Our Instructors

Manuel was born in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina. The humid pampas by the Parana River. His family owned a little house in Cordoba, the Sierras, where they use to go on vacation. That’s where his mountain spirit began to grow.

On the pampas, there were no mountains to climb, so Manuel learned how to climb on a brick wall in the middle of the city and escaped to the mountains every once a while. To get to the nearest mountains involved 7 hours of driving and 2 hours of hiking!

After learning how to clip bolts, he started trad climb. He became a summer backpacking guide in 1997 with the Argentinean Association of Mountain Guides. In 1998, he moved to Canada where he worked as a Canoe Guide and Program Director at YMCA Camp Kanawana. After 2 year, he decided to return to Argentina. He went to Aconcagua, Ushuaia, Torres del Paine, Bolivia, etc. and in El Chaltén, he found a guide job right away for the following season.

In 2001, he got his winter and summer backpacking qualifications and worked in both El Chaltén and the Canadian Rockies. In 2005, he got his (IFMGA) International Federation Mountain Guides Association certificate. This allow him to guide worldwide. Since then he has guided in Canada, Peru, Bolivia, Switzerland, Chamonix and Chile.

He became the first guide to complete the Argentinean Mountain Guides Association training platform. He has lived in El Chaltén since 2000 and is the first Argentinean Guide to guide Fitz Roy by the supercolouir route. He is also part of El Chaltén SAR (Search and Rescue). His passions are alpine rock climbing, ice climbing, ski mountaineering and paragliding.

Amrit grew up in the foothills of the Nepali Himalayas to the west of Pokhara and spent every available moment exploring the region by foot, or playing in the rapids on the Aadhi Khola River. His passion for the outdoor life continued after he graduated when he went to work for the family adventure sports business, offering him the opportunity to raft many of Nepal’s pristine rivers and trek and climb the country’s majestic peaks.

Amrit’s desire to learn more and expand his horizons took him to the USA on a scholarship, where he qualified as an instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), leading trips within the Rocky Mountains and the Himalayas since 2005. Continuing his international links, Amrit has been working hand in hand with leading experiential learning education companies Pacific Discovery and Pure Exploration.

As part of his ethos of giving back, since 2009 each January he has worked as a volunteer ice climbing instructor for the Khumbu Climbing Centre (KCC) in Phortse in the Everest region, teaching technical skills to high altitude mountaineers and workers ahead of the expedition season. In 2016, he was selected from the KCC instructors to work as a volunteer for the National Parks Service in both Denali and Yosemite National Parks, working alongside the Denali National Park Service Mountain Rescue Team and Yosemite Climbing Rangers. During this time, he summited Denali, North America’s highest mountain peak.

In 2009 Amrit started his own sustainable trekking, tours and outdoor education company, Himalayan Quests. In 2013 he started running rural health camps and in 2015, set up a sister Not for Profit, Himalayan Quests Foundation which focuses on rural health and education projects.

In acknowledgement of his hard work at the KCC, technical and business skills, in 2019 he was made Executive Director of the climbing centre as the international management team stepped back and handed over the running of the school to an all-Nepali team. At much the same time, he was also invited to be a member of the 2019 National Geographic Perpetual Planet Expedition up Mount Everest, designed to measure the impact of climate change on the Himalaya.

In 2021, Amrit was personally invited to join the Full Circle Everest Expedition by expedition leader Phil Henderson, while accompanying the team on a training climb on Mount Rainer. As Executive Director of KCC, the organisation that provided the majority of the Nepali climbing and support team, Amrit’s role was that of both liaison between the local and international teams as well as expedition photographer. Amrit, along with 7 members of the Full Circle team and the local Nepali climbers, made history when they reached the summit, doubling the number of international people of colour who had reached the top.

With over 20 years of experience leading adventure trips, Amrit is passionate about his country and culture and loves to explore his home and to share the joys of Nepal with others. He is an avid climber, trekker, photographer and outdoor educator and is Wilderness Emergency Medicine Technician (WEMT) and Wilderness First Aid Instructor qualified for wilderness medicine school, SOLO, New Hampshire, USA.

Cualann started his outdoor career at a young age undertaking his first caving trip at three years old with his Dad, and has been hooked ever since. Having grown up amongst outdoor instructors he realised early on there was little else that gave him such drive and passion as the outdoors. In work, he took an interest in outdoor education and working with young people to empower them to achieve their goals and push themselves.

In his personal time, he developed a healthy obsession with caving, climbing, and walking. If he wasn’t on a rock he was underground, always looking for the next adventure. After two years of multi-day canoe expeditions and hiking expeditions through the Australian bush and alpine regions, he decided it was time for a change and opened a paddle boarding and kayaking centre in Wales with his partner. Now craving a new challenge and adventure he's based in New Zealand working on our programs!

Jeff always knew he wanted to get out of construction and into the outdoor industry. He decided to make it happen and joined our New Zealand Adventure Guide Program as a student for 12 weeks of immersive education and upskilling in the outdoors. He knew instantly that the outdoor industry was for him and upon completing our Adventure Guide Program he went on to upskill even further with our Outdoor Instructor Program. Gaining the skills, logbook hours and qualifications required to work outdoors, paired with his endless enthusiasm for being outside, we knew we wanted to have him work for us!

His favourite part of being a guide is packing the van up with equipment, squeezing everyone in and heading off on multi-day hikes and rock climbing days in the outdoors where he gets to mentor and guide students through the challenges of the outdoors.

Ivor hails from Scotland where he received a bachelor's degree in Economics and a post-graduate Masters' degree in Outdoor Education from the University of Edinburgh. His life changed in 1995 when he first visited New Zealand, spending six months tramping and traveling before moving here permanently in 2000. These days, he’s Kiwi as.

Ivor draws from nearly endless experience operating in the outdoors. He holds British Mountaineering Council qualifications and has a log book stretching for miles. He’s all about ski mountaineering, technical alpine rock climbing, and multi-method travel missions in the mountains.

After owning and operating a successful rock climbing gym and guiding company, he spent several years teaching at the Poly Technic in Nelson. There he trained countless outdoor professionals, greatly enjoying the snow safety and avalanche training, mountain biking, and rock climbing training modules. Several times a year, he takes groups to the developing world, bringing him to Nepal, Mongolia, Ecuador, Tanzania, Peru, South East Asia, and India.

When he’s not busy on course training the next crew of outdoor badasses, he’s swinging around on geo-technical industrial rope access jobs, trad climbing in the Remarkables, and linking up mighty missions around the South Island.