Kathmandu, Nov. 26 -- Eighty women enrolled in the Nepal Mountain Academy's training for trekking guides this year, more than double the number last year. No doubt some had heard that the demand for female guides is so high that they can earn more than men.
Till now, female guides have been a rare sight in trekking and mountaineering, even though Nepal's first female-run trekking company, Three Sisters, was founded 20 years ago in Pokhara. Of the total 17,164 licensed guides in the country only 886 are female, but their numbers are growing faster than male guides.
Lhakpa Bhuti Sherpa, President of the Nepal Mountain Academy (NMA), remembers when male colleagues asked what was the point in training women as trekking guides when they could...