Manali: Everester Aviansh Negi, who hails from Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, has been appointed as the new director of the country’s premier high altitude adventure sports institute – the Atal Bihari Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports (ABVIMAS).
Negi, a former Group-A Border Security Officer (BSF), has many achievements in adventure sports to his credit. A keen mountaineer, he has climbed more than 6 peaks of over 21,000 thousand feet altitude and did lead a team of 15 members to the summit of Mount Everest, a record of its kind where all team members in a single registered team successfully stood on the top of world’s highest peak.
Besides mountaineering, Negi is also a certified solo paragliding pilot and has also represented in paragliding cups. When not mountaineering, he goes out mountain biking and has done a Manali to Khardungla mountain biking expedition.
The decorated officer is also an environmentalist. A team led by him of a save glacier campaign did bring back 700 Kgs of garbage dumped by mountaineers from the Mount Everest route.
Spread over 20 acres of forested lands on the right bank of River Beas, ABVIMAS – the mountaineering institute with hostel facilities, a library, a museum, adventure sports equipment, is instrumental in imparting specialised training in adventure sports. To date, more than 40,000 adventure sports enthusiasts have trained at this institute.
