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2nd Feb to 12th Feb 2012 - Chadar trek – (Ladakh &
Zanskar region, Jammu & Kashmir, India)
Chicken qorma, mutton roast and shermaal (sweet bread), that was the order I placed at my favorite mughalai restaurant
when I landed in Delhi from Leh after the trek. But
food wasn’t the toughest part of this trip. It was primarily extreme weather
condition that makes this trek so interesting. So if you like living in minus
fifteen to minus thirty, if you want to get away from civilization with no
power supply, no phone network, no TV, no animals (oh sorry we did spot one
mountain goat some 200 meters away climbing a mountain), limited food supply,
lots of Maggi (soup), ice skating, sleeping in tents, jumping in ice cold
water, facing strong cold wind, actually let me just get down to the details of
the trek.
I had been thinking on going this trek for
over two years but I couldn’t manage due to lack of time or resources. Even this time I had almost
cancelled it but then things worked out and I finally decided to go for it. After
doing bit of research on who to go with I ended up with a group of people (HEC)
who organize it more for the love of Himalayas. There are several adventure
travel companies who organize these kinds of treks and provide good services (check
aquaterra). You can also land up in Leh and approach local agents. However, it’s
advisable to book in advance as agents need to organize lot of things for the
trek and winter being off season in Leh it takes time to organize things. Most
of the people in our group had booked 2-3 months in advance. While I started
talking to people 3 months in advance but finalized it very late.
Once I had booked the trek it was time for me to start getting ready for it, which included not just physical fitness but also gears that I need to buy for the trek. Different organizers provide various gears so one should check before buying things. There are also places from where one can rent out gears. Indian Mountaineering Federation in Delhi is one of them, it’s cheap and nice. Though most of the things you buy can be used in other treks too so investment is worth it. You can check the list at the end of this document.
I’m not a regular trekker but physically fit,
actually a little malnourished and under developed for my height and age but
that didn’t seem to cause any problem, infact in my group I was one of the fast
ones to walk, not to forget the 20 kg bag I was carrying throughout the trek. Everyone had option to give their bags to
porters.
One needs to spend two days in Leh to
acclimatize before you start the trek. Leh city is at around 3500 mts and most
of the trekking was at 3200 mts. This is because we were walking on the river. I
had been to Leh twice earlier but this was the first time I was there in
winters. The place looks amazing when its all covered in snow. Just flying down to Leh, spending a weekend
there will be very relaxing. After two days of acclimatization and some sightseeing
we started our trek.
Day One
One has to drive for around 60 kms to reach
the starting point of trek called Chilling. First 30 kms is on Leh Sri Nagar
highway (NH1) till Nimmu, this is the point of confluence of Zanskar and Indus
river. From Nimmu you start driving towards Chilling. The road was smooth,
wide, open and covered with snow on either side, if you love riding then this
is the ultimate place to ride only if you can handle the cold. During day
temperature here was around minus 10.
Zanskar river, as the name suggests flows
from Zanskar region, so while in winters one can trek on this river, in summers
it’s one of the most sort after rivers for rafting expedition.
From Chilling we started walking on the
frozen river. We were group of 7 guys, one guide, one cook and 13 porters. Most
of the porters and guide who typically do this trek are from Zanskar region. While for us this was recreation and fun but
for locals it’s the way of life. Zanskaris have been using this winter route
for centuries to come to Leh even now they use this route. It’s better than climbing
across mountain ranges.
As we started walking, porters started sliding their sledge with our supplies and luggage. We didn’t walk much on day one, hardly one and half hour when we decided to stop at Tilath Sumdo where we decided to camp that night. First day of walking wasn’t that bad, we were still getting use to sliding or at times walking like penguin on smooth icy surface. It was our first night and we just missed the caves by few minutes as another group came earlier and occupied the place. There are many caves on this route which have been used by locals forever as caves are warmer and better protected from weather. Sun was down by 4pm and it was dark by 5.30pm. Its strange to not have to do anything other than to gaze stars and eat early dinner. Food would typically be cooked on kerosene oil stoves or wood. By 7.30pm we were done with everything. Since all the members in the group were strangers to each other, there wasn’t much of talking happening either.
Day Two
It was a little cloudy as we started walking.
