For a long time now, there’s been a lot of hue and cry about the idea of fixed camps — the idea of camping at the same location for a longer period. I’ve been seeing other organisations targeting Indiahikes, posting pictures of our campsites, maligning our Green Trails work — all in the name of fixed camps. 

It has escalated to such an extent that the term “fixed camp” has almost become a bad word. It is now immediately associated with damage to the environment. It is considered inferior to “rolling camps” or “rotating camps” where organisations camp, pack up, leave and move to the next camp, until the next team comes. 

This idea baffles me to no end. When every ecologically evolved country of the world has adapted fixed camps as a norm, it surprises me that educated organisations in India are still debating the idea. 

What bothers me more is the lack of any logical backing in their argument. I don’t see numbers, I don’t see research. If there was any science behind it, Indiahikes would be the first to learn from it and adapt it. 

So today, after many months of deliberation, I’m going to address this topic, and go against every vehement proponent of “rolling camps” / “rotating camps.” I am going to debate you why fixed camp is infinitely better for the environment. 

I’m sharing our years of research and study on this topic. 

Important note: In this post, I’m not addressing solo trekkers or small groups of trekkers. This is meant for meant for organisations that have 3 or more groups a week, whether in the Himalayas or anywhere else in the world.

1. Fixed camping dramatically reduces the trample effect on trekking trails

This point requires a slightly deeper understanding of what “trample effect” means and why it matters.

When a trekking team of 15-20 members has to camp, it involves a whole lot of resources — tents, sleeping bags, safety equipment, snow equipment, toilet equipment, kitchen and dining equipment. Add to it food and provisions. All these have to be moved from one camp to another, usually on mules, occasionally with porters. This movement of people, equipment, provisions and mules causes something known as a “trample effect” on trails.  

This trampling of trails leaves behind an impact. It erodes away precious topsoil, which contains most of the ground’s nutrients and fertility. It bruises or shears off plants. It also compacts the soil, which doesn’t bode well for any greenery. 

 The effect is evident when you study the numbers. Consider this. 

For every team of 25 (including staff members), our gear weighs around 600 kilos for a 4-day trek. This is loaded onto mules. For a load of 600 kg, we usually have 12 mules on the trail, each carrying roughly 50 kg. 

While this doesn’t seem like much weight, here are the numbers that matter. 

Each mule, on its own, weighs around 350 kg. This is the lower average. With another 50 kilos of load, each 400 kg mule heads out on trails. 12 such mules of 400 kg walk one after the other with metal hooves on trails. 

While even humans have a small trample effect, it isn’t as heavy as a pack animal. You can read more about it in this research paper (point 6).  

So when you’re constantly pitching camps and moving to the next, taking all the equipment with you, you’re taking 12 mules of 400 kg each time, trampling trails again and again. 

Additionally, mules also consume vegetation from the trail as fodder. They eat grass, flowers and vegetation they need to stay alive. This can be quite a bit, when you consider 12 mules doing it day after day. 

When you fix a camp at a certain location, the tents, sleeping bags, toilet equipment, all the heavy equipment is taken care of. It reduces the number of mules dramatically, since all that is left to transport now is offloaded backpacks and food replenishments. The amount of weight we carry comes down to a maximum of 150 kg. This is usually managed with just three mules. 

Fixing camps reduces the trample effect by 75%. This is an incomparable benefit to the environment.

2. Fixed camps cause LESS damage to the ground than rotating camps

Many people have this contention that we camp at the same place for weeks together, damaging the ground on which we are camping. Especially the ground below and around the tents.

There is a big misconception here, which I’d like to clear out. 

There is research and scientific evidence that most of the damage on a campsite happens when you first of the damage on a campsite happens when you first pitch camp. Once pitched, the damage is much lesser as you continue to stay there. (Read research paper here)

The logic behind it is straightforward. 

When you first arrive at a campsite and pitch tents, it damages the growth under the tent. Plants/grasslands get damaged, the soil gets compacted. The impact is the maximum when you first put a tent. Over the next few days, the extent of damage on the same spot reduces. 

When you’re moving camps regularly, you pitch camps again and again, in different spots, causing damage to more surface area. The constant movement impacts the ground a lot more than staying stationed at a camp.

