About Glacier Treks & Adventure — Yuksom’s IMF-Affiliated Trekking & Expedition Specialists Since 2010

Yuksom Bazar Main Road, West Sikkim · Operating since 2010

Last updated: 25 July 2026

Fifteen Years on the Trail — In Numbers

Glacier Treks & Adventure is a Yuksom-based Himalayan trekking and expedition operator founded in 2010 by Kiran Gurung yuksom,, an IMF-certified mountaineer. The company operates from West Sikkim and runs the full Sikkim trekking portfolio (Goechala, Dzongri, Sandakphu, Bajre Dara), Ladakh treks (Markha Valley, Chadar), tour packages across Sikkim, Darjeeling and the North-East, and expedition-grade climbs up to 7,135 metres (Nun-Kun). The company is affiliated with the Sikkim Department of Tourism, the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), the Travel Agents Association of Sikkim (TAAS), the Yuksom Tourism Development Committee (YTDC) and the Sikkim Adventure Mountaineering Association (SAMA). In fifteen years of operations, Glacier Treks & Adventure has guided more than 12,000 trekkers across 150+ expeditions on 25+ routes.

1. Who We Are — The Glacier Treks & Adventure Story

Glacier Treks & Adventure was founded in 2010 in Yuksom, the historic first capital of Sikkim and the starting point of the Goechala and Dzongri trekking routes. The company was started by Kiran Gurung Yuksom — a working mountain guide born in a remote Sikkimese village — with a single objective that has not changed in the fifteen years since: to operate Himalayan treks and expeditions to a standard of safety and authenticity that visiting trekkers can trust, while ensuring the income from those treks stays in the Yuksom community.

We started with a small Goechala season in 2010, running batches of four to six trekkers on the route Kiran had been guiding for other operators for the previous decade. Word spread, partly because we were one of the only locally-owned operators in Yuksom at the time and partly because we made a point of refusing to cut corners on the safety contingencies that bigger operators sometimes skipped. By 2014 we had added the Dzongri Trek as a standard product. By 2017 we had expanded into Sandakphu, Ladakh’s Markha Valley, and the Chadar Trek. By 2020 we were running the full expedition portfolio including the 7,135-metre Nun-Kun expedition.

Today, Glacier Treks & Adventure operates from its base on Yuksom Bazar Main Road, with a permanent field team of guides, cooks and porters drawn entirely from the surrounding villages of West Sikkim, and an extended seasonal team in Ladakh and Darjeeling. We have brought more than 12,000 trekkers safely home across 150+ guided expeditions on 25+ unique Himalayan routes.

2. Meet the Founder — Kiran Gurung

Kiran Gurung yuksom,  was born in a remote village in West Sikkim and has spent most of his life on the trails of the Indian Himalaya. He began guiding informally in the late 1990s while still in his early twenties, working with established Yuksom operators on the Goechala and Dzongri routes. Over the next decade he completed formal mountaineering training and earned certification from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), India’s apex national body for mountaineering and high-altitude expedition standards.

Kiran founded Glacier Treks & Adventure in 2010 with the goal of running a Yuksom-based, operator-owned company that treated local guides and porters as long-term team members rather than seasonal labour. Fifteen years on, he remains a working trek leader on Goechala, Dzongri, Markha Valley, Chadar and the Mt Tenchenkhang expedition — alongside running the company. He has personally led more than 200 Goechala expeditions, six Nun-Kun summit attempts (multiple successful), and the company’s first ascents of several lesser-known West Sikkim peaks.

Kiran’s professional credentials

• IMF-certified mountaineer. Holds Indian Mountaineering Foundation certification — the apex Indian credential for high-altitude expedition leadership.
• 200+ Goechala expeditions led. Has personally guided every part of the Goechala trail, in every season, for more than fifteen years.
• Expedition-grade peaks summited. Has led successful ascents of Frey Peak (5,830m), Mt Tenchenkhang (6,010m) and team summits on Nun-Kun (7,135m).
• Member, Sikkim Adventure Mountaineering Association (SAMA). Active in mountaineering safety standards advocacy and rescue protocols for West Sikkim.
• Founding member, Yuksom Tourism Development Committee (YTDC). Involved in local tourism policy and community development since the committee’s formation.

