he first started imagining something different from what he was seeing: a company built around genuine camping in the wilderness, not the increasingly developed teahouse circuits that were becoming the norm.
I didn't want to build a company that just moved people through the mountains as fast as possible. I wanted to build one that let people actually be in them.
- Deepak Thapa, Founder
The Journey
After several seasons carrying loads across Everest and Annapurna region trails, Deepak transitioned into guiding - first as an assistant, then leading his own groups. He spent these years learning not just the routes, but the judgment that separates a good guide from a great one: when to push on, when to rest a group, when to turn back.
As his guiding career grew, Deepak pursued formal mountaineering certification and wilderness medical training, expanding from trekking routes into technical peak climbs. He led expeditions on Island Peak, Mera Peak, and Ama Dablam, building a reputation for careful, honest route judgment rather than pushing groups for the sake of a summit.
Camping Trek was founded on a simple frustration: the best parts of trekking in Nepal - the isolation, the genuine wilderness camping, the slower pace - were disappearing as more routes filled with teahouses and lodges. Deepak set out to build a company that kept camping-based trekking at its core, with proper acclimatization, real cook crews, and routes chosen for the experience rather than convenience.
Despite now running the company, Deepak still personally leads a number of treks and expeditions each season - not out of obligation, but because it's the part of the work he never wanted to give up. He also spends time training the next generation of Camping Trek guides, passing on the same route judgment he spent years building himself.
Why It Still Matters to Him
Deepak is often asked why, after all these years, he still guides personally instead of staying in Kathmandu running the business. His answer is usually the same: the mountains are the reason the company exists in the first place, and he'd rather stay close to the work that started it all than lose touch with it.
That philosophy shapes how Camping Trek is run today - every itinerary, every guide hired, every route chosen is still measured against the same question he asked himself starting out: does this actually give someone a real experience of these mountains, or just a faster way through them?
- Deepak Thapa