Side note: Many trekkers worry about camping in meadows and that it does damage to meadows. Studies have shown that meadows and grasslands, in general, are a lot more resilient and grow back easily compared to forest land (Read research paper here, Page 1). This is true from our observations too. Every time we return to the meadows to camp, there is no sign of our previous camps there. To classify fixed camps as causing “permanent damage” is a gross misrepresentation.

This is a basic understanding that the whole world works with. Trek in Nepal, trek in New Zealand, trek in Switzerland, Italy, France or Austria. You will see that there are designated campsites for a reason — to limit the impact of camping to a small area, rather than spread out. 

The biggest difference between most of these countries and India is that they have progressed towards permanent fixtures at campsites, like mountain huts, yurt camps and tea houses, which is why nobody debates them. Indian trekking is yet to develop to such an extent, where we can have permanent infrastructure on remote trails.

3. Toilets are better managed with fixed camps

Here’s another grossly misunderstood topic. Most organisations are constantly harping on about deep toilet pits causing damage to the environment. Yet, at the same time, the same trekkers are surprisingly impressed by toilet setups on international trails like Kilimanjaro and Mt Fuji.  

The only difference between the international toilets and the Indiahikes toilets are the infrastructure. They have concrete / wooden structures. We have tents. Underground, they are both the same. They are deep pits dug into the earth, their depth and size proportionate to the number of people and duration of use. 

By far, in high-altitude trekking all over the world, this is accepted as the most environmentally viable concept. In fact, I’d say at Indiahikes we’re a step ahead, because we always use accelerators that aid decomposition (like cocopeat or sawdust), something other countries don’t do. 

There are obvious benefits of deep toilet pits, compared to setting up shallow toilet pits with every campsite setup. 

 Deep pits protect the topsoil from permanent damage, and if managed well, can make the soil richer. With multiple shallow pits, the amount of topsoil removed is significantly high. However, with 2 deep pit bio toilets, we are looking at just 18 sq ft of topsoil being removed per pit.

 Deeper pit = faster decomposition. Shallow pit = slower decomposition. The process of composting benefits from a lot of heat. The larger the pit, the more the heat is retained, speeding up decomposition. With shallow pits, heat escapes within days, slowing down decomposition. 

 Deep pits protect over 80% of the campsite area from spread of human waste. When you have a fixed camp, your toilet pit requirements are limited to 2-3 deep toilet pits for the season. These are 3x3x3 in size. This way, the human waste is contained in one area. 

When you’re moving camps, you’re constantly digging shallow toilet pits for each day, increasing the number of pits at each camp exponentially, in reality around 900 toilet pits at each campsite!

 Deep toilet pits protect water sources. When you continuously dig multiple shallow pits for toilets, the more spread out human waste is going to be, going as far as the banks of streams and lakes. 

On the other hand, deep pit bio-toilets help in containing human waste to a specifically designated area. At Indiahikes, we ensure that our pits are as far as possible from the water sources.

Deep pit bio-toilets are reusable: A big benefit of a deep toilet pit is its reusability. In all our camps, we use our toilet pits in the same place, again and again, every year. 

With shallow pits, we suffer from incomplete decomposition. This makes it difficult to reuse the pits again. It creates an unnecessary need to dig out more and more shallow pits, causing long-term damage to the environment over many years. 

To read our whole article about why deep pits are more sustainable for human waste management at high altitudes, click here.

4. Fixed camps ensure less wear and tear of camping equipment, thereby reducing environmental impact

Here’s an indirect impact on the environment that not many people realise. When you’re constantly rotating camps, you’re constantly packing, unpacking and transporting your equipment. More damage is done to the equipment during these three actions than anything else. They tend to tear, the poles tend to bend or break, and pegs get damaged. 

But the damage is not the concern. There’s a larger impact on the environment. 

“Every piece of equipment has its own life cycle. It has its own carbon footprint, water footprint, ecological footprint. The more you reduce the lifespan of a product, you have underutilized the resources you have used. The more you’re wearing and tearing, the more waste you’re generating,” says Lakshmi Selvakumaran, head of Learning and Development at Indiahikes. 

“Furthermore, sports equipment is often made from polymer materials with waterproof coating. They are very very hard to recycle. On the opposite end, they are also very hard to manufacture. Chemical science is complex, the process is laborious. It requires high-end manufacturing equipment and energy. When we shorten the life-cycle of equipment, we are using more resources, leaving behind a large environmental impact,” she adds. 

