It’s all about the extreme adrenaline rush and passion for hard-core adventure. It requires high levels of physical fitness, a great degree of skills in negotiating glaciers and other high-altitude terrain and definitely does not come cheap. But nothing deters extreme adventure lovers from seeking out the Himalayas for high-altitude trekking and mountaineering.

“The domestic market for extreme adventure holidays is still largely untapped with Indians often going off overseas to the Alps to get a feel of adventure sports. However, our niche clientele includes many expats, foreigners and NRIs who are interested in high-altitude treks and adventure in the Himalayas,” says Mandip Singh Soin, founder and managing director of Ibex Expeditions.

At approximately $15,000 per expedition or high-altitude trip, such holidays definitely don’t come cheap-but the love of extreme adventure has been bringing many high-spenders to the Himalayas every year. “There has been a growing interest in high altitude trekking and mountaineering and till last year we’ve been having a growth of 25–30% for four years in a row,” says mountaineer Yangdu Gombu who has founded Rimo Expeditions-a company which specialises in the high altitude trekking and mountaineering-along with her husband Chewang Motup.

While softer adventure options are considered bread and butter business by most players in the business, almost everyone agrees that the Himalayas are among the most under-tapped natural wonders of the world. “Foreigners are much bigger spenders on high-end adventure trips in the Himalayas which are usually at altitudes of above 18,000 ft, whereas Indians are not very keen adventure enthusiasts,” says Praveen Chamoli, senior manager, inbound tours, at Snow Leopard — the company that organised a white water rafting trip for Hollywood hunk Brad Pitt a few years ago.

The regions in India which draw the largest number of adventure lovers include Ladakh, Garhwal and Himachal Pradesh. “Markha Valley, Zanskar and Stok Kangri in Ladakh are definitely the top destinations for trekking and climbing in India. Garhwal and Kumaon, too, have a lot of potential and could certainly become the main adventure destinations if the government relaxed rules and regulations,” says Gombu.

Administrative issues and red tape often work as a deterrent for adventure lovers in India. “Even though the ministry of tourism and the Indian Mountaineering Foundation have been trying to relax paperwork, it still takes at least three weeks to process papers before an expedition can take off. There are other issues such as restrictions on use of satellite phones by climbers which the authorities need to address,” says Mr Soin.

Agrees Gombu: “Topping the list is a relook at the system of inner line permits in many areas. Then there’s the issue of the ’X’ mountaineering visa that foreigners have to get if they want to climb in the Indian Himalayas. This takes two to three months to process and involves a lot of paper work. Finally, an uniform system should be followed in imposing peak fees that need to be paid to climb mountains.”