After walking for two and a half hours we decided to break for lunch. On our
way we met few people who were on their way back from trek. They gave a very bad report
of the Chadar (ice layer on river) further ahead. On Chadar trek every day is a new
day because weather condition keeps changing and as weather conditions change
the formation of Chadar also varies. On cloudy day the temperature doesn’t dip down as a
result Chadar doesn’t form properly. Since our second day was a cloudy one things didn’t
seem good for us further ahead. We were not sure whether we should move on or camp for the
night at Shingrak which was the place where we had stopped for lunch. We were already late by a day.
After some discussion with the porters we decided to move on as it started snowing.
The problem with snow fall is that it gets
very difficult to see the surface under fresh layer of snow and once can step on
thin layer and slip. So today was also the day when few of us stepped on thin layer of ice
and slipped over; and my count of falling for the day was at 3.
We were sure to face some water crossings further ahead so we decided to change into gumboots and it did help as we had to walk in the river at times. While I was wearing gortex treated shoes, they weren’t high enough to protect me from knee deep water. We stopped after walking for another three hours at upper Shingrak.
To pass time in the evening I decided to climb up a
small hill and get some panorama shots. Then, we lit camp fire and warming up
around fire was immensely comforting. On a daily basis, once we would stop for night stay, porters
would collect wood from nearby hills for evening fire and to cook food. While
we would chat and experiment with our cameras, the Buddhist Zansakris would chant
for hours.
Day Three
Our third day started with the regular snow fall and another round
of discussion on how to proceed further. Even though walking in the snow was
fun, we had to be really careful as it had been constantly snowing for the last two
days. The Chadar was not well formed so
there were places where we were walking on the edge of ice blocks, and we could
hear waves of river reverberating under those blocks. These were small waves
waiting to become rapids. At times these ice blocks would crack when we would
step on them. We were really
disappointed with the weather condition but that didn’t seem to deter locals
travelling for family affairs. We would come across oldsters, youngsters and
kids traveling across Chadar to finish regular errands. If it was too cold they
would gulp down some rum or local alcohol called Chhang or Arak and for food
supplies roasted and powdered barley (sattu). Barley is major
crop grown in this region and the locals love it.
We ended our day at Dib caves but once again, we
were'nt lucky enough to stay in the caves and had to manage in camps. The big bonfire was
certainly the highlight of the evening. By now the seven of us were also
comfortable with each other so we would chat for longer after dinner. We were seven strangers from completely
different backgrounds, so each of us had interesting incidents and stories to share.
The day was all gloomy and night was cold and
uncomfortable. It was minus 10 inside our tent and everything was frozen outside. Most of us had started coughing and sneezing
because of continuously breathing in the unbearable cold wind.
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Day Four
When you are travelling in a group one needs
to consider capabilities of the entire group. While some were fast walkers, others would take it easy and as we were already delayed by a day we had to implement plan B.
According to Plan A – Day 1 (Chilling to Shangrik
) – Day 2 (Shingrak to Choumo cave) -
Day 3 ( Choumo cave to Nyerak pula) – Day 4 (Nyerakpulu to Charakdo) – Day 5
(Charado to Zangla) – Day 6 (sightseeing in Zangla and move to Padum) – Day 7 (sightseeing
in Padum & Karsha) – Day 8 (start
return journey).
But this didn’t seem possible for us. So we called for quick get together and decided a new plan –
Plan B - Day 1 (Chilling to Tilath Sumdoh) - Day 2 (Tlakth Sumdoh to Shangrik) – Day 3 (Shangrik to Dib caves) Day 4 (Dib caves to Nyerak) – Day 5 (Nyerak to Charakdo) – Day 6 (road travel to Zangla) and then further on.
Day 5 onwards the plan was all dependent on making a phone call through a satellite phone in order to arrange a cab at Charakdo. So we started walking towards Nyerak and thankfully it was a sunny day. Chadar was in good shape so we encountered very few. As a result falls and reached Nyerak after walking for 5 hours.
You enter Nyerak by crossing into the Zanskar
region. Zanskar range is between Ladakh and Kashmir valley. Zanskar is part of Kargil district, with it's
administrative centre at Padum, which is where we were supposed to end our trek
as per Plan A. All of a sudden porters started grinning as they had obviously reached before us and were
ready to welcome us in traditional way as we were in their homeland now. But what
really welcomed us was this jaw dropping gorgeous frozen water fall. We had
seen a few smaller onces on our way but nothing like this before. All of sudden
all our cameras came out and we started shooting as if Megan was posing nude specially
for us.