Many of our trekkers ask whether Kiran will be their actual trek leader. The honest answer: it depends on the batch. Kiran personally leads roughly half of our Goechala season and most of our expeditions. The other batches are led by our senior trek leaders, all of whom have apprenticed under Kiran for several seasons before taking lead responsibility. Every batch leader is certified, experienced and personally vetted by Kiran.

3. Our Team — Guides, Leaders and the People Who Run Your Trek

Glacier Treks & Adventure operates with a permanent core team and a seasonal extended team that scales up during peak trekking months. Every single member of our field team is from a Himalayan village — Yuksom and the surrounding West Sikkim valleys for our Sikkim operations, the Markha and Sham valleys for our Ladakh operations. This is not a marketing claim; it is the operating model the company was built around.

Permanent core team

• Trek leaders. Six certified senior trek leaders, each with at least eight years of high-altitude experience. All are IMF affiliated trek operator sikkim or in the certification pipeline.
• Local guides. Twelve local guides, each with detailed route knowledge of one or two specific treks. Many have been on the trail since the early 2000s.
• Mountain cooks. Four experienced trek cooks who specialise in producing fresh, nutritious meals at altitude — a meaningful contribution to acclimatization and trekker morale.
• Office and operations. A small Yuksom-based office team handling bookings, permits, logistics and post-trek follow-up.

Seasonal extended team

During peak season (March–May and September–December for Sikkim, June–October for Ladakh, January–February for Chadar), we extend our team to roughly forty people with seasonal porters, muleteers, support staff and additional guides. Our peak-season hiring is exclusively local — we do not bring in external labour, and every seasonal member has worked with us across multiple seasons.

4. What We Operate — Our Full Trekking and Expedition Portfolio

Glacier Treks & Adventure runs a complete Himalayan portfolio across Sikkim, Ladakh, Darjeeling and the North-East, ranging from beginner-friendly weekend trips to serious 7,000-metre expeditions. Every route below is operated directly by our team, not subcontracted.

Sikkim treks

• Goechala Trek (10 days, 4,500m) — our flagship trek to the Kanchenjunga viewpoint
• Dzongri Trek (7 days, 4,200m) — the ‘Goechala in a week’ weekend trek
• Sandakphu Trek (6 days, 3,636m) — beginner-friendly Sleeping Buddha view
• Sandakphu-Phalut Trek (8 days, 3,636m) — extended Singalila ridge
• Bajre Dara Trek (4 days, 3,500m) — short West Sikkim trek

Ladakh treks

• Markha Valley Trek (6–10 days, 5,400m) — the iconic Ladakh trek
• Chadar Trek (9 days, 4,000m) — frozen Zanskar winter trek

Tour packages

• Sikkim tour packages (4–10 day itineraries across East, West and North Sikkim)
• Sikkim-Darjeeling combination packages
• North Sikkim tour with Gurudongmar Lake
• Zuluk Silk Route tour (East Sikkim)
• North-East India multi-state tours (Sikkim + Meghalaya / Assam)

Expeditions and climbing peaks

• Mt Tenchenkhang (6,010m, Sikkim) — IMF expedition
• Frey Peak (5,830m, Sikkim) — first 6,000m attempt territory
• Mentok Kangri (6,250m, Ladakh) — beginner-friendly 6,000m peak
• Nun Peak (7,135m, Ladakh) — full mountaineering expedition
• Nun-Kun (7,135m / 7,077m, Ladakh) — flagship Himalayan expedition

Read more: Browse all our Sikkim treks

Read more: Browse all our Ladakh treks

Read more: Browse all our Sikkim tour packages

Read more: View our expedition portfolio

5. Certifications and Official Affiliations

Glacier Treks & Adventure is an affiliated trekking company sikkim with five recognised bodies.  Each one carries specific operational meaning rather than being decorative.

We can provide physical or scanned copies of any of these registrations and certifications on request — feel free to ask before booking. We encourage trekkers to verify operator credentials with any Himalayan trekking company, not just ours. The volume of unregistered or under-certified operators in this industry remains a real concern.

