About Chessell Adventures - Mountain Guides

Duncan Chessell	Tarn Pilkington	Aaron Halstead	Scott Woolums
Danny Baillie	Trek Guides	Rock Guides	Nepalese Staff

Duncan Chessell

Duncan Chessell has been climbing since 1988, first on the crags and in the gorges of Australia's National Parks and then on snowy hills in New Zealand, Europe and elsewhere. He first ventured to the Himalayas in 1995 and has been on more than a hundred expeditions in the Himalayas, leading successful treks and climbs on mountains like straightforward Pokhalde, technically challenging Kusum Kanguru and the logistically difficult North Ridge of Everest.

He particularly likes to lead ’exploratory’ style expeditions such as the first commercial remote high altitude traverse in the footsteps of Mallory – from ABC in the Rongbuk valley to the Kangshung Face of Everest, and out to the road head. In 2006 Duncan led the first sea to summit climb of Mt Vinson in Antarctica to attain the seventh of the fabled "Seven Summits" and is one of only about a dozen guides to have led expeditions to all of the "Seven Summits".

So as to enable him to fulfil some of his other goals, Duncan leads only a few expeditions a year. In 2007 Duncan led the most successful Australian Everest expedition, ever and reached the summit for the second time himself. He also led a Kokoda trek and a Mera Peak trek and climb for groups of select clients. 2008 will see him back in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, the Owen Stanley Ranges of PNG and perhaps on Kilimanjaro.

Tarn Pilkington

Tarn is a qualified UIAGM Mountain Guide who is based in New Zealand. He has guided and led expeditions on mountains all over the world, including many, many New Zealand peaks, Aconcagua, Antarctica and the Himalayas for both scientific and tourism operations. He has led successful Chessell Adventures expeditions to Ama Dablam, Island Peak, Lobuje East and Cho Oyu and is a patient and good humoured instructor and leader and has an impressive breadth of adventure skills that also encompasses professional ski-patrol, mountain rescue, raft guiding and Tarn has also mountain biked and skied in Iceland.

Aaron Halstead

Aaron is based in Queenstown in New Zealand where he works as a mountain guide, and Manager of the Professional Mountain Rescue in Aoraki Mount Cook. He is an internationally qualified Mountain and Ski Guide (UIAGM / IFMGA), a ski instructor and certified outdoor safety auditor. He has climbed in Nepal, India, China, South America, Antarctica, North America, Europe and east Asia as well as in New Zealand. In 2007 Aaron led
Chessell Adventures’s Himalayan Five Peaks Expedition with great results.

Scott Woolums

Scott has guided the seven summits twice! (Need we say more!) He has been to Everest four times and has led expeditions to Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam, many Nepalese ‘trekking’ peaks (including Island Peak, Pokhalde, Lobuje and Mera Peaks), unclimbed peaks in East Greenland, and many many peaks and treks worldwide. Scott is a Certified Alpine Guide of the American Mountain Guides Association.

Danny Baillie

Danny guides for Alpine Guides in the New Zealand summer, for their Wilderness Heliskiing operation in the winter and for Chessell Adventures in between. When not climbing or guiding he spends time with his partner and two year old son in Dunedin. Skiing and tramping from an early age, he got a qualification as a ski instructor, then misspent his youth and early twenties working as an actuary. He saw the light after his first ski touring trip and realised that the mountains were the answer to an unposed question.

Danny's ascents of 50 alpine routes in Europe included the Swiss Route of Gran Capucin and the Gervasutti Pillar of Mont Blanc du Tacul. A highlight of his early days was 3 weeks of ski touring and alpine climbing on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic including ascents of 12 peaks. Since moving to New Zealand in 2000 Danny has climbed over 100 peaks including the North Buttress of Sabre, the East Ridge of Rob Roy, West Face of Dixon, Silberhorn Arête of Tasman, Grand Traverse and Zurbriggen Ridge of Aoraki/Mount Cook. On a recent trip to Yosemite he climbed the Leaning Tower solo, Lurking Fear on El Capitan solo and The Shield on El Capitan. Danny worked on the successful 2004 DCXP H3P expedition, leading H5P and Ama Dablam for Chessell Adventures in 2005 and looks forward to many more.

Bryan Carter

Bryan is an IFMGA guide and Managing Director of Alpine Guides (Aoraki) Ltd, New Zealand's longest-established and largest mountain and ski guiding company. After starting his guiding career at a mere 18 years old, he has managed the company since 1983 and (with Kevin Boekholt) took over ownership of this guiding icon in 2000. He has been guiding for 30 years, mainly in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. In his climbing career he notched up first ascents such as the Strauchon Face of Dilemma, first solo ascents (West face of Haidinger) and notable climbs such as the 2nd winter ascent of the Caroline Face of Mount Cook. He has worked throughout the NZ mountains and in Antarctica and has travelled extensively overseas.

Part of the renaissance of New Zealand guiding in the 1970's, Bryan was among the first group of NZ guides to acquire IFMGA status. As he became involved with the management of Alpine Guides, he was responsible for the development of best practice guiding standards and professionalism as NZ guiding developed an international reputation. The company has acted as mentor for most of NZ's leading mountain guides and continues to be at the forefront of guides' development and training.

