Thursday, March 02, 2006

Scale the Heights

Scale the Heights

Mountains and seas have always fascinated me to an extent beyond description. So it was not very surprising at least for me when I thought of setting out to do a mountaineering course in the Himalayas. Originating from India and living in this country, where else will you head if such a thought eats you alive.

So one fine day I decided to search for details on the mountaineering courses offered by these institutes. Until this moment I never could get an idea of the effort I needed to put to get proper data on these courses, their details, and the BKM's (best known methodologies) one should think of, before embarking on such adventures. Any way to cut a long story short, it should suffice to say that I did not find much help at the outset. And it should not come as a surprise that is the motivation for this blog.

Without talking much on blah blah blah, I jump here into some specifics. I will not discuss the institutes here, but will provide you with a platform from where you can start. Mind you this information is not for people looking for mountaineering, adventure travel in the Himalayas. It is to give you information/ guide you to the proper place if you want to do a course.

The Institutes:
1) Himalayan Mountaineering Institute(HMI).
a. Darjeeling News: HMI
b. HMI
c. Address: Jawahar Parbat, Darjeeling 734 101, West Bengal, India
Phone: 0091 354 - 2254083, 2254087,2254088

2) Directorate of Mountaineering and Allied Sports (DMAS) .
a. DMAS
b. Address: Manali 175 131, Himachal Pradesh, India
Phone: 0091 1902 - 252342, 253789, 252206, 252137
Fax: 0091 1902 253509
3) Nehru Institute of Mountaineering(NIM)
a. NIM
b. Address: NIM, Uttarkashi, Uttar Pradesh,
Ph. 0091 1374 - 222123
4) Western Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (WHMI).
a. WHMI
b. This institute comes under DMAS.
c. Address: Check out the site for address.
5) Indian Mountaineering Foundation
a. IMF

Some links that you may find useful (Not Necessarily anything to do with courses, but definitely to do with loads of adventure)
The States:
1) Uttaranchal
2) Himachal Pradesh:
3) West Bengal
4) Sikkim


Miscellaneous:
1) East Himalaya

I haven't yet taken the course, and am planning to do a 15day water rafting course in April. I will keep posting on this for some time to come. So come back if you want to follow my adventure.