The Private Expedition: Our Favorite Way to Climb

There is a version of every Alpenglow expedition that exists only for you. No fixed departure dates dictated by someone else’s calendar. No waiting to see who else signs up. No sharing your guide’s attention across a dozen strangers. Just your objective, your timeline, and a private, IFMGA-certified Mountain Guide whose entire goal is to set you up for success.

These are our private expeditions, and if you ask anyone on our team, they’ll tell you it’s our favorite way to run a trip. Custom departures already make up more than half of what we do at Alpenglow. When you strip away the compromises that come with a group itinerary, the averaged pace, the shared guide time, the fixed departure window, what’s left is something closer to what climbing and trekking were always meant to be: a personal, unhurried, deeply considered journey through some of the most extraordinary terrain on Earth.

A private expedition with Alpenglow means our full logistical machine, the same precision logistics, vetted local partners, on-call expedition doctor, and AMGA-accredited guiding standards we’ve spent twenty years building, is deployed entirely on your behalf. You choose the dates. We build the itinerary around your pace, your goals, and your schedule, then execute it with the best lodges, the best in-country transportation, and the best food on the mountain. It is, simply, the highest degree of support we know how to offer.

Here’s what that looks like on three of our most requested private itineraries: Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro, and the Cordillera Huayhuash.

Everest Base Camp, On Your Terms

Everest Base Camp is truly the trip of a lifetime. Every year, trekkers from around the world make their way up the Khumbu Valley toward the foot of the world’s highest mountain, and for good reason: nowhere else do you get this close to Everest’s history, its Sherpa culture, and its sheer physical presence.

Run as a group trip, EBC is already one of our most beloved itineraries. Run privately, it becomes something more intimate. You tell us when you want to be standing beneath the Khumbu Icefall, and we build the 14-day itinerary around it. Your guide gives full attention to your pace, your acclimatization, and your curiosity, shaping each day accordingly.

The trip starts with a helicopter flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, the world’s highest airport, then up through Namche Bazaar, Khumjung, and Phortse, home to most of our own Sherpa team, where our guests stay at one of our Sherpa’s family lodge. After a night in Phortse, we continue on to Dingboche, Lobuche, and Gorak Shep, the closest village to Everest Base Camp.

Just outside of Gorak Shep is a stunning trekking peak called Kala Patthar. At over 18,000 feet, you’ll watch the sun rise on Everest before spending a night at basecamp and underneath the . And after a night sleeping beneath the mountain at Base Camp itself, you’ll take one of the most spectacular helicopter flights on the planet, straight back to Kathmandu.

What changes on a private trip is the texture of the experience. Your guide can slow down for the day you want to sit with a cup of tea in Khumjung a little longer, or push a pace that matches your own fitness rather than the group average. The tea houses, the food, and the acclimatization schedule are still the best we can offer, only now built around exactly one team: yours.

Kilimanjaro, Uncrowded and Unhurried

Kilimanjaro has a way of humbling people who assume that “non-technical” means “easy.” Africa’s highest peak, and one of the Seven Summits, demands respect for its altitude and for the discipline of a properly built itinerary. Most operators rush the mountain in five days. We take seven, a meaningful part of why our Kilimanjaro teams see a summit success rate north of 90 percent.

On the Rongai Route, the quieter path up Kilimanjaro’s north side, private guests get everything our standard 9-day expedition includes, full porter and cook support, private dining and bathroom tents, and the combined expertise of our Western guides and Tanzania’s best local logistics operators, but on a schedule that’s entirely theirs. Climb during a window that fits your life rather than our calendar, with a certified guide dedicated to your team alone as you move from rainforest to alpine desert to the crater rim at Gilman’s Point, and finally to Uhuru Peak at 19,341 feet.

Private Kilimanjaro trips also give the safari extension real weight as a natural second act. After the descent via the Marangu Route, guests can head into the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, trading trekking poles for Land Cruisers and nights in luxury eco-lodges. On a private itinerary, that transition from mountain to migration happens exactly when you want it to, without coordinating around anyone else’s flight home.

The Cordillera Huayhuash: Peru’s Best-Kept Secret, All to Yourself

If Everest Base Camp is the pilgrimage everyone knows about, the Cordillera Huayhuash is the one serious trekkers whisper about. Tucked into the Peruvian Andes south of Huaraz, this 16-day circuit is sustained high-altitude trekking through some of the most dramatic, least-visited terrain in South America, turquoise lakes, jagged 20,000-foot peaks, and Andean villages that see a fraction of the foot traffic of Nepal’s more famous trails.

Of the three trips here, it’s the one where a private departure changes the experience the most. The Huayhuash circuit is remote by design, threading past Laguna Mitucocha, Laguna Carhuacocha, and Laguna Jahuacocha, and over passes like Cacananpunta and the trek’s high point, Cuyoc, at 16,404 feet. On a private trip, you set a pace matched to your own acclimatization after two days in Huaraz, choosing when to push through the demanding back-to-back passes and when to linger at a lakeshore camp for an extra hour before your dedicated guide, burro team, and kitchen staff move you on to the next valley.

For trekkers who’ve already done EBC and are looking for the next serious objective, or those who want their first high-altitude trek to be somewhere genuinely off the map, a private Huayhuash departure delivers exactly that: a circuit built entirely around your ambitions, with none of the compromises of a fixed group schedule.

What You’re Actually Buying

A private expedition with Alpenglow means an IFMGA/AMGA-certified guide whose only job, for the length of your trip, is your team. It means an itinerary built around your dates instead of ours, and the same rigorous logistical backbone, vetted local partners, an on-call expedition doctor in Dr. Monica Piris, a full-time office staff, and twenty years of relationships in Nepal, Tanzania, and Peru, deployed at full capacity for you alone.

We think of ourselves as your partner in dreaming, planning, climbing, and celebrating. On a private expedition, that partnership is undiluted. If price isn’t the constraint and quality is everything, this is the way we’d want you to experience Everest Base Camp, Kilimanjaro, or the Cordillera Huayhuash. It’s the way we’d want to experience them too.

Ready to build your own private itinerary? Reach out to our team at info@alpenglowexpeditions.com or 1 (877) 873-5376, and let’s talk about your dates.