19/09/2018
Do you wanna experience the Himalayas? The mountains, lakes and green flowering meadows, mother nature on wuthering heights, raw but boldly beautiful? Do you wanna get in touch with mountain people, their beliefs, their friendliness and hospitality, their culture? Do you feel that we have to preserve this literally outstanding land of mountains as the source of purity, as the source of the Holy Ganges River which provides water and wealth throughout the whole of India?
Then we have a suggestion for you.
Travel to Uttarakhand, India and spend some time in our Ecolodge situated at the start of a few of the most amazing treks in the state like the Roopkund or Brahamtal or Bedni Bugyal Trek and many more. Lohajung is situated in Chamoli district in the Garhwal Himalayas at an altitude of 2350 metres above sea level.
We are Hikehills. And we want to engage!
We want local people to be engaged in the appeal of these beautiful trekking routes. And we want you to engage with them as your hosts on your journey. Our guides are locals, as they know best the ways of Lord Shiva and the gods of the mountains. We don’t want youngsters to be expelled to the big city because there is no work. We don’t want foreign ‘investors’ to take over the opportunities the hills offer. In fact we don’t want massive concrete trekking hotels on the lattitudes and meadows of our dear Himalayas. And we actually don’t want 4 lane speed highways to dump an overload of tourists and waste to this land of beauty and spirituality till it bursts of the crap and erosion.
We want to do things differently.
We want sports tourism on the pace of the local culture, on the pace of Mother Nature, on the pace of the Himalayas themselves! We believe the best way to learn about the mountains and their richness is to travel. Travel slow, travel by exploring, travel by adjusting to the land that you want to discover and benefit from.
We invite you to come and help us build a community centre, a place of connection between travellers and locals. A place of encounter between cultures, a place where we give and accept wisdom, knowledge and respect.
Ecolodge is a meeting point for travellers and trekkies to engage with their hosts, the Himalayan locals of Chamoli.
The lodge is open for anyone who believes in the concept of sharing is caring. We want it to be a centre where local people can be educated about environmental issues like waste and garbage handling, forestkeeping and water use. We want locals to tell you the stories of the mountains and teach you to respect them. We want this place to be a home for host and guest of the Himalayas, for giving and accepting, for us and you.
Ecolodge is essentially ecologically conceived and built.
Not only do we want to build a home, but we want to build it with the least possible impact on its surroundings, locally and socially embedded. That means we want to build it with natural materials, provided by local nature or what can be grown as a local crop. Here’s where the local farmers come in.
H**pcrete, not concrete
H**p as a naturally growing plant is everywhere to be found in the region. However people are forgotten about the qualities of the plant when it’s grown for its fibers or hurds. Mostly people think of the mood enhancing effects smoking specific Cannabis plants can provide. We are not talking about that. We are talking about government tested seeds of cannabis with no THC, so not providing the highs. These kinds of cannabis or h**p are getting more and more popular in the world today even in India, where small businesses get back to the knowlegde of earlier days when the fiber was used to make clothing , threads or sails and sheets. Also medically the plant wins on international intrest as it proved its benefits for several diseases like cancers or memory difficiencies like the parkinson disease.
Ecolodge wants to be a motor for rural development
Also the farmers (which make about 80% of the local people in Chamoli district) could benefit from this h**p renaissance. If they add h**pcultivation to their range of possible crops, they have an additional income when other crops are not possible to grow, for instance in dry periods of the year. The plant during its 3 month grow hardly needs water and care to grow. Furthermore growing cannabis makes the soil richer for the next crop and reduces the need of pesticides. In Europe and the rest of the world , h**phurds ( the wooden part of a h**pshive) are also used as a building material. Mixed with limestone you can make h**pcrete. As h**pcrete is moistly batted into a formwork, the hurds will finally fossilize and the lime powder will return to limestone again. What we took from nature, we actually shape to our needs and give back to nature.
Exactly what Ecolodge Hikehills is about. And you can be part of this!
Maybe you are good at carpenting, maybe you want to help farmers collect the crops of h**p, making h**pcrete and building a wall of our Lodge. Maybe you are good in teaching kids English or guitarplaying. Or you want to share any of your talents with our local people here which are useful for them to explore theirs. Come over and help us develop in a sustainable way our people and lands. Help us with your soul, hands or maybe even a litte financial gift to get this movement started. Help us in any way you can, and we will welcome you in the Ecolodge, your home and ours, our common grounds, our community. From here on travel further into the mountains, bearing a bagpack full of richness and good feeling, armed with the love and strenghth of the people you help, through our land, the Himalayas.
Let’s meet at the Hikehills 🌄🏔🧗🏻♂️💟🗻
