Every year, as pilgrims and trekkers visit Himachal Pradesh’s high-altitude trails, the mountains silently absorb the weight of human presence.
When the snow melts and the festivals are over, it reveals more than alpine meadows and sacred landscapes. Discarded plastic, food wrappers, clothes, and abandoned gear surface along fragile routes, turning places of spiritual and ecological significance into unintended dumping grounds.
As visitor footfall increases, the burden on these Himalayan ecosystems grows heavier.
For RP Negi Yullam, Founder of the Himalayn Tribe Foundation, the problem became impossible to ignore during his early visits to places like Shrikhand Mahadev and Kinnaur Kailash.
He saw plastic buried under snow, offerings left behind, and no system to carry waste back.
That raised a question: if these are places that people choose to walk through for pilgrimage and adventure, could they also become part of the effort to protect them?
It was within this intersection of travel, faith and environmental strain that the Himalayn Tribe Foundation emerged as a grassroots collective working to restore, protect, preserve and reimagine how people move through some of the Indian Himalayas’ most sensitive pilgrimage and trekking corridors.
The moment that started it
“Himalayn Tribe Foundation’s work had to exist because the Himalayas were silently paying the price of devotion and adventure,” says RP Negi Yullam.
“During early visits to places like Shrikhand Mahadev and Kinnaur Kailash, I saw plastic buried under snow, offerings left behind, and no system to carry waste back. That moment made it clear that authorities alone cannot protect such remote terrains. Those who walk these sacred and fragile routes must also take responsibility.”
Himalayn Tribe Foundation is a grassroots organisation currently working in Himachal Pradesh to address environmental degradation, waste mismanagement and community welfare in ecologically sensitive pilgrimage and trekking routes.
The surge in pilgrimage and trekking footfall has brought with it an accumulation of waste that fragile ecosystems are ill-equipped to manage. These trails are not just environmentally significant; they also hold strong cultural and spiritual meaning for local communities.
For RP Negi, that made involving the people who travel through these landscapes particularly important.
“People who trek or go on pilgrimage directly interact with the ecosystem. When conservation is led by those who walk these trails, the connection becomes personal, not instructional,” he explains.
“At high altitudes, even a small wrapper can remain for decades. When travellers participate in cleanups, they don’t just remove waste — they return home with awareness. That behavioural shift is the strongest form of conservation.”
Instead of asking people to care, they got them involved
Himalayn Tribe Foundation is a grassroots organisation currently working in Himachal Pradesh to address environmental degradation, waste mismanagement and community welfare in ecologically sensitive pilgrimage and trekking routes.
Its approach is community-driven. Instead of positioning conservation as an external intervention, the foundation encourages trekkers and pilgrims to participate as volunteers, creating a shared sense of responsibility.
Over the last three years, Sujal Chauhan, a core team member of the foundation, has participated in almost all its clean-up drives at higher-altitude pilgrimage and trekking routes.
The foundation currently works across multiple high-altitude and culturally significant routes in Himachal Pradesh. Its major clean-up drives are conducted at Shrikhand Mahadev, Kinnaur Kailash, Yula Kanda and Rani Kanda. It has also worked around Bhimakali Temple, Sarahan Bushahr and nearby villages.
Alongside clean-up drives, the foundation is involved in solid waste management initiatives in Rampur Bushahr, plantation drives, heritage restoration and winter relief initiatives, including clothing distribution for local communities.
Over the years, the Foundation says it has removed more than 500 tonnes of waste from Himalayan trekking and pilgrimage routes.
It conducts eight major clean-up drives every year across several high-altitude routes. These include Kinnaur Kailash twice a year, Yula Kanda twice a year, Rani Kanda once a year, Baba Pass once a year, Shrikhand Mahadev twice a year and Manimahesh once a year.
Each drive typically involves 15–20 volunteers, supported by two groups led by regular NGO team members who coordinate and conduct the campaigns.
The work extends beyond physically removing waste. The Foundation also conducts environmental awareness campaigns among pilgrims, trekkers, local communities and visitors, encouraging them to think about what they carry into these fragile landscapes and what they leave behind.
In recent years, the foundation also began collaborating with government bodies and local administrations to expand the scale of its work, signalling a shift from informal action to structured, long-term environmental stewardship.
