Leave No Trace
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The Sahyadris are not a venue. People live here, water starts here, and everything we leave behind stays after we have gone home.
Carry back your waste
Everything you carry in, you carry out — wrappers, bottles, fruit peel, cigarette butts, tissue. There are no bins on a trail, and a bin at a base village usually means the same waste ends up in the valley anyway. Bring a bag for your own rubbish. Our leaders carry spares.
Organic waste is still waste. Fruit peel takes months to break down at these altitudes and habituates animals to human food.
Avoid plastic waste
Bring a refillable bottle rather than buying single-use ones at the base. Repack snacks into a reusable container where you can. We are working toward departures where no single-use plastic is bought at the trailhead at all.
Respect wildlife
Watch from a distance. Do not feed any animal, including monkeys and dogs at viewpoints — feeding creates aggression and dependency, and it is the animal that suffers for it later. Do not handle reptiles or insects. Leeches are harmless; flick them off rather than burning them.
Stay on designated trails
Cutting a switchback saves you a minute and starts an erosion channel that widens with every monsoon. Walk single file on the existing path, even when it is muddy — walking around a puddle is what turns one trail into five.
Protect water sources
Do not wash, bathe, or use soap or detergent — including biodegradable soap — in or near streams, pools and cisterns. Many of these feed drinking water for villages downstream. Keep at least 50 metres away for any washing, and never urinate near a water source.
Respect local communities
Base villages are homes, not facilities. Ask before photographing people. Buy tea and food locally where you can — it is the most direct way trekking benefits the people whose land we walk through. Dress and behave in a way that would be welcome in any village.
Minimise unnecessary noise
No portable speakers on our treks. Sound carries a long way in a valley, it disturbs wildlife, and it takes the mountain away from everyone else who came for quiet.
Leave nature untouched
Do not pick flowers, break branches, move rocks, or carve or paint on rock faces and fort walls. Many of the forts we visit are centuries old and are actively being damaged by graffiti. Take the photograph and leave the site as you found it.
No fires
We do not light open fires on our one-day treks. Where a campfire is part of a planned overnight, it is set in an existing fire ring, kept small, fully extinguished, and never left unattended.
What we do
- Cover these principles in the briefing at the base of every trek.
- Carry spare waste bags for participants.
- Cap group sizes, which reduces trail impact as well as improving safety.
- Pick up litter we find on route where it is safe to do so.
What we are not claiming
We are a small trekking community, not a conservation organisation. We do not run offsetting schemes, we are not carbon neutral, and our participants travel to the base by road. We would rather tell you that plainly than describe ourselves as something we are not.