Chadar Trek - Walking over a frozen Himalayan river

Chadar Trek is listed among world's top 5 dangerous treks. Chadar is a sheet of ice that forms in winter on Zanskar River, a tributary of Indus, in Leh-Ladakh. It came into limelight after BBC Human Planet did a documentary ‘Chadar – The Most Dangerous School Run' in the 90s. That's when even I had wished to meet the Zanskaris.
I got to know about the trek when I visited Leh in the summer of 2014. I was obsessed with Zanskar and this year, even though I was not prepared, I had to go, and so I went. I saw heaven, hell and some magic!

Beauty: The last point of the trail is called Nerak a village that has the biggest frozen waterfall. The Zanskari locals (porters) jocularly say "you go through Swarg (heaven) to reach Narak (Nerak)." The river is a powerful, ruthless, seductive beauty. She does things to your brain. Her water invites you. At times when I was alone, she tried to manipulate me by singing 'how heavenly it would be to be one with her'. Her turquoise colour and giggling sounds, the golden hills guarding her, the blue sky and ice all seem to create illusions for me to submit to her beauty. As if life would be so wonderful if I gave it up this moment to flow with her. Here you need someone to take you out of this state, and you always do find somebody.

The landscape: Dreamy with the shades of golden, white and blue, the river seems to be teasing you. The huge hills look down at you, watching your every move, judging you. The river changes every day, like a miracle, right in front of your eyes. It might be frozen today and flowing furiously tomorrow. The landscape was different while going to Nerak and it changed entirely while coming back. On certain stretches, you walk in the middle of the river, but at times, it doesn't leave even half a foot of space to walk with the edge and steep hills on either side. Sometimes there are dramatic, huge broken sheets of ice collapsed on to each other. The intricate patterns, colors, the attitude of the towering mountains and the play of light make you marvel. Suddenly you are glad to be alive, glad to be here!

Leh: As I landed in the sweet city, it was -11 degree celsius, -20 by night. Sub-zero was a first for me, I was shivering the entire time. In the evening I realized that whatever super expensive warm clothes I had bought were useless for this temperature. So, I re-shopped in the local market the next day, each of the items were a life-saver. The market was like a painting, colorful, clean and happy. 

Slip ups: The Chadar is slippery like ice cubes, so you walk slowly. Every muscle trying to hold on to the floor through the gumboots and thick socks. And still, you slip. Everyone falls 5-20 times, but small slips happen in 100s per day, and each time you skip a beat and celebrate saving the fall. You get the same feeling even after returning home at night while sleeping.

Endurance: I did this trek alone because I wanted to test myself.

Cold: This trek is an endurance of bone-chilling cold (-40C on Chadar), surviving the nights, and celebrating the fact that you woke up in the morning. Struggling to do the merest of things like brushing your teeth; taking my hand out of the glove to click pictures gave me frostbites. I shivered in the nights even with 1000 layers of clothes and sleeping bags. Everything in the tent, including our sleeping bags, would freeze. None of us slept well in those 7 days, but all of us were upbeat every day because of the healing weather. Walking during the days was a blessing, the problem started after the sundown.

Alone: The first time someone called my name I was euphoric that someone knew me. After everyone realized how difficult survival was, our priority was to save our own lives, then the person we came with, and then people around. So, when the going gets tough, you are alone. But when you are alone, magic happens (see Strangers para).
I loved being alone. It made me feel stronger, it let me cry. On the return days, I used to fall back deliberately just to enjoy the solitude. Of course, not recommended and being alone can be fatal, but that's when I enjoyed this trek the most. I drew strength from these movements. Realizing that I have been the strongest when I was alone. I realized that all of the things I had endured so far, was for these 'alone' moments.

Stamina: On lucky days you get to walk and fall on the slippery river. But some stretches the river doesn't form the chadar and you have to climb steep icy hills. The worst part came when I first got a glimpse of the hill that we had to climb to reach Nerak. That was the point when I realized my mistake of coming to this trek (I have Climacophobia, fear of steep climbs). The mountain was sharp, again less than half a foot to walk up (which has ice sometimes). It was mostly soil, thus slippery and with the inviting frozen river below. I had climbed 17 floors of my building for practice, but here on every 4th step, I was exhausted because of high altitude and panic attacks. Somehow, I managed to go up not knowing that the worst was yet to come - climbing down a pebbled trail. So even if you stand you will go down, all you had to do is maintain the safe direction. Same circus the next day on return, but this time I was prepared and rested. Plus, a group-mate held his wife's hand in one hand and mine in the second and escorted us down to safety – another savior.

