Snow Leopard School Treks addresses those concerns and offers young people the chance to trek safely, but to grasp the chance of adventure whilst there are still wild places to be seen!

We offer you the company of a British GP, Dr Mary Selby, and a qualified International Mountain Leader, Ian Wall. Mary and Ian run Snow Leopard School Treks together, and will be with you on trek, at your pre trek training weekends and even afterwards, for follow up evenings, updates and future plans. Mary has considerable experience in trekking medicine and with children and Ian is an experienced teacher, trek leader, climber and mountaineer.

Snow Leopard School Treks began with the first Barnardiston Hall Prep School trip to Bhara Pokhari, Nepal, in April 2004. This was organised and coordinated by Mary and led by Ian: we took 40 trekkers, 20 under 18 (and 10 under 10), and they were emotionally stirred, physically challenged and totally captivated by the experience. We were still on our way down the mountain when the headmaster decided to plan a return trip for 2007. About an hour later a gang of parents said they couldn't wait that long and asked us to plan something for 2006. And so we booked Ladakh... and then Botswana 2005.... and we began to wonder about running school treks full time...

Until this time Ian and Mary had been leading treks for other trekking companies. We felt there was a need to focus on schools and young people specifically, as the needs of school parties are substantially different from those of adult groups. We felt that schools needed personal contact, plenty of advance liaison, guaranteed medical support and a trek leader they knew and trusted.An extension of this was the view that we could also offer trekking to travellers with disabilities or who might have special needs.

It was in the Khumbu Valley a year later that the decision was made. We had walked via Namche Bazar to Thengboche Monastery. Watching the sun glancing off the summit of the world's highest mountain, we discussed the possibility of forming a specialist school trekking company which could give it profits to Community Action Nepal, who support sustainable community projects such as school buildings, medical facilities and water supplies.

We also discussed IPPG, the International Porter Protection Group who work for the rights of porters servicing trekking parties and climbers in Nepal and elsewhere. The porter’s lot is often a hard one with market forces, competition for work and poverty ensuring that in many cases they carry inhumane loads in cruel conditions without proper equipment or shelter.

And so Snow Leopard School Treks was born, and now we offer you our treks, our energy, and our commitment, in order to make your next school trip one that your pupils will remember for the rest of their adult lives, one which will encourage new parents to come to you, old pupils to send their own children to you but, best of all, your pupils themselves to become more extraordinary than they already are.