Japan-Nepal Joint Student Himalayan Exercise Program 7 Years

A geotraverse connecting the Kaligandaki and the Tinau rivers via Pokhara in Western Nepal covers all geologic zones of the Himalayan Orogen from the Tethys Himalayan Zone in the north to the Gangetic Plain in the south. The Student Himalayan Exercise Program has aimed to conduct tours of the above geotraverse, provided for Japanese and Nepalese students. The preparation of the program started in 2008, and the practical content of the tour was decided in December 2010 by collecting ideas from several Himalayan geologists in Japan and Nepal and receiving consent of 17 geoscience-related university departments, committing them to give education points for the participation in the exercise, or to examine the possibility of it. After collecting ideas from and sending call-for-participants to geoscience-related departments of over 60 Japanese universities, and after negotiations with several Nepalese trekking agencies, the first Student Himalayan Exercise Tour (SHET) was conducted in March 2012. Since then the exercise tour was conducted every year in March. We are convinced that the SHETs throughout all 7 years (2012-2018) were successful and meaningful, and we therefore suggest that the program should continue further in future.