Never in the wildest of wild imagination had I ever imagined what a -30 degree Celsius would feel like.
A regime of exercise was prescribed, to be strictly followed as a preparation for trekking the Zanskar river in the Zanskar range of the Himalayas in the Kargil district of Jammu & Kashmir. Spending time inside a refrigerator everyday to get used to sub-zero degree temperatures would have been more helpful.
The turquoise blue-peacock green mixed waters of the Zanskar river meanders northwards within in the high gorge walls of the mountains of the Zanskar range and meets the Indus river in Ladakh, which eventually flows into Pakisthan.
In the 3 winter months of January to March every year, the river freezes and is called the 'chadar' meaning 'blanket' and has been used by the people of Zanskar to reach Leh for trade for ages. Though even now, there is no road that connects the Zanskar village to Leh, this route is not used for trade anymore by the locals as everything is available in Zanskar through its district capital of Kargil.
Having acclimatized ourselves to the high 11,500 feet ASL altitude and the rarefied oxygen levels at Leh for a couple of days, we headed to Tilat Sumdo, 67 kms from Leh, going past the place where Indus meets its tributary, Zanskar. We drove on till we reached the end of road, where a sharp descent from the mountain on the left side of the river and a cross over of the frozen river brought us to our first camp site of Tilat Sumdo. Another group of trekkers in similar tents and the porters in caves nearby all in close proximity made the camp site as busy as a bustling market place. Surrounded by tall brownish barren mountains on one side and the frozen river on the other we slept in 3 sleeping bags and tried to make ourselves cozy in the cold night, least aware that this would be our warmest night on the chadar.
On the first morning on the chadar, we were greeted by snow fall which kept us company through out the day ensuring the temperatures did not drop too low and the chadar remained firm for our onward journey. We fitted crampons to our gum boots and set off on the chadar heading upstream. Initially the novelty of the snow kept our spirits high but within a couple of hours were tired of the falling snow and the dullness from the clouded sky and yearned for the next camp site, some sun shine and hot tea, almost in that order.
The mountains around us, majestic in its stance seemed indifferent as we lugged ourselves past them. Everything around, the mountains, the rocks and the ground was coated in white and soon so were we as the snow fall continued relentlessly through the day. But it was this day which was a blessing and firmed up the chadar as we were to have 5 glorious days of sun shine after this.
About 12 kms later, we reached Shingra Koma camp by lunch time and were treated to some much needed hot Kichdi and black tea, which was followed by hot soup and tea again in the evening. We had hot rotis, vegetables, lentils and rice for dinner, by now completely tired of the snow and wishing it away, dreaming of the warmth of the bed back home and counting the number of nights yet to be spent on chadar.
The next day our wishes were answered, the snow fall stopped and it was much brighter although the sky was still sinisterly shrouded in the grey veil.
After a breakfast of corn flakes and porridge we set forth for the next camp of Tibb some 15 kms away.We saw the only water fall on the chadar that was not frozen and is part of a legend of how Nerak village, another 25 kms away ran dry and a holy man went to Kailash prayed for water and came back with a pot full of water and 2 fishes that he was not to place on the ground and as fate would have it, he placed it down and the water and fishes jumped out creating the water falls, and thus it is believed that the water originates from Kailash. The rocks behind the falls are supposed to have 2 nostrils of which one is said to be dry and other with water. Unfortunately neither my memory nor the photos throw light on this as then I was too pestered by my own incessantly running nostrils to pay much attention to the nostrils of some rock.
We passed the narrowest point of the river on our trek route, where the gorge is just 6 feet wide and as this part receives hardly any sunlight, the chadar is thick end to end. Else with the water flowing here, crossing over would become impossible as the mountains on either sides are quite high and the person stranded on one side would have no option but to retrace his steps to the camp he came from and wait for the chadar to build again. But the dynamics of the chadar is such that it constantly builds, breaks and reforms again.
We saw the first glimpse of life on chadar as we saw flocks of Himalayan Thrushers, the high altitude black coloured bird with yellow beak, living in the rocky mountains and fox trails all over the place. There were many caves on the way, which had stalagmites and stalactites of frozen water in them of a beautiful bluish tinge and looked like well maintained museum exhibits . The flowing river in places with no sheet on it, to hide the water beneath the surface, made for some lovely photographs, contrasting with the white of the ground around and the white and brown mountains. In other places, huge sheets of ice jutted out from the surface due to the pressure of the flowing water below and it provided relief from the monotony of an otherwise flat chadar. A few more frozen mini water falls later, we reached Tibb notorious for the chill blowing wind which was in any case to be much less colder than Nerak. We spent the time at the camp partly shivering with the bitter cold and partly by the thought of how much colder it would be at Nerak our next camp. There was this joke that the camp leader said of Tibb being summer and Nerak being winter, which we later realised was not a joke at all.
The next day was the day of a clear blue sky, a photographer's delight. There were a thousand photo worthy scenes that we rejoiced at but we had to be very picky about taking photographs as it was so cold that the hands would freeze and go numb after a minute out of the gloves. More pug marks, not just of the foxes but of the snow leopards and bears and not just on the ground but also on the nearly vertical mountains kept me so full of high spirits that the 15 km stretch seemed like a walk in the park.