After four days this was the first time we
came across a sign of civilization. There was an marked camping place and
there was also a guest house with
bukhari. Bukhari is local heater that is used to keep
the room warm. It consist of
a wide cylindrical fire-chamber at the base in which wood, charcoal or other
fuel is burned and a narrower cylinder on the top that helps in heating the
room and acts as a chimney. Some of the group members opted to stay in guest
house while others decided to stay back in camp. Soon we found out that campsite
belong to a 80 year old gentleman called Phunsok Dorjey who also stayed close
by in a small house. Everyone here calls him Meme Pullu, Meme means grandfather in local language. Meme lives in a small 10’ X 10’room with everything that
he needs at an arms stretch, including a nice warm Bhukari. Meme was quite a
chatter box and he had many stories to share. He obvioulsy couldn’t understand hindi or english properly but he loved to talk. If that
wasn’t amusing enough, Meme agreed to sing for us and he also played flute for us.
Day Five
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| Meme Pullu |
Day Five
It was minus seventeen inside the tent and below
minus 20 outside. Even
though it was sunny, we still had to keep on atleast three layers, one inner
polypropylene inner, fleece and an outer jacket. While walking we would prefer
weatherproof jackets and during evening down jacket was a must to tolerate the
cold. Gloves would be on most of the time unless we clicking pictures or
eating, I’m not very comfortable with caps but keeping your ears covered and warm
becomes a necessity.
Today was the day to relax until Dalah, our guide, could go to the village and make a phone call for cab. So we enjoyed the sun, flirted with mountain goats and one member even decided to take a hot water bath. That was truely a luxury since most of us had not even changed our clothes for five days and we had not even brushed our teeth more than twice and would even hold on to nature calls to avoid exposure of body parts to cold .Let me just say that he was the cleanest out of all of us now.
Today was the day to relax until Dalah, our guide, could go to the village and make a phone call for cab. So we enjoyed the sun, flirted with mountain goats and one member even decided to take a hot water bath. That was truely a luxury since most of us had not even changed our clothes for five days and we had not even brushed our teeth more than twice and would even hold on to nature calls to avoid exposure of body parts to cold .Let me just say that he was the cleanest out of all of us now.
By the time Dalah returned it was 1pm and he
had not even been able to make the phone call. We had no option but to return
from here as all of us had connecting flights from Leh and we wouldn’t have
made it on time if we decided to trek further towards Padum. But then we had Plan
C.
Most people end their Chadar trek at Lingshed.
It’s a small village famous for its monastery. Our guide wasn’t well and porters
didn’t want to continue walking so they tried to convince us against the idea
of going to Lingshed by telling us that it would take around 6 hrs and it will get
dark by the time we reached there. However, our guide had informed us earlier that it
was a 4 hour trek. I was really interested in going to Lingshed and so were
three others in our group. So four of us decided to move further with cook and 3-4 porters
and rest of them decided to take it easy at Nyerak.
The walk to Lingshed wasn’t similar to the path
we had covered so far. First one hour was on Chadar but from there on, we
gradual began climbing up the hill. The climb wasn’t steep but the path was very narrow,
it seemed as if someone carved a groove on the mountain just deep enough to place
your foot, at best half a meter feet and at worst 6 centimeters wide. Mountains
here are not made of big stable rocks but rather, they are formed by loose gravel because Zanskar range is
formed by strongly folded and
imbricated, weakly metamorphosed sedimentary series. So while walking we had to make
sure that we press our foot really hard on the mountains to ensure better grip as we
would watch small rocks tumbling 70ft down into the valley.
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Day Six
Lingshed Village has
been inhabited for nearly a thousand years. It was originally reputed to be a
local hunting area, which is the source of its name. The village has been the
site of several Buddhist monasteries also.
Lingshed
Monastery (or Kumbum, meaning 'A Hundred Thousand Images') was founded as a
Geluk School Monastery in the 1440s by Changsems Sherabs Zangpo, disciple of
the noted Tibetan preceptor Je Tsongkhapa. Lingshed Monastery was another hour’s
hike from where we were staying. On our way we met some locals. Tourism is
probably the major change that Zanskar has experienced during recent times. The
opening of this region to foreigners has brought benefits such as the financing
of schools and the restoration of monasteries and roads. Lingshed Solar school that is
run by an Austrian NGO is an example of this. The school provides upto secondary
education to students from Lingshed and nearby villages.