6. Fifteen Years of Milestones

7. How We Are Different — The Real Differentiators

Every trek operator claims to be ‘safety-first’, ‘experienced’ and ‘affordable’. Here are the differentiators that we believe actually matter — the things that you can verify, that affect your trek directly, and that most aggregator operators cannot replicate even if they wanted to.

We are based in Yuksom, not in Delhi

Most operators selling Goechala or Dzongri treks online are not in Yuksom — they are in Delhi, Bangalore or Gangtok, and they forward bookings to a local team in our village. Booking directly with us removes the commission layer (typically 15–25% on aggregator bookings), and means the people running your trek are the people you spoke to before booking. The income from your trek stays in the Yuksom valley.

Our founder is a working trek leader, not a corporate manager

Kiran Gurung is not the absentee owner of the company. He is on the trail for roughly half of every trekking season, personally leading Goechala, expedition climbs and the most challenging departures. When something operational needs a decision — at altitude, in a weather window, on a contingency call — the decision is being made by someone who has made it two hundred times before.

Contingency days are included, never charged extra

Every Goechala, Dzongri and Markha Valley itinerary we run includes a contingency day at the first high camp for acclimatization or weather. We do not skip this day to compete on price, and we do not bill it as an add-on. This single operational standard is the most common point of difference between our trekkers’ experiences and those of trekkers we have rescued from other operators’ batches over the years.

We operate our own expeditions, not just sell them

Most national trekking operators do not actually run 6,000m+ climbing expeditions in-house — they market them and subcontract delivery. We run Mt Tenchenkhang, Frey Peak, Mentok Kangri, Nun and Nun-Kun directly, with our own IMF-certified team. This depth of expedition experience is what gives our trek leaders the altitude and decision-making competence that you experience on the Goechala trail.

Pricing is transparent and itemised

Every Glacier Treks quote breaks down the package price, GST, permits, transfers, add-ons and tips. We do not hide costs in fine print and we do not advertise low headline prices that exclude essentials. The full cost is visible up front; what you see in the quote is what you pay.

8. Our Mission, Vision and Values

Mission

To operate Himalayan treks and expeditions to a standard of safety and authenticity that visiting trekkers can verify, while ensuring the income from those treks supports the Yuksom community and the larger Sikkim mountain ecosystem. We measure our success by repeat bookings, referrals from past trekkers, and the long tenure of our local staff.

Vision

By 2030, to be recognised as the leading locally-owned trekking and expedition operator in the Eastern Himalaya — and to be the operator that visiting trekkers and seasoned mountaineers turn to first when planning a serious Himalayan trip. Our growth target is depth, not scale: more repeat trekkers, more expedition-grade routes, more high-altitude competence, not more batches per season.

Values

• Local first. Our team is local. Our supply chain is local. Our income stays local.
• Safety over completion. We will turn around a summit push in unsafe weather. We will descend with an unwell trekker. We will not negotiate on this.
• Honest pricing. What you see in the quote is what you pay. No hidden inclusions, no surprise add-ons.
• Long tenure. Our staff stay with us for years, not seasons. Our trekkers come back. That is the metric.
• Environmental responsibility. Carry out every piece of waste. Use dry-pit toilet tents. Respect the rules of the Khangchendzonga National Park as the rules are written, not as is convenient.

9. Sustainability and Community Impact

Yuksom is not a tourism town that grew up around tourism — it is a 17th-century Sikkimese capital that pre-existed Himalayan tourism by three hundred years. Our responsibility as the largest locally-owned trek operator is to ensure that tourism contributes to the community without displacing what is already here. Here is what that looks like in practice:

• Local employment as the rule, not the exception. 100% of our trek field team is from West Sikkim. Average tenure of our senior guides is over seven years.
• Fair-wage commitment for porters and muleteers. We follow the wage standards set by the Yuksom Tourism Development Committee and exceed them during peak season.
• Waste carry-out policy. Every batch carries out 100% of its waste. The Goechala trail’s wilderness state is the only reason it remains worth trekking — protecting it is operational, not optional.
• Support for Yuksom homestays and supply chain. Pre-trek and post-trek accommodation runs through Yuksom homestays. Provisions and fresh produce come from local suppliers.
• Khangchendzonga National Park rule compliance. We follow the trekking restrictions, group-size caps, and the rule against pushing beyond Goechala Viewpoint 1 — even when other operators push the boundary.

