Meet Devendra Rawat, Lead Guide in Sankri

If you've booked Kedarkantha or Har Ki Dun with us, there's a good chance Devendra is the person you'll meet at Sankri basecamp.

He grew up in the village, started porter work at 17, and became a lead guide by 24. Eleven years and counting on Kedarkantha alone — by his own rough count, somewhere past 60 batches. He spent one summer with the army's high-altitude training wing before deciding guiding suited him better, which he mentions mostly when someone asks why he doesn't seem tired on summit day.

What he actually does differently

Ask any of our past trekkers what stood out, and it's usually some version of: he notices things before you say anything. A trekker breathing a bit harder than the terrain warrants, someone quietly falling to the back of the group — Devendra clocks it early, not after someone says they're struggling.

He has one rule he repeats to every batch on day one: "The mountain will still be here next year. Your knees might not be, if we push today." It's the reason we've turned a group around before a summit push twice in the last two seasons — both times, in hindsight, the right call.

Off the trail

Between seasons, he runs a small guesthouse in Sankri with his brother, and spends winters training newer guides from the village — part of how we're slowly building out guide capacity for more departures without diluting who's actually leading them.

If you trek Kedarkantha or Har Ki Dun with us, you'll likely meet him at the pre-trek briefing in Sankri, not on a video call three weeks earlier.