Safety & Altitude
How we keep you well
at altitude.
The Himalaya rewards patience. Every protocol on this page exists to buy your body the time it needs — and to make sure that when something changes on the trail, the decision has already been made.
This page gathers, in one place, the safety practices already written into our treks and journeys. Nothing here is aspirational. It is how we already walk.
Acclimatisation
Designed into the route, not bolted on.
The most important altitude decision is made at the planning table. We give Everest Base Camp twelve days rather than the usual ten, so acclimatisation is real and the pace stays human. On the Annapurna Circuit we sleep two nights at Manang before crossing the Thorong La. On the Manaslu Circuit, two full acclimatisation days come before the Larkya La.
Rest days are active, not idle — a short climb higher, then back down to sleep — and they are built into every route. We never push the pace.
Daily monitoring
Numbers, twice a day.
On the Everest trail we take SpO2 readings twice a day from day three onward. On the Annapurna Circuit, readings are daily from Manang onward. If any traveler dips below safe thresholds, we stop and rest — no exceptions.
Even journeys that arrive by helicopter rather than on foot carry medical oxygen and a pulse oximeter throughout.
Oxygen & evacuation
Carried, not promised.
On the Everest Base Camp trek we carry supplementary oxygen on every stage above 4,000 m, and in Upper Mustang it is carried throughout. Lukla flights are booked with a helicopter contingency, so a grounded plane does not compress the rest of your itinerary.
We are equally candid about remoteness. Along most of the Manaslu Circuit there is no road and no helicopter access — that is part of why people walk it, and why we pace it carefully and monitor daily. If a route's realities are not right for you, we will say so before you commit.
Your guiding team
Led by people who live here.
Every trek is led by NMA-registered Nepali guides who walk these routes every season, and your senior sirdar is wilderness-medicine trained. Our altitude and safety protocols are set by senior sirdars who have spent years above 4,000 metres.
BodhVia is a PATA member, licensed under Nepal's Travel & Tour Act.
Insurance
Checked together, before you fly.
You arrange your own trekking travel insurance, and it needs to cover helicopter evacuation at the altitudes your route actually reaches — many standard travel policies exclude trekking altitudes, and the ceiling is written into the fine print.
During planning we go through your policy together and confirm the cover matches the route, so any gap surfaces in a conversation before you fly — not on the trail.
Questions about altitude are the right questions.
We talk through fitness, altitude history, and insurance in the first conversation — before anything is booked.