10. Trust, Safety and Our Track Record

Across fifteen years of operating in altitudes ranging from 1,780m (Yuksom) to 7,135m (Nun), Glacier Treks & Adventure has brought every single trekker home safely. The honest version of that statement includes two helicopter evacuations from Goechala (both successful, both for altitude sickness in trekkers we would have preferred to descend with on foot but who needed faster transit), one early turn-around on a Nun expedition due to a weather window, and a handful of itinerary changes for trekker health on lower-altitude trips. We treat every one of these as a learning event — and the safety protocols we operate today have been shaped by them.

Our safety protocols

• IMF affiliated trek operator sikkim trek leader on every batch
• Portable oxygen cylinder carried above 3,500m on every Sikkim trek and above 4,000m on every Ladakh trek
• Pulse oximeter readings taken twice daily from the first high camp onwards
• Diamox (acetazolamide) available on doctor advice
• Contingency days built into every itinerary at the first high camp
• Helicopter evacuation arrangements with Yuksom helipad and Leh emergency services
• Satellite communicator carried on every trek for emergency comms
• Basic medical kit on every batch, full medical training for trek leaders

11. Frequently Asked Questions

When was Glacier Treks & Adventure founded?

Glacier Treks & Adventure was founded in 2010 in Yuksom, West Sikkim by Kiran Gurung. The company has operated continuously every trekking season since.

Who founded Glacier Treks & Adventure?

The company was founded by Kiran Gurung, an IMF-certified mountaineer born in a remote West Sikkim village. He remains the founder, working trek leader and majority owner. He continues to personally lead Goechala expeditions, Mt Tenchenkhang expeditions and Nun-Kun summits.

Where is Glacier Treks & Adventure located?

Our office is on Yuksom Bazar Main Road, near Hotel Yangri Gang, in Yuksom — West Sikkim, postal code 737113. Yuksom is the traditional starting point of the Goechala and Dzongri treks and was the first capital of the Buddhist kingdom of Sikkim. Walking visitors are welcome at the office during business hours.

Is Glacier Treks & Adventure a registered company?

Yes. Glacier Treks & Adventure is a registered tour operator with the Sikkim Department of Tourism and is additionally affiliated with the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), the Travel Agents Association of Sikkim (TAAS), the Yuksom Tourism Development Committee (YTDC) and the Sikkim Adventure Mountaineering Association (SAMA). We can provide registration documents and certificate copies on request.

How can I check reviews of Glacier Treks & Adventure?

We are listed on Google Business, TripAdvisor, and several trekking-community review platforms. We encourage prospective trekkers to read independent reviews before booking — both ours and any operator’s. Direct trekker testimonials and group photographs from past expeditions are available on request.

What is the difference between Glacier Treks & Adventure and Trek in Sikkim?

‘Trek in Sikkim’ is the trading name on our website domain (trekinsikkim.in). The formal company name is Glacier Treks & Adventure. They refer to the same registered entity, the same office in Yuksom, the same founder and the same team.

Does Glacier Treks & Adventure operate treks outside Sikkim?

Yes. While our base is Yuksom and Sikkim is our home region, we have operated Ladakh treks (Markha Valley, Chadar) since 2017 and Ladakh expeditions (Mentok Kangri, Nun, Nun-Kun) since 2020. We also operate tour packages across Darjeeling and the North-East.

How can I contact Glacier Treks & Adventure?

By phone or WhatsApp on +91 7407248200, by email at contact@trekinsikkim.in, or by visiting our office on Yuksom Bazar Main Road, West Sikkim 737113. Our team responds to enquiries within 24 hours.

Ready to Trek with Us?

Whether you are researching your first Himalayan trek, planning a return trip to Sikkim, or organising a serious expedition above 6,000m, we would be glad to talk through your options. Our 2026 season is open for bookings — Sikkim treks run from March through December, Ladakh from June through October, and the Chadar Trek in January and February.

Get in touch: Call/WhatsApp +91 7407248200 · Email contact@trekinsikkim.in

Read more: Browse all Sikkim treks

Read more: Browse all Ladakh treks

Read more: Browse Sikkim tour packages

Read more: Read our trekking and travel articles

Read more: Contact us — Yuksom office