Here Is What Happens Before Your Trek Begins
Here Is What Happens Before Your Trek Begins
Category Working With Indiahikes About Indiahikes
By Swathi Chatrapathy
2016-02-29
Have you ever wondered what goes into running a trek?
You might have done a trek and enjoyed the sceneries, the trails, the camp sites, the hospitality – tea thrice a day, popcorn in the evening, chowmein for a snack, the most sumptuous food after each day’s trek! So here’s a peek into how exactly we manage to organise all this at high altitude!
A few weeks before the season for our high altitude treks is to begin on a particular slope, our operations folk and trek leaders are on their toes!
Our team usually goes to the closest Metro store in to buy provisions for our treks before they begin! They really mean business, because when they are done, they leave the store with no less than 17 tonnes of provisions!
Here’s Mahi with all the stash
More than 1000 litres of oil, three tonnes of rice, 100 kilograms of just tea(!), 100 litres of ghee, 200 kilograms of salt, the list is endless!
“It takes us two entire days to shop for everything and five hours just to load the truck!” says Dushyant, our trek leader. Right from making a check-list, to budgeting the goods, buying them, packaging them and sending them to different base camps, our team works its backside off, and the season hasn’t even begun yet!
We’ll let the pictures below speak for themselves. Take a look.
Step 1: Making a checklist. This probably required several cups of chai before it got done
(L-R) Kushal, Jagdish, Mahi and Dushyant making an endless checklist.
Step 2: Walking from isle to isle to pick up samaan
Coconuts, anyone?
Step 3: Once they had too much samaan, they couldn’t really walk around the isles. They needed this.
Like a boss
Step 4: Checking out of the store. “Door delivery” they say. Wonder if they would deliver this to the Himalayas?
Notice the labels? “Hold for Har Ki Dun”
Step 5: Loading the truck. They started early. It got dark as they got done.
Jagdish, Mahi and Kushal helping load goods onto the truck. This isn’t even half of it.
Step 7: Heave ho!
Heave ho!
Step 8: After some point in time, they needed more than just muscle strength.
You’ll need the help of these machines to load the truck.
Step 9: Once the truck was loaded, they began their journey to Sari, Sankri and Lohajung, base camps of different treks.
Dushyant poses with the truck that is going to be the roof over his head for the next four days
Step 10: Driving around the hillside to deliver the goods. A delightful four day journey!
The truck drivers say hello!
So our Operations Team has a grand time gearing up for every season. It’s no mean feat to run treks across the Himalayas, at such remote places and on such a large scale. They’ll tell you all about it when you meet them on the slopes this season!
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