Great Himalayan Trail on schedule to open in 2011

by Kraig Becker on

Way back in February of this year we told you about the Great Himalayan Trail, an epic hike more than 2800 miles in length that will eventually wind its way through the mountainous regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal, Tibet, and Bhutan. The trek, which is expected to take roughly 150 days to hike end-to-end, is scheduled to officially open in early 2011, although there are still some challenges to over come before the boots of adventurous travelers begin to walk the route.

2011 is being called Nepal’s Tourism Year, and the country is gearing up to promote itself as the top adventure travel destination on the planet. The GHT will play a role in that celebration, as roughly 1200 miles of the trail passes through the country, and while it is expected to officially open in January or February of next year, some are already questioning if that will happen as planned. Ang Tshering Sherpa, a former president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, says that the trail has mostly been promoted and built by private sector dollars thus far, and he is calling on the Nepali government to inject some much needed funds to help launch the trail in early 2011.Without those funds, he feels that the GHT won’t get the recognition that it deserves to draw trekkers to the route.

Meanwhile, the Nepal Tourism Board named American Sean Burch as one of its Goodwill Ambassadors this past week. The 40-year old Burch recently completed an endurance run across Nepal, from the border of India to Tibet, that followed 1250 miles of the GHT, in just 49 days. He will now help to promote the epic new trail abroad, while also encouraging economic development in the villages through which the trail passes.

That economic development will be important for the future of the GHT. On other trekking routes in the region hikers find teahouse lodges and simple restaurants every few hours along the route, but there are large sections of the GHT where those amenities are not yet present. But the trail will provide opportunities for enterprising individuals to build these places, which should help the economies of each of the countries that the GHT passes through.

Trekkers interested in hiking some or all of the trail, should check out GreatHimalayanTrail.com for more information on the available routes and what to expect when it officially opens next year. Start planning your trek now and be sure to let your boss know you’re going to need 150 days off to make the hike.

Mt Everest now has cell phone service

by Kraig Becker on

Nepali cell phone company Ncell announced this week that they have activated a cell tower in Mt. Everest base camp, providing reliable 3G coverage on the mountain for the first time. To commemorate the launch of the service, the technicians completed the highest altitude video call ever from 5300 meters (17,388 feet) on the mountain.

Ncell’s service will replace expensive, and often unreliable, satellite phones, which can be easily disrupted by bad weather and technical issues. Sat phones have been the defacto standard on Everest for years but the new cell service offers not only improved voice communications, but also a relatively speedy data connection all the way to the summit, located at 8849 meters (29,035 feet). That data connection will allow for photos, audio, and even video to be shared by climbers.

The new cell tower won’t just provide coverage for climbers and trekkers on and around Everest however. It will also give Nepali citizens living in the Khumbu Valley the ability to make phone calls for the very first time. The remote region has few modern conveniences, but in a country that only has cell coverage for about a third of its people, this is a big step forward for communications. Ncell, and it’s partner TeliaSonera, plan to spend about $100 million to expand coverage to 90% of Nepal’s population by the end of next year. Considering the challenges of travel in the Himalaya, that will be quite a feat.

It is impressive that visitors to Mt. Everest can now make a phone call, even while standing on the summit. Now if only AT&T could eliminate the dead zones in my home town. Then I’ll be really impressed.

Hone your photographic skills in the Himalaya in 2011

by Kraig Becker on

When it comes to photographing spectacular landscapes it’s difficult to top the Himalaya, which offer endless mountain vistas, towering snow capped peaks, and beautiful remote valleys. The entire range is a photographer’s dream and I know first hand that it is difficult to take a bad photo there. That said, it never hurts to get some advice on how to take the best photos possible, and if you’re going to take a photography workshop, it might as well be in the Himalaya too.

Himalayan Workshops offers a combination trek and photography workshop that visits a unique and interesting destination in the Himalaya each year. They past two years, the workshops have been held in the Everest region, visiting the South Side of that mountain in 2009 and the North Side in 2010. For 2011, they’ve announced a trek to Mt. Kailash, a 21,778-foot tall peak located in Western Tibet. This year’s expedition will once again balance adventure in the mountains with the opportunity to learn more about photography along the way.

