About Us

The Benegas Brothers’ reputation for personal integrity and professionalism has taken them from their childhood Patagonian playground to the far corners of the world. Willie Benegas was named 2010 AMGA Outstanding Guide of the year, a testament to his reputation as one of the best guides in the world.

Damian and Willie Benegas are veteran guides with extensive high altitude experience on all seven continents, and continue to challenge themselves on the hardest mountains around the world. If you’re not climbing with Damian or Willie, you’ll be meeting a lead guide who has traveled and climbed extensively at your destination. Our administrative staff and guides are highly regarded in their field with extensive experience. We believe in professional integrity and strive to go above and beyond in absolutely everything we do. We attempt to challenge current professional standards and push for higher expectations throughout our industry, everywhere we travel. We expect our staff AND guests to follow the principles of responsible travel — travel while respecting people, cultures, and local environments; travel while distributing wealth; travel in good will and cross-cultural sharing, and travel while contributing to sustainable development.

There is no replacement for over 20 years of hands-on guiding experience around the world. Benegas Brothers Expeditions provides intimate local knowledge around the world from decades of climbing and guiding, with each local crew cherry-picked to be the best in the industry.

In the Himalaya, our guiding experience and notable first ascents of highly technical summits are a testament to our dedication and expertise. Benegas Brothers Expeditions makes an effort to always keep away from the crowds, and where this is not possible on busier mountains, to establish separate high altitude camps.

We encourage our clients to be fully engaged from planning stage, to training until expedition completion, continually learning about their environment and the technical and decision-making aspects of expeditions.

BBE maintains a low client-to-guide ratio and proven acclimatization programs, while providing clients with the necessary support required (e.g. porters for equipment and supplies). We view our clients as partners and take a collaborative approach to expeditions.

From people, to culture, to local environments, we are well aware that our expeditions have great impacts on local communities in many ways. Whether we realize it or not, our role in traveling affects the indigenous peoples and environment, and if we aren’t careful, we can easily destroy these precious ecosystems and communities.

This concept is paramount for us to keep in mind when planning and operating all of our trips. We hold a strong belief that each and every adventure operator must take responsibility for the way that they conduct business, both to ensure the welfare of guests and local communities, as well as to conserve the environment, both individually and also as an industry. We strive to provide each of our guests with real life experiences through our responsible manner of operating, as well as our incorporation of our principles of sustainable development. We meet these expectations in each of our day-to-day operations and in ALL of our expeditions. To accomplish this, we train and expect our staff and guests to follow the principles of responsible travel — traveling whilst maintaining a deep respect for people, different cultures, and local environments; travel while distributing wealth; travel in good will and cross-cultural sharing, and travel while contributing to sustainable development. Only through understanding, agreeing to, and following each of these principles are we able to guarantee and maintain a safe and enjoyable trip for all parties

At BBE, we pride ourselves in living as close to the natural world as possible whilst making every effort to minimize our footprint.

To minimize our impact on the environment, we educate our staff and guests in appropriate techniques and methods to preserve the environment. We come from the wildest of pristine Patagonia in South America, and because of this, we have always been conscious of a necessity to leave zero trace when in the wilderness. We proudly apply this philosophy to every situation and location we visit. In fact, we strive to leave the area cleaner than how we found it, a concept in which we are the pioneers. Benegas Brothers Expeditions was one of the first expedition companies to lead cleanup projects, from Everest to Aconcagua, and we operate under the belief that “If you take care of the mountain, the mountain will take care of you.” To protect the environment during outdoor adventures, we implement our “Leave No Trace” policy with the following seven principles:

• Plan ahead and prepare
• Travel and camp on durable surfaces
• Dispose of waste properly
• Leave what you find
• Minimize campfire impacts
• Respect wildlife
• Be considerate of other visitors.

We rely heavily on each of our principles to ensure we keep the environment our top priority during our outings. During each of our expeditions, we thoroughly explain and put our principles into use, making sure each of our guests have a deep and thorough understanding of the best methods and practices to reduce our impact on the environment.