Organisations like Patagonia have dedicated their entire vision towards making sports equipment more sustainable. That is the only way forward if we want trekking to grow in India. And fixed camping allows you to do that. 

When you fix camps, you pitch camps only one in several times compared to rotating camps. It goes a long way in prolonging the life cycle of the equipment, a practice that makes trekking more sustainable.

5. Fixed camps allow you to focus better the camp environment, beyond the nitty-gritties of plain camping

When our team members are stationed at one place, the “setting-up” is a one-time process. Once that is done, the only goal for them is to make the experience better and better. This is something we have a razor-sharp focus on at Indiahikes. 

This is not possible with rotating camps. We have observed that most organisations don’t involve trekkers in the campsite set-up either. It is usually staff members involved in campsite management, pitching tents, washing utensils, setting up small pits for toilets. The very next day, they hurriedly pack up, close toilet pits shabbily, leave trash behind. This is something we observe on almost all trails.  

When you fix camps, you focus on the right things — It’s like your campsite is your home. You maintain it, you host people, you treat them well and involve them in everything. Much like in your home, you try to become more and more sustainable and self-sufficient, leaving the place better than it was. 

Trekking is growing in India. Within Indiahikes alone we are seeing a tremendous increase in the number of trekkers every year. This is the case across almost all trekking organisations in the country. 

When this is the case, fixed camping is the only way forward. It reduces the amount of energy utilized, the impact on the camping grounds and the wear and tear of equipment. It aids better human waste and campsite management. It is better for the environment. 

There is ample research on this topic and enough live examples around the world to show us that it works. 

While it has become somewhat fashionable to berate fixed camping, logical and scientific evidence point to a different picture. 

I hope other organisations, the government and all other stakeholders in the Indian trekking industry take note and understand the goodness of fixed camps.

Why Fixed Camps Are Better For The Environment

fixed camps, rotating camps, deep pit toilets

Why Fixed Camps Are Better For The Environment 

Of late, many questions are being raised about what is a sound toilet system at high-altitude campsites on popular treks.

On the one hand, we have multiple organizations digging up one shallow toilet pit daily at each campsite. 

On the other hand, we have our human waste management system — 1-2 deep toilet pits at each campsite for the whole season. It’s what we follow across all slopes, on all our treks, at all campsites between 8,000 and 13,000 ft. 

Many officials, and local authorities have questioned this practice. Our tents and stoves have been confiscated. Defamatory videos have been posted sharing false information, calls to ban Indiahikes, and our teams on the slopes have been threatened. 

Yet, we firmly hold our ground about our human waste management system at high altitude camps — 1-2 large deep pits that last easily for 25 groups. These toilets are the only way forward to trek sustainably and protect the environment. 

In this post, we’d like to clarify why deeper pit systems are better for the environment and why they are followed worldwide. 

Why Deep-Pit Bio Toilets are Better for Human Waste Management at High Altitude Camps

When Indiahikes started, our human waste management system on treks was rudimentary. It was manageable since there weren’t too many trekkers. 

We started with trekkers digging individual cat holes and covering them after use. When the number of trekkers grew, we dug shallow pits that were about 1.5 ft deep and ¾ ft wide and 1 ft long. Before moving from the campsite, these pits were closed. 

But over time, we noticed a huge problem. More and more organizations were trekking. Each organization was also following this model of human waste management. Within a span of a week, each campsite had about 50 pits.  

We realized that trekking in India cannot grow this way (Read the story of how our toilets evolved). 

For everyone to trek without damaging the environment, we needed to find a more efficient way of managing toilets on a trek. 

We needed toilets big enough to last the entire trekking season. 

We needed toilets capable of degrading human waste within a span of 3-4 months. 

We studied what was done in high altitude and cold climate zones across the world — European countries, Alaska, even the North and South Poles. Closer home, we studied what happened at Ladakh and Spiti. 

We noticed that the most environmentally evolved countries use deep pit systems, for obvious benefits towards the environment. 

Over time, we switched to these deep pit bio toilets in Uttarakhand and Himachal and more recently, in Jammu & Kashmir.

Here’s what we observed to be the benefits of deep pit toilets.

Benefit 1: Deep pits protect over 80% of the campsite area from spread of human waste

We’d like to give you some numbers here. 