The inviting river from the steep mountain trail 

Strangers: Was it the place, the dangers, some spell, I don't know, but every single person was a savior here. I must not have said "Thank you" these many times in my entire life as I have said in these 10 days. I was walking alone in the middle of the well-formed river and I stepped on a surface that cracked. I froze. I could see the water flowing below the 4-5 inch thin surface that I was on. In my mind, within a split second, I was thinking how far my body will go, if there will be enough space below... suddenly someone from behind shouted: "hold this pole and take a slow long step to your right." I was safe, but he didn't leave me for the next 20mins till I was with one of my teammates. A group of girls from Thailand offered me their stick and crampons so I could catch up with my team. Some offered to walk with me. I had to explain around 10 people each day that I was alone by choice, of course, they didn't approve of it. What I liked was how concerned they all were. I fell in love with all of them. My body was generating the same feeling that you have when you are in love for the first time. I was in love with every person there - the locals and the strangers.
Stories: Walking alone was like reading a book of short stories. As people passed by me, they told me stories. I met an 80-year-old lady trekker from France. This was her 5th Chadar Trek, alone with porters, and 21st Himalayan Trek. A couple was on their first date here! A porter told me how he had applied for the Army and didn't get through only because of a Rs 50 tattoo. A couple walking behind me was talking about my ex-company and it was fun catching up on it. The Zanskaris have stories/legends for everything. How the Spirits of Chadar look over you all your life, once you have met them. They sing of how maybe the Spirits are not happy with so many people walking the Chadar so they are leaving the Zanskar Valley and thus the Chadar doesn't form well nowadays. There is a story behind why this one waterfall on the way never freezes. 

The only waterfall that never freezes

Magic porters: This trek is not an adventure, it's a death trap, but the reason so many people come out alive is because of the locals, we call porters. They make your camp, carry your luggage, and feed you and when you realize that your sleeping bags are not enough, they give you one of theirs. They look small and thin, but they carry luggage twice their weight on worst of paths.
The first time I had to climb a cliff, and there was no cut on the stone to put my leg, a porter told me to face the cliff and push myself in it. I was blank, but suddenly I felt two hands - one pushing me towards the cliff and another pulling me forward. One porter pushed me so I don't fall if I panic, and another guided me to a safe position. And where were they standing? On the same cliff, over the broken Chadar. They did this for over 100 people! The second time when a porter told me to do something, I didn't doubt his strength or strategy. One guy even helped me down holding me like a baby by the arms, by the way, he was half my height and probably 20 years older. These people have magical powers that they don't know they possess. 

On the top of a mountain, I asked two young porters to pose for a picture, but they covered their faces. One of them blushed and said, "I've not washed my face in 5 days, and you will show the pictures to your girlfriends. I don't want them to see me like this." They posed when I told them that even I had not washed up since the trek started.

Life-Death: The week before we started, two people never woke up in the morning. The third death was of a 21-year old boy.
On the third day, to reach Nerak village, you have to walk for almost 10 hours, then climb a hellish mountain to camp for the night. 3km vertical up from there is a village where you get electricity, warm rooms, and best of all a telephone network. We all had decided to go to that village to call our families, "Hi I'm calling from Narak," we could say! But when we saw how scary the climb up the village was, we all gave up, plus it was late. But this boy went ahead, and he started walking up alone. Before we reached our camp, he was dead. Porters took his body to Leh, but it took two days.

The village

Back to life, in Leh, we celebrated. We had collectively fussed so much about the trek that I couldn't put in words how difficult it was to go back to the daily grind. 5000 messages on the phone made me realize that while the world changed for us, everything and everyone back home remained the same. I will be starting where I had left. Sigh! But, yeah, a bit more stronger in every way... 

Do let me know if you are planning to go for the trek; I have pages and pages of tips to make the experience memorable.