The waste has to come down on their backs
The clean-up, however, is far from simple.
At high altitude, there are no roads, bins or vehicles waiting to carry the waste away. Volunteers have to collect, segregate and carry it down themselves.
For some volunteers, the experience changes how they see the mountains themselves.
“A cleanup drive begins days before the trek with planning, permissions and volunteer briefings,” says Sujal.
“On the trail, we move slowly, collecting waste while adapting to altitude, weather and terrain. Every item is segregated and carried down manually, often on our backs, especially from trek routes like Shrikhand Mahadev, which is 35 kilometres one side.”
At such heights, even basic tasks can become physically demanding.
“The hardest part is logistics. At high altitudes, there are no roads, bins or vehicles. Even on difficult treks, heavy waste is carried down by volunteers,” Sujal explains.
“Weather can change suddenly at high altitudes, oxygen levels drop, and safety is always a concern. Also, managing mixed waste like plastic, glass and religious offerings is complex. People see the final cleanup photos, but not the physical exhaustion and planning behind them.”
The drive, he says, ends only when the waste is handed over to proper disposal points.
When a pilgrimage becomes a clean-up mission
For some volunteers, the experience changes how they see the mountains themselves.
For Bhuvan Malik from Kota, Rajasthan, volunteering felt like giving back to a place that had given him so much.
“The Himalayas offer peace, adventure and spirituality, but they also suffer silently,” he says.
“Joining a cleanup drive transformed the journey from consumption to contribution. Instead of just taking photos, we became part of the solution. It made the experience more meaningful and humbling.”
What he saw during one of the clean-ups brought the scale of the problem home.
“Finding plastic bottles and footwear near glaciers and sacred sites was shocking. In Shrikhand Mahadev, the sacred Parvati Kund was full of clothes like underwear dumped in the corner. Many other sacred sites have the same problem,” he says.
Seeing waste frozen into snow at extreme altitudes made the volunteers realise how permanent their impact could be.
“Carrying that waste down ourselves changed how we travel forever,” Bhuvan says. “Now, we pack consciously, avoid disposables and encourage others to do the same. The mountains taught us to be responsible.”
For the foundation, that behavioural change is as important as the waste collected.
The people living here are joining too
The shift is not limited to trekkers and pilgrims. The foundation says the response within local communities is changing too.
Anchal Negi, a local community member from Kinnaur, recalls that residents were initially sceptical of the clean-up drives.
“Initially, many locals were sceptical, and clean-ups were seen as temporary efforts,” she says.
But repeated efforts have gradually changed that attitude.
In places like Yulla Kanda, Kinnaur Kailash and Shrikhand Mahadev, people now recognise the foundation and ask how they can help.
“Now, villagers inform us about waste hotspots and sometimes join the drives themselves. In places like Sarahan and local villages, participation has grown, especially among youth.”
For local residents, cleaner routes are increasingly being connected to both tourism and cultural pride.
“Locals now understand that cleaner routes benefit tourism and cultural pride. The foundation has helped turn concern into collective responsibility,” Anchal says.
The real goal isn’t just cleaner trails — it is responsible travellers
RP Negi believes the foundation’s efforts are working because the biggest change is behavioural.
“Over the past three years, we’ve seen pilgrims asking where to dispose of the waste, locals joining drives, and repeat visitors carrying trash back themselves,” he says.
In places like Yulla Kanda, Kinnaur Kailash and Shrikhand Mahadev, people now recognise the foundation and ask how they can help.
Alongside the clean-up drives, the Foundation’s environmental awareness campaigns among pilgrims, trekkers, local communities and visitors are helping reinforce this shift — taking the message of responsible travel beyond the people who directly participate in clean-ups.
“That shift from indifference to participation tells us this effort is working,” says RP Negi. “Awareness at ground level grows slowly, but it stays.”
And perhaps that is the larger change the foundation is trying to create.
The goal is not simply to remove the waste already lying on the trails, but to change the way people understand their presence in the mountains — whether they arrive for faith, adventure or both.
When pilgrims and trekkers begin carrying their waste back, when locals report waste hotspots and when volunteers return home more conscious of what they carry into fragile landscapes, conservation stops being someone else’s responsibility.
It becomes part of the journey itself.
