Stories from the trail

At 1,690 metres, Jindhagada — Sitamma Konda to the villages below — is the highest point in Andhra Pradesh, and on a winter dawn it behaves like it knows it. The valleys fill with cloud overnight, and from the summit boulders you watch the sun rise over what the press once called cotton-wool clouds: a full 360° sea of them, with ridgelines for islands.

Our camps sit near Olubidda village, home of the Dongria Kondh — and that's not a logistics detail, it's the point. The trek was built to carry people through the culture of these hills, not just over them: a home-cooked village lunch, evenings of stories, and the quiet understanding of how these communities have lived with deep reverence for the land for generations.

We time the best departures to the sky — new-moon weekends for the Milky Way, full-moon nights for summit camps, and the Geminids in December for the greatest meteor show of the year. Ten years of walking this mountain, and it has never repeated itself.

Before EcoHikes was a company it was a field diary. Naveen's work in wildlife conservation kept him in the Eastern Ghats for long seasons — following species, documenting trails, sleeping in hamlets that saw few outsiders. The forest was the job; the people became the reason. Families who read weather in birdsong. Farmers who worked steep land without breaking it.

EcoHikes was founded in 2017 to close the distance between those hills and the cities beside them. The first walks were a few friends and a village lunch. Word carried. Today the count reads 700+ curated experiences and more than 7,000 people — with the same rules on every single one: small groups, local hosts leading on their own slopes, and every place left better than we found it.

The next chapter is the one we're most excited about — deeper community partnerships, the EcoHikes Circle, and slow journeys that now stretch from the Gosthani caves to Zanskar's glacier valleys.

Over the years we've curated outdoor days and treks for the Indian Army, the Indian Navy, the Coast Guard, the Central GST & Customs departments and teams from HPCL. Institutions bring their own rhythm — discipline, punctuality, a healthy competitive streak on the climbs — and the forest gently dismantles the rest.

What we've learned building these: the best group experiences aren't obstacle courses, they're shared quiet. A ridge walked in step. A kayak on still water. Lunch on banana leaves with no rank at the table. The feedback that returns most often isn't about adventure at all — it's that people spoke to colleagues they'd worked beside for years and never known.

If you're planning something for your team, school or unit, our group experiences scale from a half-day sanctuary walk to multi-day summit camps — built around your people and purpose.

Look closely at our upcoming dates and you'll notice a pattern: they follow the sky. New-moon weekends put Jindhagada's summit camp under the darkest skies in Andhra — Milky Way conditions. Full moons move us to the coast for beach walks, and to silver-lit summit camps. And meteor showers get their own departures: the Perseids in August, Orionids in October, Leonids in November, the great Geminids in December and the Quadrantids to open the new year.

Winter is the season of certainty here — dry trails, crisp dawns at 5–8°C in the high ASR hills, and visibility that makes the ranges feel endless. It's why December and January run two peak treks every weekend instead of one.

The mountains don't change; the sky above them never stops. Pick your night accordingly.