The many harms of unregulated HIMALAYAN TREKKING

The rise of mass-market trekking at dirt-cheap prices is ruining the mountains due to an increase in litter and habitat destruction

- Shail Desai

A group of trekkers on the way to the Everest Base Camp in Nepal.

(AFP)

In the early 2000s, Arjun Majumdar and his mates would frequently trek in the Indian Himalaya.

In the early 2000s, Arjun Majumdar and his mates would frequently trek in the Indian Himalaya. What they often struggled with while planning the logistics of their trip was finding genuine information on the route and resources along the way.

The predicament got him thinking. He decided to pen a guidebook on trekking to Roopkund, a high-altitude lake in Uttarakhand. A few weeks after The Roopkund Trek Guide (2007) was published, he started receiving calls from locals who lived in the region.

“They said a lot of trekkers had started visiting after reading the guidebook and they were getting meaningful work,” Majumdar recalls.

It laid the foundation for Indiahikes, a trekking company based in Bengaluru that Majumdar co-founded in 2008 with Sandhya UC. Roopkund was one of their first offerings. Until then, the trail drew the odd trekker, and was mainly used by locals or devotees on the Nanda Devi Raj Jat pilgrimage.

It didn’t take long for the trek to get noticed—the climb through a cool alpine forest, the lush meadow of Bedni Bugyal that offered stunning views of Trisul and Nanda Ghunti, and the legend of the “skeleton lake” that Roopkund is also known as. As these photos flooded the internet, the interest in trekking increased. There were few barriers to entry—anyone with a tent and a basic understanding of the route started running the trek to cater to the demand. It drew hordes as the years progressed; in 2017-18, around 6,100 trekkers visited the area. With no waste management or supervision in place, the fragile ecosystem suffered over time.