HISTORY

Started from hobby and activities in the open nature which is a trend in the late 1970s, several students of UPN “Veteran” Jakarta began to established nature lovers clubs in their respective department. Nature lovers clubs in each department are trying to show their existence by holding mass activities and used campus students as their main targets of the participants. This event  triggered competition between departments in the recruitment of participants, it was even caused conflicts between departments at that time.

Seeing that the campus situation was increasingly unfavorable due to friction between departments, an idea was created to merge the nature lovers clubs in each department into one association that was legally recognized at the UPN “Veteran” Jakarta. Later on September 7th, 1981 at Kawah Ratu, Mount Salak, a group of students from representatives of nature lovers clubs from each department pledged a name, namely "GIRIGAHANA" as the only nature lovers flag flying on the UPN "Veteran" Jakarta campus.

GIRIGAHANA itself comes from the Sanskrit language where the word "GIRI" means "GUNUNG"(MOUNTAIN) and "GAHANA" which means "JURANG" (RAVINE), so philosophically GIRIGAHANA consists the meaning of "in every achievement of an ideal or goal, everything starts from the bottom". So that GIRIGAHANA members are expected to be able to relish every process carried out from the ground up to achieving the peak of glory, not through an instant process.

PURPOSES
The initial purpoeses of forming GIRIGAHANA was based on several important points which were later outlined in the organizational direction outline, as below :
a.   To build a professional nature club organization.
b.   To implant patriotism through various of nature-oriented programs
c.   To implement the Tri Dharma in community service
d.   To give insights and improve ability regarding the nature and wild environment
e.   To build and improve the members ability and give them insights regarding organization management

ACTIVITIES

The activities in GIRIGAHANA is divided into four divisions, there are Mountain Forest, Cave Exploring, Rock Climbing, and Rafting. These divisions are intended for easier material management in each activities. The enthusiasm of the students in nature and outdoor drives GIRIGAHANA to participate in various of clubs and government championship in the field of youth and sports, from small level into national level.
As below are the GIRIGAHANA activities in the past few years :

1.    Orange Route Expendition, South Sulawesi – 2004

2.    Hiking in Mount Dempo and Climbing in Condong Cliff – 2007

3.    Joint training and Colloquium IX UPN “Veteran” Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Jakarta Nature Lover Students – May 2015