Where Zanskar is
Zanskar is a district of Ladakh, in the Indian union territory of the same name. It sits south of the Indus valley and Leh, roughly 250 km south of Kargil, closed in by the Zanskar Range to the north-east and by the Great Himalaya to the south-west. Those two ranges are the reason the region feels the way it does: they take most of the monsoon out of the air before it arrives, which is why the valley is green only where people irrigate it, and grey-brown everywhere else.
The district covers about 7,000 square kilometres and almost all of the inhabited land lies between 3,600 and 4,000 metres. The 2011 census counted 13,793 people. That number matters more than it looks: it means a valley the size of a small country holds fewer people than a European market town, spread over villages that are often a full day's walk apart.
Two rivers, one valley
Zanskar is best understood as a Y. Two rivers come down from opposite directions and meet near Padum, and almost everything — villages, monasteries, trails, the road — follows one of the two arms.
The Stod, or Doda. Rises near the Pensi La at about 4,400 metres, the pass that connects Zanskar to the Suru valley and Kargil, and runs south-east down a broad, open valley towards Padum. This is the gentler arm: wider fields, more villages within sight of one another, and the road in from Kargil.
The Lungnak, or Tsarap. Formed where the Kargyag river — which rises near the Shinku La at 5,091 metres — joins the Tsarap below the village of Purney. This is the harder, narrower arm: a dry corridor of gorges and side valleys running north-west towards Padum. Phuktal Monastery is on it, and so are both of our trekking routes.
Below Padum the combined river becomes the Zanskar, and cuts north through a gorge to join the Indus near Nimmu. In winter that gorge freezes hard enough to walk on, which is the origin of the Chadar route — a genuinely different undertaking from anything we run in summer.
The passes
Because the ranges are continuous, everything that enters or leaves Zanskar crosses a pass. The three that shape travel here are the Pensi La (about 4,400 m, on the road from Kargil), the Shinku La — also spelled Shingo La — at 5,091 m on the road from Manali, and the Singge La and Hanuma La on the old walking route north towards Lamayuru.
On foot, passes are also how the days are structured. A trekking day in Zanskar is usually a long valley approach, a steep hour or two at the end, and then a very different landscape on the other side. Our own routes cross passes between roughly 4,800 and 5,150 metres.
What the landscape is actually like
People arrive expecting Nepal and find something closer to Tibet or the high Andes. There is very little forest. Colour comes from the rock — ochre, grey, rust, occasional bands of green and violet where the strata tilt — and from the irrigated fields, which in July and August are a startling barley green against all that dryness. Above about 4,200 metres there is almost nothing growing at all.
Water is the other constant. Most days involve a river: walking beside one, crossing one, or camping next to one. River levels rise through the day as the snow melts, which is why a crossing that is easy at eight in the morning can be a problem at four in the afternoon. That single fact governs more of our route planning than anything else.
What this means for your trip. Zanskar rewards time. Distances on the map are misleading because everything is vertical and everything crosses water. If you have a week, take one valley and walk it properly. If you have two, you can cross between the arms of the Y and see how different they are.