After your orientation, ration packing, group and personal gear organization at NOLS Pacific Northwest, prepare to land in the ancient world of the Himalayas. This “abode of snow” swings in a wide arc across four countries for about 2,250 kilometers (1,355 miles) and includes Everest and K2, but reaches even higher in imaginations. You will learn to travel lightly through this environment, from the thick conifer and broad-leaf trees in the valley to the higher evergreens, then birch, rhododendron and juniper forests to the alpine zone with shrublets, sedges, grasses and alpine plants.

While most of your time will be spent in these mountains, your adventure begins in Delhi with the ride to Ranikhet, located in northern India in the Kumaon region of Uttaranchal. Until the British established a cantonment here in 1869, local Kumaoni rulers governed the area. As local folklore tells, the town’s beauty struck Rani Padmini, queen of Raja Sukherdev and the region. She was so captivated that she decided to stay, and the place came to be known as Ranikhet, literally “queen' s field.” Today, Ranikhet serves as the Kumaon Regimental Center and provides NOLS India students a peaceful place to prepare for their time in the wild.

Along with a wilderness experience steeped in mountain history, you will enjoy a course rich in culture, starting here and ending with dinner and graduation in an Indian home in New Delhi. Since the spring of 2001, students have enjoyed the “upper house” on the two-acre Ranikhet property, which includes four rooms with a bathroom facility, dining area and kitchen. Krishnan Kutty, the director of the India program, lives with his family in the “lower house,” which sits only 100 feet away.

Courses typically spend three nights here, two on the way to the roadhead and another on their way back out. The full preparation day includes group gear issue, packing “porter loads,” a pack-packing class, a tent pitching class, basic Hindi, two hours at the Raniket bazaar and a group meeting.

The next morning, you will drive toward the snowy Pindari glacier or majestic Johar Valley, and a wilderness and cultural education unlike any other.

Local Facts At least one Indian instructor travels with every course, and the students usually highlight the cultural interaction and opportunity available in this land. Students can expect to see foxes, leopards, flying foxes, pine martins, khaleej pheasants, red-billed blue magpies, scarlet minivets, bulbuls, woodpeckers, fly catchers, treepies and many other birds. “High camp” on the Himalaya Mountaineering courses is the highest camp students experience at NOLS: 18,000 feet! Monsoon season hits India from mid-June to mid-September, when it can rain nonstop for days! Luckily, courses run in pre or post-monsoon season, although rainfall can still run high. The Western Himalaya boasts at least 7,500 species of seed plants, in addition to more than 300 varieties of butterflies and 500 species of birds.