The workshop aspects of the trek will be conducted by Chris Marquardt and Jon Miller, who share their considerable knowledge and talent with the other members of the tour. Marquardt is the founder of Tips From The Top Floor , one of the best photography websites and podcasts on the Internet, while Miller produces The Rest of Everest, a video podcast that covers all aspects of climbing and trekking in the Himalaya. Over the course of the 17-day trek, they’ll demonstrate how to get the most out of your camera and video equipment, while capturing spectacular images of the Tibetan landscapes.

Billed as the “highest photography workshop in the world,” the Mt. Kailash trek will begin in Kathmandu on April 17th of 2011. For more information on the trek and workshops, click here, and if you’re interested in joining the trip, registration info can be found by clicking here.

Women adventurers heed the Call of the Wild

by Kraig Becker on

With the adventure travel market continuing to grow at an astonishing rate, women only adventures have become an increasingly popular option as well.These trips generally offer all the same wild and challenging options that any other adventure vacation would, with perhaps a few creature comforts added in for good measure.

One of the top travel companies that specializes in women’s only travel is Call of the Wild, based out of Mountain View, California. The company first began organizing adventure vacations back in 1978 when founder Carole Laitmer was unceremoniously fired from her secretarial job. In order to make ends meet, she soon began organizing guided trips for women into the High Sierra Mountains of California, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Now in its 32nd year of business, Call of the Wild continues to organize some of the best adventurous getaways both domestically and abroad. For instance, some of their upcoming trips include hiking around Lake Tahoe to enjoy the Indian Summer, trekking in the the shadow of Mt. Everest in Nepal, and a weekend of snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park. Other trips will take clients to Peru, New Zealand, Guatemala, and beyond.

But just because you’re traveling to remote corners of the globe doesn’t mean you can’t pamper yourself at the same time. One of the hallmarks of any Call of the Wild trip is the gourmet cuisine and the company puts a great deal of thought, and effort, into planning a wide variety of healthy and delicious meals on all of their trips. Even their backpacking excursions offer fantastic meals on the trail thanks to fresh ingredients that are dehydrated prior to departure, and combined to make surprisingly tasty backwoods offerings. The ladies on these trips all agree, an amazing meal after a long and challenging day of trekking, can make everything feel better.

Many of Call of the Wild’s clients return for multiple trips, and often report making good, life-long friends on their journeys. These vacations allow them to get closer to nature and escape the daily grind, while putting some much needed adventure into their lives. For a complete list of Call of the Wild adventures and to choose one that best fits your style of travel, click here.

[Photo credit: Call of the Wild]

New online tool, AvidTrips, offers adventure travel options

by Kraig Becker on

AvidTrips, a newly launched website, is giving adventure travelers a new option for finding unique places to explore and connecting them with tour operators that can help them do it. The site is currently in beta form, and still lacking a lot of travel options at the moment, but the interface shows a great deal of potential, which bodes well for the future.

Upon visiting AvidTrips for the first time, you’ll notice that it has a nice clean design that is approachable and simple to use. The site offers the ability to search by location and activity, with such options as cycling, climbing, fishing, and more. However, for even greater control over your search, you’ll want to use the advanced features of the “Trip Finder”, which allows you to filter by a variety of criteria including the dates you would like to travel, duration of trip, difficulty level, price you want to pay, and so on. Scrolling further down the page, you’ll also find AvidTrips’ top rated options for the week, as well as new additions to the site and special discounted offers.

Selecting a destination brings up a brief, but well done, overview about the country that includes climate information, currency type, time zone, and more. The destination page also allows you to see the various activities that are available there as well. For instance, visitors to Nepal can choose from trekking, climbing, safari, and world culture options. Clicking on any one of those activities will display a list of tour operators that offer those adventures in the particular destination you are browsing.

The main drawback at the moment is that the database for destinations is still a bit lacking. For instance, when you click on Africa, the only two options are Kenya and Tanzania, despite the fact that there are at least a dozen other great adventure destinations on the continent. Similarly, South America only offers Argentina and Chile, while North America doesn’t list any options at all. Given some time however, this can easily be rectified. After all, it takes time to build such an extensive database, and this project is still listed as being in beta after all.

The potential is there however, and perhaps given some time to mature, this will grow into a very useful site for adventure travelers. Once more options are available, it may even be useful for finding destinations that are a bit more under the radar, but for now, it is mostly offering up the places you would expect, albeit still some of the top adventure destinations on the planet.