On any popular Himalayan trek, we have seen over 200-250 trekkers in a day on the trail, trekking with multiple organizations. For extremely popular treks like Kashmir Great Lakes and Kedarkantha, the number is a lot higher. 

Each day, around 15 shallow toilet pits are dug at EACH campsite by other organizations. Over two months, that’s 900 TOILET PITS at each campsite. 

We have seen that these pits are not used properly. They are often not closed properly. They are not covered with mud. They have toilet paper and everything else out in the open. Every ten steps you take, you step in a toilet pit. 

The impact of 900 toilet pits at each campsite at the end of the season is enormous. 

This is where deep toilet pits make better sense for the environment. 

With deep pit bio toilets, you need just 1-2 pits per campsite easily for 25 groups. The dimensions we use for these toilets are 3 ft long, 3 ft wide and 4 ft in depth. From our studies, these pits are efficient enough to handle the human waste of over 25 groups of trekkers. That’s around 625 trekkers. 

This limits the presence of human waste to one known area of the campsite. Consequently, it protects around 80% of the campsite area from being dug out for use as toilet pits. 

If every organization can dedicate 2 deep toilet pits to themselves, it would be an efficient human waste management system to protect the environment. 

Better yet, if there could be 3-4 well-maintained deep toilet pits for the entire campsite, for use by all organizations, that would be the best way forward for the environment. But maintenance is key here, which requires dedicated infrastructure, people and systems in remote areas of the Himalayas. Until this is possible, each organization must maintain their own deep pits. 

Although the biggest and the most obvious benefit of such a toilet is the reduction in the number of toilet pits being generated, there are countless other benefits towards the environment that must be considered. 

Benefit 2: Deeper pit = faster decomposition. Shallow pit = slower decomposition.

The process of composting benefits from a lot of heat. Composting is both an exothermic and endothermic process. Endothermic because the rate of composting is directly correlated to the temperature inside the pit. Second, the composting process also produces a lot of heat which is essential to kill the harmful bacteria that is present inside the compost. 

A typical compost pit goes from 25 deg C till 80 deg C and back within the span of the composting process.

However, on our mountain trails, the ambient temperature falls heavily at night, sometimes even in the negative degrees.  A simple solution to trap and retain the heat within the compost pit is to dig deep pits. It does not let the ambient temperature affect the composting process.  

In our experience, the bigger size of the pit, in addition to use of cocopeat / sawdust as a carbon element has helped decompose human waste within a span of 3 months.

Benefit 3: Deep pits protect the topsoil from permanent damage, and if managed well, can make the soil richer

The most precious layer of the soil in an ecosystem is the topsoil. With multiple shallow pits, the amount of topsoil removed is significantly higher than the amount of topsoil lost while digging deep pit toilets. This becomes evident with a simple calculation.  

For 45 groups with approximately 25 trekkers in each group, we need 135 shallow pits. 

Calculating the surface area of the top soil removed, this equates to about 200 sq ft of topsoil lost (Each shallow pit is around ¾ ft wide and 1 ft long).

However, with 2 deep pit bio toilets, we are looking at just 18 sq ft of topsoil being removed per pit. This protects a huge area of topsoil, which contains all the nutrients needed for grasslands to thrive. 

At Indiahikes, we dig 1-2 deep toilet pits at each campsite. We use this for two months, throughout the season. We use cocopeat / sawdust to bring in carbon to help decomposition. 

We cover the pits spending almost an entire day to ensure the process is followed properly. Within 3-4 months, this human waste decomposes and there’s fresh grass growing on top. Because of the way we use our pits, the soil is RICHER after decomposition, leaving the earth with well-balanced, nutritious manure. 

Benefit 4: Deep toilet pits protect water sources

Let’s talk about contamination of water sources. 

Everyone knows that campsites have to be around water sources. The moment you continuously dig multiple shallow pits for toilets, the more spread out human waste is going to be. We have seen toilet pits go as far as the banks of streams and lakes, contaminating water sources almost immediately. 

On the other hand, deep pit bio toilets help in containing human waste to a specifically designated area. At Indiahikes, we ensure that our pits are as far as possible from the water sources.

From our studies, ideally, the toilets must be at least 150 ft away from any water source.  With a landmine of shallow pits, this becomes an impossibility to maintain in a public campsite. 

Added to this, the deep pits degrade human waste more efficiently, which again neutralizes the threat of the pathogens in human waste from entering water sources. 

