Travel Photo| Acclimation trek in West Sikkim, India

Acclimating at 3500m:

One of the most challenging and probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done was the basic mountaineering course at the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute.  This picture is of me and two friends taking a break at Ger Ped in West Sikkim, India.

On our five day trek to HMI’s base camp we hiked to 3500 m above sea level in order to acclimatize to the high altitude. The place we’re at is called Ger Ped, meaning fallen tree, according to our instructors the place is named after the fallen tree we’re sitting on. The yaks in the background are carrying food and goods up to base camp as well as the tiny seasonal hamlets further up in the mountains.

This is just the beginning of our 20 day excursion, deep into the Himalayan mountain range along the boarder of Nepal, where we learned the basics of mountaineering.  Eventually, we would learn ice climbing, glacier rescue, rock climbing, high altitude climbing, fixed rope climbing and so much more.  Believe it or not, we only scratched to surface of what it means to be a mountaineer.

Click to learn more about mountaineering in the Indian Himalayas