And after crossing a Juniper tree covered with prayer flags which the locals revered, we came to the biggest water falls of the trek, frozen of course. It almost seemed like stuff of another legend that such a massive water falls stood frozen. over 30 feet high and 15 feet wide, it was beautiful with its white and blue colouration, the brown of the vegetation at the top provided a beautiful contrast to the light hues of the falls. The right side of the falls is spiky in the middle, like it was the first to be frozen and at the bottom was powdery like the water froze from below and rose to join the spiky frozen part above. The left side was frozen exactly like flowing water and had the bluish tinge almost making it look like the water continued to flow underneath. We couldn't get enough of it but reluctantly moved on as the stomach grumbled its disapproval.
20 minute walk from the falls, on an elevation of 200 feet from the river base was the Nerak camp where we were served hot noodles that went cold before we could finish half of the serving. Despite the beautiful sun shine, it was bone chilling cold but the wind and chill were just a teaser as compared to what we were to face later. The villagers of Nerak some one hour walk away came sliding down the mountain to meet us and collect donation for the temple they were building. We wondered at their enthusiasm and speculated over how old they were as they looked ageless.
As darkness fell, it became unbearably cold and the night saw the temperature drop to a super cool -30 degree Celsius, that even the local Zanskaries felt the chill. We had a quick dinner that many skipped and then made a quicker dash to the tent, only to spend the entire night tossing about in the sleeping bags just unable to sleep for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. When I woke up in the morning, it felt like a miracle to have survived the night.
It was with wide eyes that we saw a few non-Indian trekkers start trekking upstream into even colder places and we heaved a sigh of relief that we were retracing our steps going downstream to 'warmer' places even though the temperature there would be nothing above -20 degree Celsius. The great weather continued, though it was good for the trekkers it was doing its damage to the chadar and the ice had begun to melt in many more places making the return path almost unrecognisable to the one
we had taken a day earlier.
We heard the sound of ice breaking in many places as we walked close to edge of the gorge, sometimes holding our breadth and many a times with our heart almost in our mouth, we walked on hastily away from the sound source like the intruders that we were. In many places the fresh snow from the snow fall of 3 days ago had melted exposing the shiny, glassy ice sheet which is extremely slippery to walk on, but the crampons provided excellent traction and we walked on albeit gingerly.
There was a patch that so slushy that we were almost 'gum boot length' in water, we walked tentatively so as not to get any water inside the gum boots. The terrain was so different on the return leg that if we didn't have the river as the one constant and that being the only navigable route, we all could have sworn we were on a completely different path.
We walked on at a leisurely pace for the next 2 days growing more confident with every step we took that if we didn't do anything stupid, the crampons would see us through all the patches of glassy ice and slushy surfaces. We kept meandering in and out of sunlit patches. While we were in the dark area, the sunlit side beckoned us to click photographs with the mountain positions and angle changing every few metre as we walked, but we had to literally ration out the body warmth and be very discerning about taking the photos as a minute out of the gloves and we would be nursing the frozen hand for quite a while.
The walk in the sunlit patches was warm and nice, but we knew better than to get too comfortable there, as the ice sheet directly exposed to sun melted faster and there was a greater possibility of stepping on a weakened surface and also there was always the prospect of snow from the mountain surface loosening and raining down like a avalanche. I did hear a loud thud, which later fellow trekkers who witnessed the downpour spoke of. There were many places where rocks had come down from the mountains and rested on the chadar, it was an ominous warning for us to not to linger in that stretch for too long.
The beauty of the place definitely multiplied a thousand fold with the melting chadar. The floating ice blocks on the water, the various shades and hues of the melting water on the ice sheets, the music of the rushing waters, the colourful pebbles visible at bottom of the water on the edges all compensated for the increased danger of the place.
The last night on Chadar was at the same camp site of Shingra Koma where we had spent the second night on Chadar. That entire day and night it had snowed and everything was coated white, but when we reached Shingra Koma on the return journey almost all the snow around the camp site had melted and it looked like an entirely different place like the owner had changed his preferences and got the place painted brown.
The last day of the trek the weather continued to be sunny and thus there was quite a distance that we had to cover by climbing the mountains to bypass the flowing river and in one such place the water was a beautiful light blue of the pristine seas and the effort of climbing up hill was rewarded by the elevation from which we were able to see the water below, a treat for the soul. The ice sheet in many places was cracked, we walked on them simply because we had no idea that it might give in or probably it was really thick enough. A few more places of 'gum boot length' water later, we were safely at the last camp, where we were to have lunch before crossing the breadth of the frozen river for the last time and take the steep climb up the mountain to meet the waiting van that was to deliver us to the warmth of brick and mortar building and room heaters in Leh.
On the chadar, there were a lot of things that reminded me of food, not because I was hungry all the time but because what I saw was as heart-warming as good food. The mashed up top layer on a glassy surface reminded me of 'Agre ka Petta', the sand of the river bank was just the colour of ragi biscuit, there were chunks of frozen ice on water that looked like cooked-sun dried-deep fried sago (sabakki sandige in Kannada), the brown mountains coated with white looked like Turkish delights with the icing sugar on them (surprisingly not like a pudding with the icing sugar on them. ) The choppy turquoise blue-peacock green mixed waters of Zanskar reminded me of a Karnataka delicacy called Halbai made of milk extracted from soaked wheat.
On the return journey, from the warmth of the shuttered van, for the last time we took in the sight of the river from a vantage point above. The numbness in the fingers, the pain in the knee and all other pains notwithstanding I smiled at the river like we shared a secret and it felt vindicated that I chose to come to this heaven to witness a great miracle of nature though the right of passage was to be obtained by a journey in hell.
