Photograph of Stanzin Chotak
The team
Two guides from Zangla, and the crew who make the days work
We are not a company that partners with local guides. We are the local guides. Zangla is where we were born, where our families still farm, and where the six-day route starts.
“Local” gets used loosely in this industry, so here is what it means for us in practice: we know which river is safe to cross in July and which one is not, whose kitchen is open in Cha, and when a pass is holding snow that does not belong there in August. That knowledge is not on a map and it is not in a training course. It comes from having walked the same ground since we were children.
Photograph of Stanzin Lhamath
The crew
A trekking group in Zanskar is never two guides and a rucksack. There is a cook, there are people handling the horses, and there is a driver on the road days. They are from the same valley, they work with us every season, and they are the reason a camp is standing and hot food is ready when you arrive.
What a local guide does differently
Reads the water
River levels rise through the day with the melt. A crossing that is straightforward at seven in the morning can be dangerous by four in the afternoon. Knowing which crossing on which day, in which month, is the single most useful thing we bring.
Knows when a pass is wrong
Snow that is still lying in August, a slope that has been shedding rock since the last rain, a col that is fine from one side and iced on the other. We turn people around occasionally. That is the job.
Can knock on a door
In a valley this small, a guide who grew up here has family or friends in most villages on the route. It changes what a bad day looks like — and it changes the quality of an ordinary one.
Knows how to behave
What to do in a monastery courtyard during a ceremony, when photographing is fine and when it is not, how to accept tea properly. We can tell you, and more usefully we can go first.
Ask us something before you decide
You do not have to be ready to book. A question about fitness, about a date, or about whether a route suits you is exactly what we would rather answer first.