Benefit 5: Deep pit bio toilets are reusable

A big benefit of a deep toilet pit is its reusability. In all our camps, we use our toilet pits in the same place again and again every year. This has again helped contain the human waste management to a singular location within the campsite, creating a safe place for everyone to camp and enjoy the outdoors peacefully. 

With shallow pits, we suffer from incomplete decomposition, problems with wet wipes and toilet papers spread throughout the campsite.  This makes it difficult to reuse the pits again. It creates an unnecessary need to dig out more and more shallow pits, causing long term damage to the environment over many years. 

Indian trekking is growing every year. Trekkers are trekking on their own. Organisations are cropping up on many scales. 

At Indiahikes, we firmly believe that everyone must trek. It’s a sport that brings about a lot of good in people’s lives. But the stark reality of the trekking world today is that we cannot grow trekking without solving fundamental problems like waste management at high altitudes. 

At the end of the day, we need innovative solutions like deep pit bio toilets to effectively manage human waste and create more capacity for more people to trek sustainably. 

These scientific solutions must be accepted and encouraged. In fact, for trekking to be done responsibly, these innovative solutions must be made the norm of how trekking is done in India. 

In this post, we clarify why deep pit systems are the best human waste management systems on Himalayan treks and why they are followed world-wide.

Why Deep Bio Toilet Pits Are Ideal For Human Waste Management on Himalayan Treks

Stemming from our Green Trails practices, all of us at Indiahikes have been managing our organic waste in our homes. We compost our wet waste, producing beautiful manure every few months. We would like trekkers to be a part of this rewarding journey too.

We requested the team at Daily Dump to give our trekkers a quick look into composting. Daily Dump’s name stands out when it comes to composters in India. Given their vision to change people’s mindsets about waste, we resonate closely with the work they do.

This is a guide created by them. Read to get an understanding of how to get started on your composting journey.

By the end of the article, if you would like to start composting, use the discount code specially made for Indiahikes trekkers. You’ll find it at the end of this article.

Dive into an exciting journey with your kitchen waste!

Imagine if leftovers on your plate can also help you grow more vegetables?

From the occurrence of rain and the formation of soil, to even life, death, and regeneration – cycles are an integral part of our universe. As much as we live in the times of instant gratifications and immediate consumption, everything — and yes EVERYTHING — is either converted into food (in some form) or poison for our planet.

This simple truth has profound consequences.

It means we need to consider not only what we consume, but the by-products and remains of those items. Like one truly understands on a hiking trail — packaged mineral water is more about the ‘packaged’ and less about the ‘mineral water’.

So it’s not just about the ‘processed natural’ water but the fact that one more plastic bottle has been added to our planet’s heap of trash.

Organic waste, however, presents far lesser complexities. Nature itself has given us priceless lessons on how ‘waste’ is actually a golden resource. 

Composting is the decomposition of plant remains and other once-living materials to make an earthy, dark, crumbly substance that enriches soil. It is a process of recycling your kitchen and garden waste, and is a critical step in reducing the volume of garbage needlessly sent to landfills for disposal.

Composting is not a new idea. In the natural world, composting is what happens as leaves pile up on the forest floor and decay. Eventually, nutrients from the rotting leaves are reclaimed by living roots. This completes nature’s recycling process.

And what’s more? You can easily compost from the comfort of your own space with 

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Organic waste is technically biodegradable but when we send mixed waste out of our homes, they collect in landfills. Our biodegradable waste mixes with toxins, chemicals, and other pollutants to create poisonous substances that mix with our local water bodies or enter the groundwater table.

This water is used by us in a variety of ways, including watering our crops and cleaning the very food we eat.

Segregation makes sense at home – and everywhere!

So by throwing out a mango peel this summer, we are, in a way, ensuring that the mangoes we look forward to next summer will have more toxicity than juiciness. 

2. It gives essential nutrition for plants to help them grow better

3. It reduces the need for chemical fertilizers

4. It improves vitamin and mineral content in growing vegetables and fruits

5. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reduces global warming 

6. It makes you feel like a responsible, proactive part of our community, without too much effort, fuss, or too many resources.

We at Daily Dump provide a range of composters that will help you smoothly set sail on your composting journey. All you need is your daily kitchen waste, our signature Remix Powder to help you compost faster with no smell or fuss, and our composter of course! 

