Girls on the move

More women are now opting for an adventure packed life

There was a time when adventurewas considered a malebastion. Only a handful ofwomen opted to brave thephysical punishment andmental challenges implicit in adventure.But over the years, that wall hasfallen too. More women are now keento get a taste of adventure sports whether it is mountaineering, riverrafting or simply trekking.

Once smitten by the love of the outdoors,many women are also choosingto make adventure a regular partof their lives.

Love of the outdoors
Take Nandini Mehta for instance. The48-year-old French teacher anddancer based in Bangalore, says herlove affair with the mountains beganas a teenager. Her first conquest wasthe 6,000-metre-high MountKoteshwar in the Garhwal Himalayasway back in 1984. Since then, she hasbeen on several Himalayan treks andhits the hills close to Bangalore nearlyevery weekend. "The pure air andthe natural beauty make me want togo back," she says.

To cope with the burgeoningdemand of women who seek the thrillof adventure but with the comfort ofnumbers, several tour operators havebegun to offer women-only adventuretrips. Five years ago, SumitraSenapaty (49) started Women onWanderlust, a travel company thatorganises trips exclusively for women,with the objective of "making womenconfident enough to want to travel".Since then, she has organised treksto Uttarakhand and Ladakh, river raftingon the Zanskar and theBrahmaputra and an expedition tothe Everest base camp.

She says the response has beenenthusiastic, especially from olderwomen. "Women come all the wayfrom Chennai, Cochin and Bangaloreto Rishikesh for river rafting," she says."It's not the 20-somethings who landup for treks. It's more the 30s, 40s and50s. The oldest person to come on atrek was 56."

It was to introduce more women tothe adrenaline rush of adventure thatthe Women Adventure Network ofIndia (WANI) was formed last year.The organisation, headed by veteranmountaineer Bachendri Pal, hopes toincrease participation by women inadventure sports. According toVasumathi Srinivasan, secretary ofWANI and an avid mountaineer herself,the organisation's aim is to"empower women through the mediumof adventure".

Fit for adventure
Among the ambitious projects in thepipeline is a 3,000-km-long cyclingexpedition from Kolkata toKanyakumari in October this year."We are planning to take a few girlsfrom every state," says Srinivasan."We will have overnight halts every100 km and at each stop, we will givethe villagers a talk about adventure."

But in order for adventure activitiesto be enjoyable, your body needsto be fit enough to weather extremeconditions. Senapaty says that whileensuring that all arrangements on atrek are comfortable for women, shealso reminds them that it isn't a "luxuryvacation". "It's unpredictable outthere on the trek," she says. "Ifsomeone can't catch up, shecan't be airlifted like in aWestern country."

So if you want an occasional trystwith the outdoors, make a regular pactwith fitness. "My mother has beengoing to the mountains for 30 years,"says Shilpa Suchak, a mixed mediaartist, of her 60-year-old mother, DrAmita Suchak. "So she walks 7 kmevery day to keep fit." The rewardsmore than justify the hard labour. "Sheloves the peace she finds there."

Upcoming trips
Valley of Flowers trek from August22-28 in Uttarakhand by WoW.8-day Nepal adventure in Octoberwith treks, river rafting and paragliding.Visit www.wowsumitra.com.For activities by the WomenAdventure Network, emailsmithasrinivasan@gmail.com

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