Chadar Trek: Day 2

First night sleeping in the camp was an absolute nightmare for me. First thing was the sleeping bag was not correctly place before I slept on it causing some back ache due to uncomfortable sleeping posture. The second was I thought it was good to intake lots of water before the sleep to avoid altitude sickness, but it end up I awake during midnight unintentionally with a need to pee. It was so intense to decide if you want to hold it until morning when it was not that freezing out there, or go ahead to move yourself out from the sleeping bag and head out of the camp with outside temperature of -30C. End up I decided to went out for settlement mentally, but physically I failed to move myself out from the sleeping bag, hence I almost stay sleepless holding it for so many hours until the morning when our tour guide wake us up by asking 'Black coffee or tea?' to start out day. Next day onward, I no longer dare to drink so much water before went to sleep anymore.

We start the normal routine for the morning, taking the black coffee or tea to warm up our body, then wash face and brush teeth by using the water from the hot bag we given a night earlier. Once done, we continue to pack up our stuff into day pack and big bag separately, continue by our sleeping bag. While we gather inside our dining camp for breakfast, the porters will came over to each of our sleeping camp to pack up and carry along with them, while we only need to take our day pack bag. Just when we done our breakfast, it was also mark the time to start the trek. One thing I differently today, was per team advice, I stop applying the Ginkyo pill and hope that my condition will get better today.

Breakfast in dining camp before the trekking today. Photo credited to Hybrid.

We done our packing and ready to start the day 2 trek.

Getting our feet back to the frozen river!

Fabian, Mandy, and Andy ready for day 2!

Back to slippery surface again.

Frozen waterfall not too far from Upper Shingra.

Minion with the frozen waterfall.

Stop for some photos.

Mandy and Andrew on the river.

Getting closer to the flowing river.

Path getting narrow again.

Shoefie of Malaysia Snow Leopard team! All the best for the day 2 trek!

After a decent first day trekking on the frozen river and guidance from our guides, we almost quite confident to trek with minimum supervision from them, when there was a desire to stop to take some photo, but of course you still have to catch up with the big team for overall safety later on. Probably it was due to confident rising, most of us start to be little more playful during the trek, and some of them start to experience their first fall for the trek on the icy surface, of course not me yet by far! As we advance further into the deeper valley, we start to witness few amazing frozen waterfall along today trekking as well. The trek today also start to get tougher, as we went through some very narrow path that any slight mistake you might fall into the freezing river. There was also a sequence during the trek when our tour guides helping a local that carrying a huge wood trying to pass a very slippery surface, with a super drastic fast flowing water just next to it. We have been guided to walk on the high cliff instead, but watching them working to help the local, it was so intense and dangerous! Gladly they manage to pass the zone safely, what a nice scenery to see how pure and helpful these peoples can be.

The view over the narrow path that we just came across earlier.

Transparent and you can see the rocks underneath the ice, but this surface was super solid so nothing to worry of.

Team reassemble again when passing dangerous narrow path.

Step by step slowly, no one want to fall into the freezing water.

Whose shoes were those?

Another frozen waterfall.

Chozang pulling the sledge on the uneven surface.

Surprises awaiting us on every corner of the trek.

Anyone want to try jump over to that platform?

This was super challenging!

Su Jin condition was superb by far, with only less than 24 hours of rest before we start the trek!

Not a norm for typical Malaysian, but we all very happy when the path was fully expose to sun light!

Chozang met his friend during the trek.

Chozang and Fabian resting on the sledge.

Fabian on the sledge.

Hybrid turn acting on the sledge.

Look at those crystal clear water exposed under sunlight!

Reach zone which the river was fully frozen, safest to walk but the risk of falling still there.

Angla and Mandy.

Guess what each of us doing between these rocky edge? >.<

Super uneven surface, it was hard for our guides and porters to pull the sledge here.

The path seem leading toward shaded valley, I will miss the these sun light for sure in a while.

It was freezing again without the sun light, that's why!

Minor break, we should be pretty close to our lunch break spot by now.

Why you still so energetic?

Our guides drop their sledge on the edge and hike on the rocks, seem like they are doing some observation. We have been instructed to walk on the rocks instead of the edge on this area.

This was the reason why, the water flow here was super drastic and fast, extremely dangerous if falling into it!

The locals were helping each other passing through this area together with their belonging.

Very intense moment by the edge!

Our guides lending their help hands as well.

Angla later mentioned that they bringing in those woods all the way from Lower Shingra for gompa maintenance effort inside Zanskar Valley!

Another frozen waterfall at opposite flank of the river.

After the experience earlier, walking on these edge of river become easier for us.

Anonymous WELCOME to Chadar Trek!

Hope my eyesight was correct, that seem to be our lunch spot as I saw some familiar faces there!

By right we suppose to have our lunch break at around 12 PM, but the porters seem over estimate our speed hence they setup the lunch spot only after around half marathon distance of 22 KM, which we only manage to reach at around 1:30 PM. Everyone were quite exhausted at this stage, and the simple noodle soup was like a food from heaven for us at that time! Great refreshment before we continue for the remaining distance of the day to Tibb Cave campsite. The trek actually not that hard as the elevation per day was actually quite flat, but due to altitude and the difficulties of the icy surface, it did cause slowness in our movement. I have to be honest that there was many moment that both mentally and physically was so weak and suffering for me and I felt that I became burden of the team, and there was a thought to give up when the distance to get back to Lower Shingra was still not that far. I am glad that I manage to overcome that thought, and slowly adjusting myself to continue the walk, one step at a time, more importantly to keep my breathing stabilize as well as eliminate negative mindset.

Finally, I was super starving already at this point.

Finding a good seat, and waiting for our lunch to be serve.

And not forget hot drinks to warm up our body!

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the view!

I swallow two bowls of these, it just super delicious!

The temporary 'kitchen' setup to prepare the lunch.

Minor rest after the lunch break before we continue our trekking.

Re-packing again after we done our lunch, and heading towards tonight campsite to setup again. It was really a tough job!

CT the legend, one of two in the team that never fall down along the trek!

How these cracks formed?

Much bigger multi layer frozen waterfall!

Have to walk faster towards the sunlight at the front!

Believe me, it super comfortable to walk under the bright hot sun.

Angla and Gawa covering us up from the back.

Just another corner into the gorge, we will reach our Tibb Cave, our campsite tonight.

Finally we reach our campsite for the second day, Tibb Cave after 5 KM short trek from the lunch spot which we took more than an hour. There was a cave that some of the porters and guides will spend the night over there, but for us we still need to rest inside our respective sleeping camps. The campsite area was mostly shade from sunlight due to surrounding mountain, hence it feel much colder here. Most of the time we gather together in dining camp as it seem to be warmest place that we can get here. Our chef specifically prepare Italian theme spaghetti dinner for us tonight which was super cool! Since the night was clear, we spend some time to try capture the night skies from the valley, but just after few shots I start to lose feel to my hand due to the coldness, is time to say good night again!