Here’s a fun video to help you get compost with ease.

Our flagship range of terracotta home composters are available across many cities of India like Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Darjeeling, and Ahmedabad, with the help of our official retail partners.

Daily Dump’s range of food-grade recyclable plastic home composters are also easily shippable across the country. They are easy-to-lift & move while also being a durable material that allows for hassle-free, smell-free composting. 

Composting has a world of benefits and we at Daily Dump are on a mission to help our cities manage our organic waste (and thereby all our waste) better – making composting at home easier, faster, and smell-free! This replication of one of nature’s essential processes helps keep over 60,000 kg of organic waste out of landfills everyday.

We provide easy & effective composting solutions for households as well as for communities and organisations.  There are wonderful things you can do with compost, but quite naturally, there are also a lot of myths around this integral form of urban waste management. 

Won’t it smell? Will it take too much time? It surely must be expensive!

We have come across a variety of doubts and questions – and over the years, we have been able to come up with suitable responses to all of them. 

If you still are not convinced, we can help you bust the common myths around composting. 

We hope this article helps you ease into the world of composting. To further help you dive into this wonderful and helpful action, we are offering you an exclusive discount – HIKEDD – available online on our range of home composters till 31st August, 2021.

A pioneering organisation to educate people about composting and makers of high quality composters talk about the basics of composting.

How to Get Started with Composting Your Kitchen Waste - Expertise from Daily Dump

What do you expect from a starry-eyed 12-year-old who had just been proposed to go on the Roopkund trek by his mother? Excitement for sure, at the prospect of going on a vacation, but nothing more. However, doubts, fear, threats from family members gave way and the trek remained at the registration stage on the Indiahikes website.

Soon the Roopkund trek became folklore as trekking on this route was no longer allowed. Indiahikes had to stop this super-duper popular trek.

Not to be deterred, a year later I tasted my first trek with IH on the Deoriatal-Chandrashila route and then there was no looking back. It was like an addiction. The entire year I read and daydreamed about Himalayan treks. I geared to trek in May – that’s the only time the school grants us a month’s leave.

Picking litter from the trail in EcoBag. Small practices that taught big life lessons. Photo by Richik Pal

I won’t speak about how awesome the treks are. Such stories abound in gallons all around the world.

I am going to tell you about how these treks changed me as a person

While on the trek, I learned five distinct lessons that will stay with me for life.

With Arjun sir and Sandhya ma’am on Har Ki Dun-Ruinsara Tal trek. Photo by Richik Pal

Lesson 1: Learn to carry your own luggage

I had offloaded my backpack during Deoriatal-Chandrashila, my first trek. But towards the tail-end of the trek, our guide Sunil Bhaiya, put me to shame for offloading my bag as he pointed to the mule who was carrying it. From this naturally follows the next lesson.

You feel each gram of extra load, be it a pair of Tees or socks, as you climb the steep slopes. This minimalistic living habit stayed with me for all other vacations.

Seeing the mules carrying sacks of flour and veggies to the campsites, the kitchen staff preparing hot food in the freezing temperatures and carrying drums of water from the nearest water source (even if it is a couple of kilometers down the slope) gave me the third lesson. We were encouraged to eat to our fill but not waste and I heartily agreed to it.

We were the first batch to go to Ruinsara lake via Har-ki-Dun in 2019 and had met both Arjun and Sandhya, who were documenting the route. We had to dig the uneven ground at Untigad to pitch our camps. This is where I learned my fourth lesson – not to dig too deep. Digging deep disturbs the soil setting of the place.

While decamping we stamped the soil back including the rocks that we had displaced, causing the least disturbance to the natural surroundings.

This was the best lesson. For the first time, I was doing something for the surroundings – picking up waste discarded by people on the trail, mostly plastic wrappers, and filling them in bottles, making bottle bricks out of them.

Bottle bricks can be used for many functional and ornamental purposes. Photo by Richik Pal

I thought why not take this idea as a souvenir from the mountains to Mumbai-where I live? Well with my principal’s encouragement I started the drive in my school and the rest is history.

Today,  Mumbai thinks twice before throwing that bit of plastic outside their doors, thanks to the BottleBricking initiative. It has been taken up by different organizations including the Swedish Academy, the UNICEF, the city schools and the suburban communities, most importantly housing societies.

