SAJANY BAIKAL EXPEDITION 2007

Student Mountaineering Club (SKG)

Student Mountaineering Club

Warsaw University, Poland 

Official web site: www.skg.uw.edu.pl

Founded 1976

The Club was founded by the student initiative on the Warsaw University. At first it was registered as a part of Polish Tourist Country-Lovers' Society (PTTK). PTTK is a main tourist body in Poland, they mark all of the walking and hiking trails in Poland. Since 1993, Student Mountaineering Club (SKG) is independent organisation registered in the Public Records and has its own statutory rights.

The aim of the club is to promote mountaineering activities and integrate student community with tourist society. We are also sharing our knowledge and skills with everybody who is interested in exploring the mountains.

We are sharing our passion and love to travelling, hiking and mountaineering through a wide variety of our activities. Main services delivered by the club include:

• Trips and trekking expeditions

Our trips aim to promote the active tourism on the student society. We want to combine the leisure with educational aspects. The trips are providing the background information about the ethnography, architecture and culture of the region.

Trips are taking place in Polish Mountains (Tatra Mountains, Sudeten, Beskidy) and Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites and Scandinavian mountains).

The greatest achievements of our members are 1 - 2 month long, self organised treks in other continents: Predominantly in Asian Mountains: Himalayas, Karakorum, Tien Shan, Pamir, Altai, Caucasus and South America. Students from our club also had travelled in China, New Zealand, Kamchatka, and Ural.

• Mountain Guides course

This course is part of our main activity. It’s 2-year long and finishes with the mountain guide licence issued by the Ministry of Sport and Culture. We started the course in 1981, and since then every year we are recruiting new group of students. It include map reading, theoretic lectures about topography, first aid and organising the venues, practical trips with tutorials about leading the group, setting the camp, human resources management, basic survival knowledge and dealing with the extreme situations in mountains.

• Venues, presentations and slideshows

Our Club is also organising the venues like photo art exhibitions, organising the slideshows from the journeys, presentation of mountaineering movies and meeting with famous Polish alpinists, mountain rescue team members, writers, photographers and publishers.

We are also organising on every-week-basis a social meeting in club headquarters, where we spend time on telling stories, creating new venues, and discussing the plans for future trips.

Also we are doing the training sessions, to keep our society members fit and in good shape. This include numerous one-day cross country bicycle trips, one day walks and during the winter also ski runs.

Our headquarters are based on the Warsaw University main campus. We also have a camping for tents in Podwilk (South of Poland, Beskidy Mountain Range), which is quite popular place in the tourist society, because of its location next to the picturesque Babia Gora National Park and next to Orawa.