The Chadar trek — walking the frozen Zanskar River through one of earth's most remote valleys
Zanskar is a remote sub-division of Ladakh, so isolated that until the 1970s it was accessible only on foot or by horse. The valley is surrounded on all sides by mountains over 5,000m, and cut off from the rest of India by snow for 8–9 months of the year. The Zanskar River, which normally flows through a deep gorge inaccessible to foot traffic, freezes solid in winter — creating the legendary Chadar trek (chadar = frozen sheet), a 105km walk on ice that is the valley's only winter connection to the outside world. Ancient Buddhist monasteries cling to clifftops above the frozen gorge.
Zanskar has been Buddhist since the 8th century CE, when Tibetan monks established monasteries in the valley during the Kashmiri Buddhist renaissance. The kingdom of Zanskar remained independent until the 19th century, when it was incorporated into the Dogra-controlled Ladakh. The valley was almost entirely unknown to the outside world until the 1970s, when mountaineering expeditions began reporting on it. A road was completed connecting Zanskar to Kargil only in 1979, though it remains closed by snow from October to May. The Chadar trek has become Ladakh's most famous winter adventure trek,…