Building a community of Bottle Brickers in Mumbai. Photo by Richik Pal

Though this is the 5th lesson, it is the most impactful one. It not only turned me into a crusader against plastic pollution, it influenced my friends too. They were with me on this project.

Just the other day I was talking to Karan, a team member who is no longer in my school, he said, “Richik, mujhse plastic pheka nehi jata (I cannot throw plastic anymore).” That line struck me like lightning. This is the power of the selfless work Indiahikes has ingrained in me.

Instead of throwing away plastic, stuff them in plastic bottles and use them as support. Photo by Richik Pal

I hope to bring such positive behavioral change in people with my work and make each of us responsible for our plastic waste.

As I prepare to volunteer for Green Trails in my next trek at Buran Ghati, I am a bundle of nerves thinking of the responsibilities I will carry, whether I will be doing justice to the role that I have always dreamt of.

Bottle Bricking and Five Life Lessons I Learned While Trekking in the Himalayas

It is a misconception that being a vegan is expensive. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need exotic ingredients to replace the non-vegan ones. So, it’s a myth that traveling as a vegan is difficult. It is not.

In this blog, vegans from Indiahikes offer the best way to go about it by sharing tips, tricks, recipes and ingredients that are readily available, easy to use and delicious to consume.

Is it really difficult to travel as a vegan?

It is easy to be a vegan in India. You will find many dishes that don’t involve animal products. But what about dishes that do?

“The problem lies in finding vegan alternatives for non-vegan food. Outside metro cities, especially en route to a remote Himalayan basecamp, you may not find alternatives to your vegan menu. In that case, you need to prepare and carry your vegan items with you” says Venkat Ganesh, Head of Training at Indiahikes.

This is where the experience and creativity of vegans come into play.

Vegans at Indiahikes have been traveling within the country and even internationally. Here they share recipes of their favourite vegan snacks that are delicious and easy-to-make. We will get to that in a while. First, let’s start with travel hacks that vegans at Indiahikes swear by.

The travel kit of a vegan. Image shared by Lakshmi Selvakumaran

5 Great Travel Hacks for Vegan Travellers 

1. Carry Vegan Snacks – Keep home-made snacks handy for times when your stomach starts rumbling between meals. This could be before a trek, on the way to the base camp,  or even in between campsites when you are on the trek.

For such times, pack snacks like — nuts, fruit, bread, seeds, cereal bars, and biscuits.

2. Know the local phrases – If you are traveling in the same country you are residing, you may not face any problem communicating with the local people. But while traveling abroad, you must be acquainted with the local vernacular when you ask for the local vegan menu.

“Most eateries do veganize their menu upon request. But it would be important to ask if the items have any dairy product in them and ask them to swap it for non-vegan ingredients.  This can be done for items where the dairy item is applied topically — like aloo paratha, no cheese in a burger, no cheese in pasta, etc.

In India, places like Rishikesh, Manali have lots of restaurants that offer a full vegan menu.” says Lakshmi Selvakumaran, Head of Experience at Indiahikes.

3. Pack vegan toiletries – Toiletries are also as necessary as food. Therefore, you have to pack your vegan toiletries beforehand. In a country like India, you don’t need to worry, but in a few countries (like China) you need to be mindful before buying the toiletries from a local shop.

4. Locate the fruits market – It is most common in all the places. Even if you are traveling to the base camp, you can quickly locate a local fruit shop, and stroll in for a quick, healthy vegan snack.

5. Check Mobile Apps – Here, technology offers you a helping hand to maintain your vegan diet. Before you are traveling, install the apps like HappyCow (Android/iOS), goVegn (iOS), or Vegman (iOS) on your phone. You just need to update your present location, and you can find the vegan restaurant locations around you. 

Hacks are good, and the best one involves making your own snacks. “I feel it is the best way to ensure a healthy meal along the way. Especially while going on a trek because where you are taking your own cutlery, this can be done easily,” says Lakshmi.

In fact, Lakshmi has a quick recipe for delicious Vegan Millet Cookies. And it takes only 25 minutes to prepare! They are easy to make and super-easy to carry when you are travelling. 

Listen to Lakshmi’s instructions in this audio on how to make these vegan cookies.

Find the vegan menu while travelling may be a challenge. Get some practical travel hacks to enjoy your vegan dish on World Vegan Day.

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