COVID 19
| AN UPDATE FROM SUJOY DAS, FOUNDER, SOUTH COL EXPEDITIONS
As some of you would
have seen from our whats app messenger posts, we have cancelled our summer
treks in Ladakh for the period July to September 2020. We are very sorry to lose the summer season
in Ladakh with some of the best short camping treks in the Himalaya, some of
which have been pioneered by South Col. However, Ladakh is under fourteen days
quarantine for new arrivals at present and Delhi, the jumping off point for
Ladakh is a major covid 19 hotspot in India, so it would be advisable not to
trek this summer in Ladakh. Further, international insurance companies are not
providing insurance for visits and treks to India, Nepal and Bhutan so far and this
rules out a lot of our international clients.
We are still open to conducting treks in the November –
December season 2020, if possible, but as days go by and with rising covid 19
numbers both in India and to a lesser extent in Nepal, it does seem to be a
long shot at present. Nepal flights are
still not open and like India they are following fourteen days quarantine for
any of their passengers arriving on repatriation flights. We will be constantly
reviewing the situation and advising you as we get updated information.
Following this cancellation of our Ladakh summer treks, I
would like to thank everyone for their support and kind words. As an adventure
trek and photography tour operator focusing on Himalayan countries we are
probably more used to the risks of losing seasons than most other regular
travel operators. In the past, we have also dealt with cyclones during Autumn
2013 & 2014 seasons in Nepal and Bhutan. After the 2015 earthquake in Nepal
we had to cancel our entire Spring season and though we were back in autumn in
a limited way, it took some time to rebuild the numbers of trekkers again.
