Shikhar Travels India Pvt. Ltd.

Shikhar Travels made our first trip to India an incredible experience. Our guide, Amit always made sure we were happy and couldn’t do enough for us. We were able to just enjoy the time that we had in India and didn’t need to worry about anything. We had the opportunity to see so much of the history and culture or Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. I can’t believe how much we fit into the 10 days. All of the tour guides Shikhar arranged for us at the different attractions were extremely knowledgeable and friendly. I can’t recommend Shikhar travels enough and we will definitely be using them again in the future.

I would like to thank Shikhar Travels for planning our trip to Rishikesh at such a short notice. They helped us save a lot of time and energy. All the arrangements made by them were very convenient.
Really glad we booked our trip through Shikhar Travels India Pvt.Ltd.

Shikar Travels arranged our trek up Dayara Bugyal within half a day. Everything went smoothly, just as planned. The guide spoke English and was very experienced, as well as being a very nice person. We had a wonderful time and can't thank Shikar Travels enough!

Perfect agency for perfect expedition! Great service with nice and dedicated people! I recommend to everybody!

on an exausting expedition you are happy to have reliable partners. They really want you to summit, they check the wheather multiple times and the stuff is friendly and easy going. With Shikhar I made the experiance that things can be really uncomplicated. For example I was one day early in my Hotel an Shikhar took the bil (50€) and than I stayed longer in Leh and Shikhar was also uncomplicated here. Even the taxi at 4am for the airport was on point. Nothing to complain, Mt. Nun Summit check!

I had the unfortunate experience of Mismanagement & cost cutting at the risk of members life, by Shikhar Travels conducted Mt. Nun expedition from 17/08/2022

-Limited staff ( Three Sherpa/ guides,(Pasang, Naresh Kumar, Dava) and one personal HAP Satyapal Singh.

-No base camp manager/ coordinator.

-No person at road head after the team left base camp.
If Any body who wants to abandon the expedition/ needs evacuation no person to manage.

-Sherpa move at there own fast pace leaving members behind. Nobody to cover the tail.

-While climbing the ice wall from crampon point to camp 1 at near the top of the ice wall my left crampon got detached and went down the wall.
I expected the Sherpa would realize that one member is missing and will come back to check.
But to no avail. I was left hanging on the ice wall for 4 and a half hours and rescued only when the team returned back from camp 1 after load ferry.

-No checking of gear before/ during expedition. Members left on there own. Some had to continue with restricted gear

-Members approved by IMF and members in team not same.
There was No Team leader
Vijay Rathi & Ranjeet Gupta mentioned in the IMF confirmation letter were absent.
Satypal Singh mentioned as Leader was a Private HAP of a client
One Arjun Pandian, IAS was in the team and had to be rescued from camp 2 due to Hypothermia and exhaustion.

-In spite of reasonably good weather for 4 days giving one excuse or the other regarding weather the team didn't move out of base camp. Than suddenly there was plan to move from C1 to C2 to Summit in 3 days straight, without load ferry or acclimatization. Other teams at site meanwhile went from base camp to camp 1 and 2 and summit and we got there reports.

-There was general tendency to avoid going further and discourage the same, end the expedition as soon as possible.

The lead Sherpa Pasang :

-No check of Team members gear was carried out at Leh despite of repeated reminders. At Base camp before load ferry when members insisted the gear was checked and many items were found missing/ inappropriate.

-No guidance regarding the expedition and its progression.

-No clear strategy/ instructions.

-Despite of 3 ice walls and long ice field advised Not to carry helmet and ice axe to reduce weight.

-No last man/sweeper.

-No coordinated movement long gaps between Team members, mentally frustrating/ exhaustion at being alone in High altitude in adverse conditions.

-Before beginning the Ice Wall climb he Inquired about my mountaineering shoes. Saw me wearing the crampons. New that I was behind him yet didn't care. Was not concerned why a member is missing for 4.5 hrs.

-He showed No concern/ inquiry/ comment afterwards too at crampon point or base camp.

-When I went to the Crampon point to collect my gear during load ferry, My Crampons were not found. Apparently Pasangs crampon got damaged? And he decided to take away mine. He Felt no need to ask / seek permission.
Same crampon which prevents me to go higher now go higher but on Pasangs feet.

-No proper communication conveyed between base camp and the summiting teams condition. The summiting team too got separated with one member rescued down from C1 by Army and 2 members from C2 by team members, as the Sherpas were busy winding up the higher camps and bring pitons and gear down as this was there last expedition of the season

-Weather forecast were obtained from Delhi on erratic Jio network in the mountains. The day it was predicted to be bad it used to be absolutely clear and vice versa, absolutely unreliable to the extent of fake and manipulated.

-The Sherpa was most interested in calling off the expedition as early as possible as had next expedition lined up at Kalindi Khal and was in a rush to leave.

I would not recommend Shikhar Travels to anybody.

I was quite satisfied with overall organisation of our expedition to Mnt. Nun last summer. Despite the weather was not pleasant to us during summits days we have spent nice three weeks in Ladakh. What I strongly recommend to the agency they could manage to get weather forecast to the mountain even the difficulties raising from sensitive boarder area around.

Hi,

Thanks to the shikhar Travels team for a wonderful winter trek experience.
Starting with Mr. Amit varma Our Trek guide for answering all our queries and arranging the transportation and proper facilities from Dehradun to Sankri. We have achieved Our 100% success all through the Trek only because of Mr. Amit Varma he lead the group very professionally and we were instructed about all the activities in detail.

Next a big thanks to our Team leader Mr. Kushal for taking such good care of our group.
Also thank to the cooks who provided such delicious food on all days.
The tents and equipment’s were first class.

Coming to the trek the long walks on snow and reaching the summit before sunrise was too good. The sunrise view from summit makes you forget everything else. A must do winter trek.
Thanks to Shikhar Travels and Thanks to Mr. Amit Varma

Regards
Karthik Nolan.