Sikles sits at 2,000 m on a stone ridge in the Lamjung district of central Nepal — two days walk from the nearest road when Mukunda was a boy, half a day by jeep now. His grandfather guided British army officers in the 1970s; his father carried mail to remote villages on foot. The mountains were not scenery. They were the office, the school commute, the route to a wedding three valleys away.
He started carrying packs at sixteen. Porter, then sub-guide, then guide. He took his TAAN lead-guide examination in 2005 and his ACAP certification the year after. Wilderness First Responder, twice recertified. He has guided clients from twenty-three countries and led the Annapurna Circuit forty-one times. He keeps the count in a small leather notebook with a brass pencil.
Why a website now
For fifteen years, every client came through word of mouth — a friend of a friend, someone from a previous group. That has been a gift and a constraint. When the mouth stops moving, so does the work. He has clients in the UK who want to send their cousin from Texas, their colleague from Berlin, their daughter from Sydney. And those people, sensibly, want to look at a website before they put themselves in his hands for three weeks at four thousand metres. So here it is.
How he works
One trek at a time. Six trekkers, maximum, on open-booking departures; eight on private groups; one or two if you want to walk alone with him. He has a small team of porters from his home village he has worked with for over a decade — they are paid above the TAAN minimum, they keep their own tips, and they eat at the same table as the clients.
He carries his own first-aid kit and a Garmin inReach. He keeps an oximeter in his pocket and reads it morning and evening above 3,500 m. He has had three helicopter evacuations in twenty years, all for clients who developed altitude symptoms early enough to be treated calmly. He has never lost a client.
What he won't do
He won't rush you. He won't tell you the high pass is easy when it is not. He won't take a group larger than eight. He won't book you on a trek your fitness isn't ready for — he will gently suggest a shorter one. He won't sell you a gear list that includes things you don't need. He won't take a deposit before you have spoken to him directly.
The longer view
He would like, in five years, to be doing exactly what he is doing now — perhaps with his eldest son guiding alongside him. He has no plans to expand into an agency, open an office in Kathmandu, or chase volume. The Himalaya don't reward scale. They reward attention.