Just the word “Kashmir” makes the adventurous soul smile. It’s a high valley, surrounded by tall peaks, dreamed of and fought over for centuries. And for the last 20 years it has been considered off-limits because of various military and terrorist action.

Now folks are starting to go back to Kashmir. A group of three accomplished female trekkers and mountaineers recently spent three months scouting the route for the Great Himalayan Trail and checking out a host of unnamed peaks.

An Indian news site has a story headlined Trio’s Bid to Put Kashmir Back on Trek, in which one of the explorers is quoted as saying, “We were overwhelmed by the hospitality showered by the local people on us. We felt safe though we were women trekking on the mountains in Kashmir.”

Another story, from the Kashmir Dispatch, reports that the group saw “brown bears, snow leopards and other wild animals, and we were simply amazed.”

Their trip is part of an effort to get people to return to Kashmir, and Embark Adventures supports this goal. We love adventure, of course, and we long for places where your average tourist can’t, or won’t, go. But more than that, we believe that trekking can be a means to bring people together, spread economic benefit, and close the gaps that exist between us as people, no matter where we live.

We welcome the potential re-introduction of the trekking world to the magical valley of Kashmir. ANd we hope to get there one day, as well.