This is the Green Trails Report by Indiahikes for October 2023. It is an internal report written by Sharwari Brahme, the head of Green Trails at Indiahikes. It has been published without edits.

Green Trails News

1. As winter is almost here, let us bring back our 'One Bucket Challenge.' This week onwards, all the slopes start the challenge from the base camp to the last campsite. I am also sharing the link to the document for all the instructions and steps to implement it.

2. We experimented with the compostable packages we had procured from 'Go Do Good'. The experiment was done to see if our premix items could be put in the bags. Manish Sir tested it in the Dehradun office. The compostable bags need to be stronger in order to withhold the weight. We have given the feedback to 'Go Do Good', and we'll see if it can go through more iterations. In the meantime, we will keep looking for other organizations for sustainable packaging.

Green Sweeps

There have been more than 12 clean-ups we have had in October across all slopes. With every slope member participating, the culture of regular green sweeps is becoming more consistent. Let us target more green sweeps in November and December, especially on the trail. This is also helping the entire team come together really well.

Interns

1. Satvik, who was working with us as one of our interns, finished his internship in October. He spent two months on the slopes and has worked well. He hopes to trek with us soon.

2. Ankit, who was also working as an intern, has finished his internship. He has taken Green Trails Vision forward in the last three months. He wants to continue his journey of working towards making trekking a sustainable sport for all. He will be joining as a full-time member at Indiahikes on 20th November 2023. He will work as a GT coordinator.

3. Soham, who joined recently as a GT intern, has finished his orientation in Bengaluru. He will be reporting to the slopes on the 7th of November 2023. to start his work from Sari.

Trainings

In the last week of October, Ravi Sir conducted a training for all the store incharges and trek coordinators on equipment, focusing on set-up, maintenance, and wind-up. This was done with safety and sustainability at the core. The training also focused on our Golden Six practices set at our base camp and campsites. There were a lot of learnings for the entire staff. The staff picked up on the new process.

Here are the observations that came from Ravi Sir's side: the staff team wasn't completely aware of what our G6 practices are; they knew how a campsite is set, but what comes under G6 practices and protocols they weren't aware of. This training has helped them get familiar with G6 processes.

Recognitions

Congratulations to all of you. Everyone has done an amazing job bringing out the right spirit of trekking with all your groups. All of you have helped trekkers take sustainability back to their cities. All of you have also left the mountains visibly cleaner for all our future trekkers.

Observations

1. Since June, there has been a significant change in everyone's sustainability journeys. All the Trek leaders are taking up the SCP challenges and completing them successfully. This is helping all of them have engaging conversations with their teams as well as their trekkers. I have also noticed a lot of peer-to-peer learning and sharing of resources and ideas to bring in more sustainability conversations.

2. In October, the personal SCP challenges people were taking up were drastically reduced. I see that out of the entire TL team, only 2-3% of teammates are taking up monthly challenges. It was very sad to see this. Let us change for November and see to it that all of you start the SCP challenges by this week itself.

3. The drop-off boxes at all our basecamps for wet wipes and strong communication in the briefing have brought it to nearly 0 for trekkers not bringing wet wipes. All the teams did a good job.

Experiments

Three weeks ago, Sudhanshu shared a message on the office WhatsApp group. The photo was of wet wipes being dug out of our older toilet pits from the Deoriatal Chandrshila trek. It was very disheartening to see this. Things like these defeat our purpose of having composting toilets, leaving a low impact on the mountains. Learning from these incidents we have taken a few strong steps and also conducted a live experiment at Sari to see the decomposition of a wet wipe versus a toilet paper.

Waste Targets

The teams have pushed hard to achieve their waste targets in September and October. All the slopes have done really well in an attempt to achieve their targets. I want to especially mention Raithal Slope, who achieved the waste target before the end of October. Well done, Raithal Team.

Here we are moving again from the autumn season to the winter season. Going forward, the visible litter would be comparatively less. So I'm considering the targets.

The targets for November and December are as follows:
Raithal: 100 kgs
Sari: 200kgs
Kotgaon: 150kgs
Lohajung: 200kgs
Karchi: 200kgs
Sandakphu: 150kgs

All the best to all of you for the winter! Let's leave our mountains better than we found them:)