Chadar Frozen River Trek

While in Leh, Adventure Pulse will put you up in a comfortable hotel / Guest house with a centrally heated dining area. You also have an option of upgrading your hotel to 4 star property like the – Zen Ladakh on actuals. Once we start the trek, the accommodation is in a camp set up. We would have good quality tents on double/triple sharing basis, with a separate dinning tent for meals and a separate toilet tent. Sleeping bags and mats are also provided by Adventure Pulse.

You need to be in good physical shape to undertake this trek. It’s the coldest trek in India and does demand good physical fitness. Though physically it’s not very challenging, it does involve 5 -6 hours of walking everyday over 5 days. Please refer to our Physical fitness document for more details on this topic.

One needs to fly to Leh for the Chadar trek. There are regular flights from Delhi and Mumbai to Leh. On your arrival in Leh, You need to hire a prepaid taxi from the airport to reach your pre-booked hotel. After our 03 days of acclimatization at Leh, we would drive to the start point of the trek, which is a 01 hour drive from Leh. The trek will end at the same point.

Apart from good quality warm clothing, we highly recommend using the local made Gum boots for this trek. The terrain is a little tricky and there may be patches where one may need to vade through a little bit of water if the Chadar is not strong and stable enough and the local made gum boots are best suited for this trek . You can also carry your regular trekking shoes as back up. Other than this, no other personal climbing equipment is required. For list of other things and warm clothing to carry, please refer to our list of things to carry for this trek.

Regular phone and data services work in Leh. But please note that only postpaid services work on roaming in Leh and Pre-paid services won’t work. Leh has good phone and data connectivity with 3G and 4G services also available on most network. While on the trek there is no network and one is disconnected from the world during the course of the trek.

Leh is located at an altitude of 3250 m and it’s important we spent the first 48 hours acclimatizing in Leh. We at Adventure Pulse consider acclimatization as one of the most important aspects of trekking and spend enough time to do that. Once you arrive in Leh, the first 03 days are spent acclimatizing. On day 02 morning, we go for a short 02 hour acclimatization hike up to a monastery. In the evening, we walk to the Leh market and walk back to our hotel, thus allowing the body to get used to the conditions around.

The hotel in Leh serves good breakfast which is included in the meal plan. During the day and evening, one can order à la carte service in the hotel or even go to the close by market to try some local cuisine. While on the trek, all meals are included and the meals are usually a good mix of Indian and continental food. Our cooks are very experienced and will be happy to entertain any particular requests you may have for your meals. All the meals are served in the common dinning tent.

Regular shower facilities will be available in the hotel in Leh. But while we are higher up on the mountain, Shower facility is not available during the trek and not advisable also due to the extreme temperatures.

The Adventure Pulse staff and guides carry a fully equipped medical kit with necessary medicines and an Oxygen meter. As a standard practice, we check oxygen levels of all our clients twice a day and take necessary precautions if any irregularity is found in the oxygen reading. In case the problem persists, the client is sent down with a qualified guide. In case of an Injury where the trekker is not in a position to walk down, our staff and porters will help carry the person down to the road head where a vehicle and a doctor visit in Leh can be organized.

Adventure Pulse usually plans all it treks during the most favourable season, but having said that, weather is always an unpredictable factor. We usually look at weather reports before leaving for the trek. Buffer day/s are always built in the itinerary as contingency if we get hit by unfavourable weather conditions. In the worse situation, we may have to turn back midway, but safety is always a priority which cannot be compromised on.