Here is How You Can Contribute to Our Website

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Here is How You Can Contribute to Our Website

Category Diy Treks Working With Indiahikes About Indiahikes

By Gautam Singh

2020-10-28

At Indiahikes we stand for trek information. One aspect of it is that we document treks. We document them in great detail — right from the landmarks, water sources, the kind of forests and terrain you see, to photographs and videos of the trail.  

Ideally, we believe that you shouldn’t need an organisation like Indiahikes to do a trek.   You should be able to simply read about the trek on the website and do it by yourself. That way, your trek becomes more independent, more adventurous and less expensive.

Our vision is to see that Indiahikes’ website remains the largest and detailed database of all trek information in India — guiding anyone who wants to do a trek to be able to trek on their own. 

Now considering the scale of work that this documentation needs, we need your help.

Here are the Things You Can Contribute

1. A map of the trail: Tracking a trail on a GPS is very cool. Every time we have done this, we have felt like real explorers. All you need is a geo-tracking app — GAIA GPS and Geotracker, to name a few and you can mark the trail, important landmarks and record the altitude, directions, everything. We use such files to create better maps and get accurate trail information.  

The more detailed landmarks the more information the map carries.  These are useful for our trekkers to see the trek differently — it can almost serve as a guide for the trek. Outside our trekkers, it also helps other trekkers to independently do this trek with ease. 

2. Photographs of the trek: Honestly, our website is nothing without the pictures. If we think your photograph suits our website, then we’d be happy to feature you on it. We’ll feature you on our social media and tag you too. So you’ll get the attention you deserve! Few things to keep in mind:

  • Choose the best photos you think represents the trek.  Choose a variety of photos that fall under different themes — landscape, action, portraits, etc. 
  • Rename the photos like this “Trek name – Your name – Caption”. For example – “Kuari Pass – Aditya Ramesh – View of Mt Nanda Devi”
  • Put them all in one folder on your drive and share it with us via the google form shared below.

Here’s something that will help you with the pictures – 9 tips to be a Good Trek Photographer.

3. Video footage from the trek: If you can bring back some steady, good footage from the mountains, that would be gold for us!  This could be as sophisticated as the footage taken using drone or your professional camera. We even appreciate videos taken using your phone camera as long as they are steady and showcase the trek or the trekkers’ stories. 

One strong criteria to keep in mind though would be this — We are looking for good quality videos, and steady videos. So if you’re slightly experienced, then do send in your footage. It will be put to good use.  

4. Details about the trek route: These details require a keen observation of the trail. And take it from us, this can bring your trek alive a hundredfold. If you’re observing the kind of trees, birds, flowers you see, or the terrain and gradient, you are “experiencing” a trek a hundred times more than anyone else.

So with these observations, put down these details of the trek. This will help us understand a trek better and give a better virtual experience to those visiting our website.

  • Your favourite section of the trek
  • Your favourite photography spot
  • Any section that you found challenging
  • Your favourite trek story (Oh believe us apart from the stories you create on the trek, our Trek Leaders and Guides are brilliant story-tellers!)
  • Any tips you can pass off to future trekkers
  • Waste hotspots on the trek

Remember that every sentence you tell us adds value to future trekkers. They will learn from you about the trek and experience the trek better.

So, there you go! We hope you have more clarity on how you can contribute to our website. 

Out of the four points we have mentioned above, which one would you like to help us with? 

You can share it with us through this Google form.

 

│ A note about copyright for photos and videos: Copyright for all images submitted as a participant remains with the respective photographers. However, each photographer grants a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual license to Indiahikes to feature any or all of the submitted images in any of their publications, their websites and/or in any promotional material connected to this competition.

Gautam Singh

Finance Manager

About the author

Gautam Singh is the Finance Manager at Indiahikes. He is a B.Com graduate who realized Chartered Accountancy was not his cup of tea, a bit too late. At heart, he is an adventure seeker. He loves riding bikes, travelling solo, exploring places, and meeting new people. He is an avid runner, and it took him on the journey from being 'Fat to Fit'. He was also one of the lucky few who saw Kashmir both as a State and as a Union Territory on his first Himalayan trek - Kashmir Great Lakes. You can write to him at gautam@indiahikes.com