Company Profile and Background: [www.k2trek.com]
K2/K-2 Trek is managed by Adventure Travel, which was established in summer 1986. Started as a one man show run by proprietor S. N. Malik (Saadat Nawaz Malik) it soon became a popular holiday organizer for the diplomats and ex-pats in Islamabad.
Within one year the company had a proper office and staff of four including a guide, cook and assistant manager. As the reputation of Adventure Travel grew owing to the hard work and keen willingness to provide the best services the American and European communities all over the country utalasised Adventure Travel's services for all their inland holidays.
The same year Adventure Travel started the concept of Fixed Departures for the very first time in Pakistan with a tour departing on each weekend.
By 1987 the US embassy and British high commission used Adventure Travel exclusively for the community trips organised by CLOs.
Since then Adventure Travel served the diplomatic communities and multinational organizations all over the country. A large number of Ambassadors and High Commissioners gave us the honour to serve them over the past years.
The American, Canadian and British CLOs as well as CIDA had on several occasions invited ADVENTURE TRAVEL to present travel orientation programmes for their communities.
Apart from these Adventure Travel had been the leader in introducing new travel destinations and concepts for the tourism industry. These included the most popular INDUS RIVER REGION FOR BOAT SAFARI introduced in 1986 and several new treks in Northern Pakistan. Adventure Travel revolutionised trek logistics and food system by introducing a new and unique menu based system which has been adopted by several other trekking outfitters. Apart from these inland travels Adventure Travel had also pioneered the Western Silk Road and lead the first overland tourist expedition in the history of this area from Kashgar to Kyrghizstan, Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. We were honored to have the advise and guidance of two great historians Mr. Peter Hopkirk (famous author of many books on Central Asia including THE GREAT GAME) and Prof. Dr. A. H. Dani (Author of may books on Silk Road and the pioneer of work on the rock drawings all over the Silk Roads, former leader of UNESCO Silk Road Studies).
Apart from developing touristic aspect Adventure Travel was deeply concerned about the impact on environment from increase in tourist visiting remote areas, rubbish from trekkers and mountaineers as well as deforestation and population explosion.
ADVENTURE TRAVEL pioneered the environment studies in Karakoram in 1986 and the same summer submitted the first report on population study of Baltoro glacier to the Ministry of Tourism. The subsequent efforts of Adventure Travel led to the attention of government of Pakistan on the important issue of environment protection leading to the involvement of various world wide organizations in research and conservation. For the single handed struggle of Adventure Travel to save the fragile nature of the Karakorams a number of international environment agencies granted membership to S. N. Malik the Chief Executive of Adventure Travel.