Bikat Adventures is one of the few organisations in the country that holds mountaineering expeditions in conjunction with Himalayan treks and other outdoor activities.
This essentially means a Trek Leader joining Bikat Adventures gets the exhilarating opportunity to grow into a well-rounded Expedition Leader while fine-tuning his/her skills in outdoor leadership through other activities in our portfolio (like skiing, cycling, wildlife spotting etc.).
“We invest enormously in the research and training process of our trek/expedition leaders.
BMC, AMC, and Search and Rescue Operations are excellent courses that pack a vast array of theoretical and on-field training in the short span of a month. But these aren't comprehensive enough to handle the rigours of leading, say, a batch on a mountaineering expedition.
To give you an idea, the training and examination duration of well recognised Mountain Guide Programs of the world vary anywhere between 3-6 years. You can imagine the skillset and experience an Outdoor Leader building his/her career in the west would have then, especially given the access they have to an extensive array of training, many of which are not even available in India."- Pankaj, Founder
At Bikat Adventures, we want our leaders to be on par, if not more.
“So, after studying many of the Mountain Guide Programs abroad, we built a structure of our own that would enable our trek leaders to grow into proficient Mountaineering Expedition Leaders. In addition to this, we also hold an Annual Training Program (built by NIM) for all our trek leaders.
Back in 2016, our Operations Team at Bikat sat down and identified all the risks one can run into while trekking on any of the trails in our portfolio.
We then correlated these risks with what was taught in a mountaineering course (BMC, AMC, and Search and Rescue Operations available in India). This helped us identify roughly 12-13 areas of knowledge-gap that needed filling in, in order to be able to handle the itineraries in our portfolio capably.
For example, no institute in India teaches Flash Flood Emergency Procedures or handling of Forest Fires.
Similarly, avalanche rescue and navigation is taught only in the Search and Rescue Operations Course, which trek leaders generally opt to get certified in at a later stage.
Knowledge of Navigation (taught in Search and Rescue Operations), in particular, is crucial for trek leaders irrespective of what stage of the career they are in.
So, we approached NIM for help in building a specialised training program that would equip all our trek leaders in handling each of the risks we had identified. It took us six months to design the training modules, and in 2017, we held our first Annual Training Program for our trek leaders in the NIM Campus."- Pankaj
