Imagine walking on the frozen sheets of ice, surrounded by mountains covered with snow on one side and a water stream, slowly freezing or melting right on the other side, as you walk alongside of zanskar river or frozen river of Ladakh. And while that seems charming, look up, ahead and around; to see dreamlike beauty of nature as far as you can look. This is the Chadar Trek or the Frozen River Trek, only increased a hundred-fold.
The Chadar Trek or The Frozen River trekking Expedition is one of the exclusive and challenging trek in India. Commonly 6 days chadar trek on the frozen Zanskar River in Ladakh organised during the second half of January till end of February each year or sometimes when weather favorable even in the first week of March.
The locals or people of Zanskar, usually take a road from to the Zanskar to Nerak and further for work which mostly involve in trading of goods in the summers. During winter season, the road fron Zanskar to Nerak is blocked by snowfall and it becomes very dangerous to travel on the road so the locals and zanskari walk along the Zanskar river which is frozen during winters. The thick sheet of ice that the Zanskar river forms look like a white blanket which in the local language is called Chadar. Hence the trek along the frozen Zanskar River of zanskar is called the Chadar Trek.
Though, Chadar trek is a challenging trek, but it isn't the most difficult; as Chadar trek is basically is a flat walk along the sheet of ice with minimal amounts of climbing of mountains. If someone can walk for a couple of hours without much stress, you can enjoy walking on frozen river.