Trek Guides

Billi Bierling

Billi Bierling, has been mountaineering in the Himalayas for nearly 10 years and works between trips as a journalist (she is a qualified journalist from her former life!). Even though she comes from an Alpine town in Bavaria she started hiking and climbing in the UK, where she did a lot of rock in Wales, Scotland and the Lake District. She first went to Nepal in 1998, where she set foot on a glacier for the first time. However, she got hooked pretty quickly and kept on coming back for more. Billi has also done high-altitude mountaineering in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Argentina. She moved to Nepal in 2004 and when she is not running around interviewing mountaineering expeditions for Miss Elizabeth Hawley, she gets out and leads expeditions to trekking peaks such as Mera and Island Peak for Chessell Adventures. In 2009 she made her first ascent of Mt Everest the highest peak on the planet.

Silvano Mahimbo Mvungi

Silvano is Chessell Adventures’s man-on-the-ground in East Africa. The Tanzanian leads climbs of Kilimanjaro and Mount Meru and Mount Kenya, and his offsider David conducts fabulous private jeep safaris in the game parks of Tanzania and Kenya. Silvano lives adjacent to Kilimanjaro National Park and has climbed Kilimanjaro hundreds of times by every route. He knows Kili back to front, hid English is very good and he does an excellent job of managing trekkers ascent rates and our local crew of assistants, cooks and porters. Silvano is ably assisted by really good cooks who provide fresh tasty food from a tent kitchen

Jamie McGuinness

Jamie is one of Chessell Adventures's 8000m peaks leaders. He speaks Nepalese fluently and has been trekking in the Himalayas since the early 1990's. He is author of "Trekking in the Everest Region" and "Trekking in the Langtang Region" both published by Trailblazer. Apart from his expert knowledge of the Nepalese Himalayas, Jamie's has trekked extensively in the Indian and Tibetan Himalaya. He is probably the most active trek and mountain guide in the Himalayas and spends 10 months of every year on expedition (or preparing for the next one!). Jamie is not just a trekker though, his skills in organisation, logistics and contacts - linked with his natural strength at altitude make him a great high altitude expedition leader. With 4 ascents of Cho Oyu, two ascents of Shishapangma and four ascents of Mt Everest, he is one of the most active high altitude expedition leaders in the world. He also accompanied Duncan on the exploratory first ascents expedition to Antartica's Elsworth Mountains which put up a new route on Mt Vinson the highest peak in Antarctica.

Australian Rock climbing guides

Ben Taylor, Rob Baker, Tim Gill, David Trehearne, Darren Williams, Ben Hawthorn
Chessell Adventures’ rock climbing instructors are accredited through the South Australian Rock Climbing Education Association (SAREA) – in fact most are Board members or assessors!. They have mountaineering and/or rescue experience to inform their instruction and rock guiding and have benefited from Chessell Adventures-specific training. They are competent safe climbers who really enjoy being out there teaching in the cliff environment. And they are such good people that we would and do take any of them on our own personal weekends away.


Chessell Adventures' Nepalese Staff

Chhwang Sherpa

Chhwang was the first Sherpa to climb Denali, as well as working in Europe as a climbing guide and he runs our trekking agency in Kathmandu. His encyclopaedic knowledge of Nepal is a great asset. He started as a porter then progressed to be a respected cook, then to an accomplished climbing Sherpa and is now trekking company director. Chhwang has travelled extensively throughout North America and Europe. He knows Nepal and he knows the west. Chhwang and his office manager Dawa Lama assist us with local logistics and smooth running at the Kathmandu end.

Gyanu Shrestha

Gyanu is Head Cook (magician) and Nepal's 'pasta master'. We have used Gyanu as Cook and Sirdar since 1995. A friend as much as a member of the team, he cooks up a storm. We are all constantly amazed at how he cooks apple pies and awesome calabrese pasta dishes at up to 6500m!! And all on a single burner gas or kero stove!! He works tirelessly looking after each client with a smile that never ends. He is also a pretty mean card player so watch out!

Gyanu is also a qualified and knowledgeable trek leader and sirdar and leads treks to Everest BC up the Khumbu valley of Nepal.

Sonam Bhote

Sonam Bhote

Lhakpa Rongdu Sherpa



Lhakpa Zorok Sherpa



Pasang Sherpa

We first met Pasang as a kitchen boy in 2001. Since then he has worked his way to qualified cook as well as trek guide and climbing sherpa. He has participated in many of our expeditions, and I vividly remember his trekking up in the twilight to bring a thermos of hot tea to meet our team as we descended from an exciting but long grand traverse of Island Peak.

Densa Bhote

Densa is a strong and capable climbing sherpa from the Makalu region of Nepal. His smiling face first came to prominence as a strong and smiling porter on our Annapurna extravaganza when he acted as personal porter and helper to bring a pair of our members to a lower altitude resting place. He has since studied to become a qualified climbing sherpa and has summited Cho Oyu and Mount Everest.