All over the world, it's becoming obvious that there's nothing that women can't do

Trekker Ben Clark

They are on a two-week study tour of the mountain environment around Annapurna, the 10th highest mountain in the world.

And their guides are all women.

Male porters and other trekkers gaze in astonishment as the group passes.

Until recently, guiding treks in Nepal has been an exclusively male pursuit.

Astonishment

Then three sisters from the tourist town of Pokhara in central Nepal - Lucky, Nikki and Dikki Chhetri - decided to change things.

"We loved trekking ourselves, we were always in the mountain," says Lucky, sitting in their office in Pokhara.

Rivals say such closeness between guides and trekkers is rare

"But we kept hearing things, especially from foreign women, that they didn't feel safe on the trail with only men to accompany them."

So the Chhetri's set up Three Sisters Adventure Trekking and started training Nepali women to lead the way along the country's Himalayan trails.

It's been a roaring success.

The trek with the Americans is a final chance to check out the training given to nine guides in the past two courses.

Adventure

One of them is Geetika Rai, an educated, middle-class woman from Kathmandu, whose Swiss husband urged her to go on the course.

"It's a chance to use my French," says Ms Rai, standing on the bank of the Kali Gandaki River with the stark Tibetan landscape all around.

"And I love adventures. I used to work in an office. It was so monotonous."

It's safe to say there is little monotony in front of her.

Ms Rai is alone among the nine graduate trainees on the course with the Americans in being middle class, urban and well-educated.

Most are from more humble backgrounds, and from rural, more conservative parts of Nepal.

Trekkers say the female guides have more stamina

They encountered resistance in trying to take a job, normally done by men.

"We attract a lot of applicants from the disadvantaged social classes, and from divorced women, " says Nikki Chhetri.

"This job gives them good money and social status. And they get inspired by us, how my sisters and I have built our business and an activist group for womens' rights."

Inspiration

It's not just the trainees who find the Chhetri sisters inspirational.

The American trekkers could not speak highly enough of the work that the three women from Pokhara are doing.

Ben Clark, a geology major from Illinois and one of five male trekkers, says he is convinced women make better guides then men.

"All over the world, it's becoming obvious that there's nothing that women can't do. These Nepali ladies make excellent guides, they have more stamina than most men, and they're always cheerful. I'd love to go trekking with them again."

And the trainees are getting something back from their interaction with the American students.

All along the trail from Pokhara to the high reaches of the Tibetan Buddhist enclave of Mustang, there have been frequent stops for short lectures about geology, the mountain environment and natural history.

In an old caravanserai at the edge of the border of Mustang, the group stops to look at the unique flora and fauna of the Tibetan plateau.

At the airport in Jomsom, the district headquarters of Mustang, there are tears and promises of renewed contact between Nepali guides and American students.

A man who runs a rival trekking agency comments that he has rarely seen such closeness between trekking guides and trekkers.