Most Beautiful Trek – Chadar trek memories

Chadar trek is the most beautiful trek i have been to . This is the second part of the Chadar trek blog series, If you missed the first part start reading from here for better context & mind boggling nature. On the second day we trek from Tilad Do to Gyalpo / Tsomo Paldar. Very scenic & spell binding.

Day 2 | Towards Gyalpo/ Tsomo Paldar | 12kms | 6 hrs | 10,390 to 10,550 ft

Even at such cold temperatures (reaching -30 degrees) I had a good night sleep but then i had so much stuff on.

I was having ( thermal + tshirt + fleece + down ) inside ( sleeping bag inside another sleeping bag ) inside a tent. Some sort of INCEPTION there. Layer within a layer within a layer …..

At home i may not get up before 0800 hrs but on treks i have this knack of getting up before anyone. I was up by 0630 hrs. After having a fist full of dry fruits I set out towards the high point for a morning stroll. Climbing the walls of the gorge I reached the road under construction and continued to climb till a higher point. Got my heart racing. Was a very good morning indeed.

Back at the camp, the porters had just started to move about the tents with tea. “Chai Chai sirji. Julley…”  People were having bed tea and i was enjoying tea by the chadar.

Penguin Walk

I put on my newly sourced second-hand (feet) gumboots. I now had to ace the penguin walk or the reverse moon walk. Having walked and not fallen yesterday with my trek shoes i had some apprehension to try gumboots since it was going well for me. But the porters assured me that i will need the gumboots when i have to walk inside the river water where these gumboots would be my waterproof submarines. Point taken. Enough talk. I had my gumboots on & was determined not to fall with these on.

Breakfast was ready. Bread, eggs, jam, butter, milk-based sweet. Luxury.

Tents packed , rucksacks tightenend & with a strong will to skate on ice ( with my new gumboots) I started off this beautiful day towards Shingra Koma. This was the first morning on Chadar & morning rays lit the surroundings terrifically.

First day was a mere formality to get used to chadar. The real trek starts from the second day. Chadar is more untouched, more raw, the routes are better & somehow felt more vibrant.

We reached a place where the huge pebbles seem to be sticking out of the chadar like nuts from a Ferrero rocher chocolate.

Dangers of Chadar

Till now i was able to reverse moon walk with ease and no falls. I was winning at being a penguin. This seemed to be a very easy & beautiful trek with no risk at all. However at places where the chadar was not formed we could see the Zanskar gushing violently reminding of the risk we were taking on the seemingly innocuous looking sheet of ice. The ice itself was not to be trusted since it may be a thin layer & one wrong judgement would take us inside the cold river. (happened with me later)

At a place the upper layer of chadar had cracked open leaving a thousand SHARP edged mirror like pieces. Inspite of all the precautions, Ganesh slipped here. Unlucky guy cut open his forehead. But the lucky guy had two doctors with us to treat him. Medical students Ash & Sachin did some free medical work to get him patched up & ready for Chadar. He was disoriented but continued with the support of the guide. Cheers to Ganesh

Few moments after this Susan had a panic attack when the ice below her feet cracked. She was on the verge of giving up the trek but better sense prevailed as she continued with the support of our guide. Guide moved his support from Ganesh to Susan. Ganesh was now an extremely slow moving guy. I gave him my walking stick since i had not used it at all till now. He gained some confidence walking with two walking sticks.

Enough of the negativity, we were back on track. Beautiful surroundings make you forget everything. Soon enough we reached the first frozen waterfall on the chadar. After this we saw many small/ big frozen waterfalls. But no one forgets their first. First is always special.

After the waterfall, the chadar was fairly formed all over without any exposed river & seemed like a smooth run to the camp. Having drank water after almost every 15 minutes, i had to answer the natures’s call. After waiting for a long time finally found a place where the walls were not steep enough & can be climbed. View from here.

Bro tip

Tie a bottle to your backpack strap so that you can easily sip water every now & then. Try to use a Milton thermas bottle to maintain warm water throughout the walk. Drinking lots of water helps in acclimatisation.

Dont pee/ shit on the chadar . As this chadar water is very much used in lower camps from drinking and food preparations. Chadar environment is fragile

Falling in Ice Cold river

 

All seemed hunky dory as we continued to walk relishing every moment of this once in a lifetime experience. To make sure that this experience remains in my mind forever Chadar did pull my leg literally. While walking on a normal chadar like the ones i have been seeing from yesterday, my feet directly cracked the chadar and took a deep dive. I was standing there with one feet on the chadar & another feet deep within the chadar into the ice cold water. The cold water felt like a thousand piranhas biting my feet. I wriggled my way out of this almost immediately. Water had reached thigh high on my right feet.

I was lucky to have kept my mobile in my left pant pocket & happy that my dslr was just a feet away from crashing hard. Immediately went ahead and sat on the rock and removed my socks. It was cold.

Guide suggested that we had already reached Shingra Koma and i could take a proper pit stop after 5 minutes. We had already reached the stop around 1400hrs and stopped there for our lunch. It was maggi for lunch.

Shingra koma is campsite against a huge Zanskar curve. But we decided against camping here and walked another km to camp at Gyalpo since it was already crowded with camps of trekkers on the return journey. Traffic jams at Chadar. I changed my socks and was good to go after hot bowl of noodles.

 We continued our magical journey through the mystical valleys of Zanskar.

This is a determined waterfall, the only waterfall throughout the entire chadar trek that was NOT frozen. It is with this inspiration I started writing this blog two years after the trek in Feb 2016.

Back to the journey we continued through all the curves and finally managed to reach the Gyalpo Camp by 1600 hrs. Unlike yesterday the camp was not settled by the river but a little inside besides a small stream joining the Zanksar. Glad i played ice football yesterday, absolutely no chance today.

 We asked the porters to collect some fire wood. These super humans climb the scary walls and get the branches & twigs from whimsical heights. With the free time we had we went around the higher mountains and enjoyed the evening. From one high point we could spot a camp besides the Zanskar curve.

Bro Tip

Ask the porters to collect fire wood for daily camp fires. Pay them a lump sum amount.

 Anything hot tastes wonderful here. Dinner was scrumptious. We sat around the fire till the last charcoal had a golden sheen. After that cold took over & the team retired in their tents. Out came my  camera.

Took out the batteries wrapped in the woollen socks kept inside my fleece, took a photograph, removed the batteries & packed it back again deep within the layers. It took a whole lot of shots to get the perfect one. Clubbed two pics to get this output. Isn’t this the most beautiful moment of the most beautiful trek 

The day ends. Our team of 11 over enthusiastic trekkers had fallen almost 40 times today. I had zero falls. Small feat for me. Happy mind. Good Night.

END OF PART 2

Click here to read about the NEXT camp at Tibb caves. Chadar had broken at many places leading to an extremely adventurous day

 

PARTS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

 

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