We exist to share the Himalaya with the people who deserve to experience it.
Community Action Treks was founded in 1989 by Doug Scott CBE — one of Britain’s greatest mountaineers — on a simple but radical belief: that trekking in Nepal should give back to the communities that make it possible. Not as a marketing line. As the actual operating principle of the company.
Thirty-five years later, that belief is still the foundation of everything we do. The guides are local. The wages are fair. The surplus goes to Community Action Nepal. And the treks go deeper than the crowds.
Under new directorship, CAT is now entering a new chapter — with the same values, a fresh energy, and a renewed ambition to become the leading name in guided Himalayan trekking.
A campfire conversation about fairness. In 1989. In the shadow of Everest.
Doug Scott had spent two decades in the mountains by the time he founded Community Action Treks. He had stood on the summit of Everest via its hardest face. He had crawled back to base camp on broken legs from the Ogre. He had completed over 40 expeditions to the high mountains of Asia.
And throughout all of it, what struck him most wasn’t the summits. It was the people. The Sherpa guides, the porters, the villagers in the remote valleys below the snowline — the communities that made every expedition possible, and received almost nothing in return from the industry that depended on them.
CAT was the answer to that. A trekking company where fair wages were non-negotiable. Where local food and local guides were the standard, not an option. Where the economic benefit of tourism reached the villages, not just the operators in Kathmandu.
“Standing there, it felt as though you were part of something much bigger than yourself.”
— Doug Scott CBE, on the summit of Everest, 24 September 1975
Doug Scott CBE · Founder, Community Action Treks · 1941–2020
The principles behind everything we do
Doug wrote these principles into the company from the beginning. They haven’t changed. They won’t.
Our treks are never about ticking summits or keeping pace. They’re about immersing yourself fully in a place — its trails, its culture, its people — and arriving at the end a little changed for it.
We cap every departure at 12 guests. It means better guiding, deeper experiences, and the kind of group dynamic where friendships form fast and last long after the trail ends.
Every CAT trek is led by an expert Sherpa guide with deep roots in the communities we pass through. Not a freelancer hired for the season. Someone who knows every ridge, every village, every story.
Doug was furious at an industry that told porters they should be grateful for tips. CAT pays proper wages, provides proper food and equipment, and offers job security to the people who make these treks possible.
Surplus funds go directly to Community Action Nepal — schools, health posts, clean water, porter welfare. When you trek with us, Nepal benefits. That’s not marketing. It’s how the company was built.
We’ve welcomed trekkers from 18 to 70+, first-timers and experienced Himalayan travellers alike. What unites them is a spirit of adventure and a willingness to step beyond the comfortable. That’s all we ask.
This company was built on something worth protecting.
“When I took on CAT, I made one commitment above everything else: the values don’t change. The community-first model doesn’t change. The relationship with CAN doesn’t change.”
I came to Community Action Treks through relationships in the adventure travel industry. The previous directors — many of them in their eighties, some of whom had known Doug personally — had kept the flame alive for years after his death in 2020. What the company needed wasn’t a revolution. It needed someone with the energy and the commercial thinking to grow it again, without losing what made it worth growing.
I run Pure Trails Adventure, a guided trail running company I founded in 2019. I know what it takes to build something from scratch in adventure travel. But this is different. CAT already has the heritage, the in-country relationships, the 35-year track record, and a sister charity doing genuinely important work in Nepal. My job is to give it the platform it deserves.
What that means practically: new trip pages that actually tell the story. Set departures with real availability. A booking experience that doesn’t require you to ring a phone number from 2009. And a growing presence in the market that reflects the quality of what CAT has always delivered on the ground.
The Himalaya is the most extraordinary place I have ever been. CAT has been taking people there since before I was born. That’s not a heritage to inherit lightly — and I don’t.
Charlie Director, Community Action TreksTo understand where CAT is going, it helps to understand where it came from. Read the full story of Doug Scott CBE — mountaineer, philanthropist, and the founder who built a company around a principle rather than a profit motive.
Ready to see what we’re about?
Browse our 2026 and 2027 trek departures, read about the Doug Scott legacy, or get in touch to talk it through.