Healing Himalayas - Payback Time to Mother Nature #ophumanangels

The Mountains are calling and I must go!!!

This is what the younger generation in India or rather across the world believes in. Corporate cubicles don't interest them anymore. This fact can easily be corroborated by having a look at all the new and hip travel companies that are mushrooming from every damn corner these days.

On top of that, India being a religious country that believes in Mother Nature as God, we have a huge number of pilgrimages that takes place every year in the mountains. To name a few, Srikhand Kailash Yatra - Manimahesh Kailash Yatra - Kinnaur Kailash Yatra - are three of the most popular religious pilgrimages of my home state Himachal Pradesh.

Healing Himalaya at 17000 feet

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Cleanup drive in the adopted village

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And all these pilgrimages last 7 days which means a minimum footfall of over 100,000 people. All these pilgrimages reach the maximum altitude upwards of 14000 feet. One can very well imagine the impact of such massive footfall within a short period of 7 days.

And if we take into account all the hiking sites where commercial camping is allowed, the situation becomes depressing. Hiking trails have become weekend destinations and there's everything from booze to loud music that is deteriorating our environment beyond measure.

Mountains were meant to bring peace but sadly people have brought their noises to the mountains

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This problem is further aggravated by usage of plastic during these journeys. Indeed plastic has been a great discovery but its use in almost everything we do in our life should worry us. Plastic once left behind stays forever in the mountains. No amount of rain or snow or sun can remove it and it will always take its own sweet time which could be anything between 50 years to 250 years.

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There are people who are trying to spread awareness and undertake clean-up missions to the mountains but that's just not enough because our mountains and hiking trails are flooded with all sorts of people. And sadly most of the people just want a break from their hectic lifestyles and not think about the impact this haphazard 'adventurism' is bringing to the mountains.

Can we stop people from going to mountains? No.
But we can always ask them to travel responsibly.

And that's what Healing Himalayas Foundation has been doing. Pradeep Sangwan is a friend (though we haven't met personally) but we have talked long about this issue. I met his team during on of my journeys to the mountains.

It was during my Srikhand Kailash Yatra in 2017 that I met Healing Himalayas team and saw them carrying huge piles of plastic garbage on their backs. To do that at an altitude of 14000 feet is indeed a herculean task. To do so many times over a period of 7 days is certainly a superhuman achievement. Afterwards they organized another cleanup campaign in one of the popular hiking trails and lend them my wholehearted support by blogging about it and also sharing it on my Facebook Page (which has over 8600 followers).

Healing Himalayas Organization intends to bring responsible travel to not just to the mountains but right to our doorstep.

Their mission: Garbage is one of the most challenging factor that pollutes the environment everywhere. Garbage on foothills are being dumped for ages but attention of the society has been drawn recently towards garbage on the mountains, specially Himalayas. Our projects are focused on conducting activities and clean up of the mess that has been accumulated on all the places primarily the Foothills of Himalayas.

They have organized numerous cleanup missions in Himachal particularly at popular tourist places like Manali and most visited pilgrimage of Srikhand Mahadev at Kullu-Shimla border. They have adopted a few villages in Manali where they spread awareness by making little school going kids apprised of the importance of keeping their streets and roads clean. And once the kids are convinced, it reverse trickles down into the family.

They surely deserve to be called the human angels of 21st Century.

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