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| Lingshed Village |
We had to start our return journey from next day on.
Day Seven and Eight
I woke up to minus
14 inside the tent. Just like every other morning our finger tips were numb
immediately after we moved out of our tent. It would get very difficult to pack
up as our numb finger tips would hurt even more without gloves. Packing up
every morning and unpacking every night was a daily ritual that everyone hated the
most. Only after walking for a while is when our fingers would come alive. By now
most of us had, had enough of Chadar experience and decided to cover longer distance
in next two days and reach Leh a day early. As last 2-3 days had been sunny,
top layer of Chadar had melted, so our walk for next 2 days walk was very extremely slippery. We
would skid and fall multiple times. This is where crampons come very useful but for walking only crampons are sufficient and full crampons are not advisable. The ice was so smooth that it was difficult
to find right path to take in order to avoid accidents. Since our group would
typically get split into two, one being the fast movers and other slightly slow we would often
find ourselves completely isolated with no human till wherever we could see.
Now consider this,
you are walking alone, rather skidding your way through, you don’t know what the right track is as there are no footmarks on this smooth icy surface and the
moment you step on this super smooth ice
block you hear a cracking sound. You obviously can’t run on this surface and you
certainly can’t stop the cracking of ice blocks. You can either stand still thinking
that it might stop cracking or move as fast you can so that you are off the
block which is going to crash. This reminded me of the movie Ice Age, just that
we were not cartoon characters and this wasn’t an entertaining animation movie.
We had heard few stories of people going down in the river whose bodies were never
recovered but most of them were lucky to have not been drifted away in river. Majority of them just fell in ice cold water in this subzero atmosphere.
After two days of
walking 6 -7 hours on each day and falling over a dozen times we managed to reach Tilath
Sumdo at 3.30 pm. While it was sunny, thecold breeze ensured that it was cold
enough, minus nine is what Alberto’s watch indicated at 3.30pm. The juice pack I had
just taken out to drink had frozen in the pack. Best bet here is solid food and dry
apricots are recommended as a good source of energy and also to keep you
warm. Our cook tried his best to keep us happy with limited resources that he had
but limited canned food which we had would get cold by the time you transferred it on to our plate, and no non-veg for over a week was really making us crave for good
warm food.
Final day –
We couldn’t wait for next morning when all of us would
head back to Leh. It was our last freezing night and it would be our last, finger numbing morning. We thought a lot about the incredible experience we had been through in the past few days as we started walking towards Chilling from where we would
board a bus to reach our hotel in Leh. Our bus was two hours late and those two hours
seemed almost like one full day. A hot water bath with half a bucket of water in
hotel seemed divine. Sitting on chair, talking on phone, sleeping on the bed seemed
amusing to us.
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| Left right - Me, Swapnil, Synthil, Soumen, Ganesh, Kamal and Alberto |
Things to carry
- Warm inners – polypropylene - 2 pairs
- Micro fleece to add another layer when it gets colder - 1
- Fleece - 1
- Weather proof jacket, prefer gortex - 1
- Weather proof lower, prefer gortex - 1
- Down jacket for freezing nights - 1
- Fleece gloves to wear while camping - 1
- Thick weather proof gloves for walking - 1
- Ankle high trekking shoes. Gortex is must as it protect from water to sip and will let your foot breath - 1
- Woolen socks - 5-6 pairs
- Woolen cap - Single
- Undergarments - depending on your hygiene standards
- Diamox tablets - 1 strip
- First aid kit - 1
- Walking / trekking stick - 1 is enough but some poeple prefer 2 for better support
- Sleeping bag, mostly provided by agent - 2
- Headlamp - 1
- Torch - 1
- Energy bars - basis you appetite
- Extra batteries for headlamp and camera. You cant charge batteries and in such cold weather it discharges quickly - 2 sets
- Memory card for camera - depends on how much you love the shutter button
- Camera kit - lens / tripod / filters
- Electrol packets / powder glucose / gatorade - Sufficient supply but dont over stock
- Half crampons - best friend on smooth icy surface - 1 pair
- Scarf or balaclava to cover your face - 1
- Snow glares - 1
- A small back pack in case you just want to carry the basics and let the porters carry rest of your luggage - 1
- Swiss Knife - If you are not a warrior single will do
