Indiahikes Team Set To Explore A New Trek To Devkiyara

O ur Indiahikes team is all set to explore the Devkiyara trek near Sankri, Uttarakhand, starting tomorrow. Our exploratory team comprises of Arjun and Sandhya, our founders, our trek coordinator Suhas Saya and Trek Manager Jagadeesh Rawat. A tiny explorer is tagging along with them — Arjun’s 9-year-old daughter. Honestly, all of us at Indiahikes are really excited to put this trek on the map. If all goes well, we will soon upload the documentation for this trek on our website.

Among all the team members, little Mini is the most enthusiastic one. She has been running 3 km every day without fail with Arjun.

We wish the entire team clear weather, less of snow and loads of luck. I will share photos and news from their exploratory trek in my next update.

What else you’ll find in this week’s updates:

1. A successful season end for Everest and Annapurna Base Camp treks

2. Snowfall on most of our treks – Scroll down to find out which treks had snowfall this last week.

3. Photos from all our current treks.

4. Shreya’s story, a 10-year-old Green Getter who went on the Kheerganga Buni Buni Pass trek

5. Bonus: Trek Pick of the Week – Learn about a lesser known Kashmir trek that could easily be the best trek in India.

Everest Base Camp

Perhaps our fittest team till date

Our second group of trekkers made it to the Everest Base Camp with Trek Leader Geet Tryambake and Trek Manager Mukesh Panwar. They sent us these pictures yesterday.

Trek Leader Geet was very happy with the trek and his extremely fit batch of trekkers. To give you an idea, the group reached most of their campsites on the trail at least 2-3 hours ahead of time. Not only this, none of the 15 trekkers opted to offload their backpacks – for a strenuous trek like Everest Base Camp, this in itself is an amazing feat.

“We reached 3 hours before average time, on the most difficult day of EBC! These trekkers are super awesome,” exclaims Geet over the phone.

The team witnessed good weather conditions and crystal clear mountain views throughout the trek. Such successful groups of trekkers reaffirm the importance of a good fitness regime before the start of the trek. We congratulate them on this achievement. As you read this now, our trekkers are already on their way to climb Kala Patthar at 18,510 ft. We wish them luck!

However, there was one picture from Everest Base Camp that let us down.

This picture.

The picture speaks for itself. The most frequented and famous trek in the world has open dumpsites such as these. This just goes on to show the level of human carelessness these mountains are exposed to. It is time that we did our part in controlling this rampant waste production. Plastic on a trek should be a strict NO.

Annapurna Base Camp

Trekkers Fight Bad Weather to Reach the Base Camp

Meanwhile, our other trek in Nepal has had a downturn in terms of weather conditions. Trek Leader Himanshu Thapa informed us that it was raining the entire day, yesterday until they reached Dovan in the evening. This dampened the mood of our trekkers.

Surprisingly, they woke up to a bright, sunny morning today and made their way to the base camp. Here’s the photo of the group, with the Annapurna range in the backdrop.

The completion of this trek also marks the completion of our trekking campaign in Nepal for this season. A big shout-out to our trekkers, local staff, trek managers and trek leaders for making this a success.

Har Ki Dun

Snowfall all the way from Kalkatiyadhar

This Uttarakhand trek is back to being the snow capital. After last week’s sunny weather the trek saw heavy snowfall this week. Most of the campsites are back to being buried in snow. Trekkers meanwhile couldn’t have asked for anything better as they played to their heart’s content. Check out this video and photo from the trek:

#HarKiDun last week. This trek doesn’t want to let go of winter. What a lovely spot for a campsite though! 🙂 . Video by Sarwash.

A post shared by Indiahikes (@indiahikes) on Apr 17, 2018 at 9:30am PDT

Kedarkantha

Unexpected Snowfall At the Summit

It snowed again on this trek last week. After having a dry spell for the past few weeks, it snowed much to our trekkers’ delight. Check out this video we shared on our Facebook page below:

It’s actually a very good time to visit this trek. Reasons – first, the surprise element of snow. Second, amazing mountain views. With the advent spring, mountain views on this trek are a sight to behold.

The thrill of this trek is unparalleled. For a lot of professional trekkers, Pangarchulla is the holy grail of Indian treks.

Kuari Pass

Clear Views With Snow Covered Trails

This trek still has most of its snow cover intact all the way from Khullara to the Pass. Trekkers get the best of both worlds – clear mountain views and vast stretches of snow. Here’s a picture from the trek

Kheerganga Buni-Buni Pass

We opened gates to this popular Himachal Pradesh trek this year. The trek starts from Kheerganga, a popular picnic spot.

Here’s the problem – many local dhabas have set up camps to cater to this huge inflow of tourists. With no knowledge of waste disposal, most of the shopkeepers and tourists have made this scenic spot an absolute wasteyard.

One of our child trekkers, Shreya, decided to clean up all this garbage by herself.

She picked up 2 full Eco-bags worth of waste. When that was not enough she picked up few bottles thrown on the trail and stuffed them with plastic wrappers. She’s undoubtedly the winner of our Green Getter Award. We need many such Shreya(s) – people who whole-heartedly take responsibility for keeping their environment clean.

Meet our 10-year-old Green Warrior Shreya. She was on the #Kheerhanga Buni Buni Pass trek earlier this week

Shreya picked up waste and filled her eco bag completely. Her eco bag was filled till the brim. She ended up taking other trekkers’ eco bags and filling them

Next time you go there, make sure you spread word about keeping it clean and change the mindset of those around you! . Pictures sent in by our Trek Leader @samkit__jain For more about our Green Trails initiative, follow @lakshmiselvakumaran, our Green Trails head.

A post shared by Indiahikes (@indiahikes) on Apr 19, 2018 at 5:46am PDT

The views on this trek are awe-inspiring. As trekkers climb up from Kheerganga to Kungti Thatch, they see the snow-capped mountain ranges as the superb Parvati valley stretches underneath.

Trek Pick of The Week:

Tarsar Marsar Trek

A trek that blows you away with its beauty.

When it comes to beauty, there are very few places on Earth that can compete against Kashmir. The Tarsar Marsar lake in Kashmir is no different – with 3 huge spectacular alpine lakes and 2 mountain passes, there are very few treks in India that can match to its magnificence. This trek is an absolute must do in this upcoming monsoon season. Read more about it here.

Articles of the Week:

1. Author’s Pick Some Extraordinary Stories Of Ordinary Women In The Mountains: Our Co-founder, Sandhya UC delivered this speech at Women’s Day programme at CoWrks, Bangalore. Read this speech to know her insights on this.

2. Tips From A Fellow Trekker for Annapurna Base Camp: Garima Jain, a fellow trekker blogs about tips and tricks for the Annapurna Base Camp trekkers.

3. The Green Trails Journey – Consistent Efforts and Patience Hold The Key: Our Green Trails team has been doing a fantastic job on the mountain slopes. Read the latest updates from them and give it a thumbs up.

What you should do now

1. If you want to see a complete list of treks that we run: Head over to our upcoming treks page. You’ll find help in choosing a Himalayan trek in a specific season.

2. If you want to work with us: Head over to our careers page. We have lots of positions open. We also have lots of applications coming in. So the sooner you apply, the better.

3. If you want to see the 13 best treks of India: Then get our free guide here.