Chadar Trek 2027 bookings open after last winter's rare cancellation

The Chadar Trek, the week long walk on the frozen Zanskar river in Ladakh, is taking bookings again for January and February 2027, trek operators say, a year after the river failed to freeze enough for the walk to run at all.

What went wrong last winter

The Chadar Trek is meant to start every January, when the Zanskar freezes into a continuous sheet of ice between Chilling and Padum. In January 2026 it did not. The Additional Deputy Commissioner of Leh, Ghulam Mohammad, told the Tribune on 12 January 2026 that a recce team had gone up the route and would report back before any date was fixed, after the planned 10 January start had already slipped.

The All Ladakh Tour Operators Association later confirmed why. Its office bearer Tsewang Namgail told 101Reporters that a continuous stretch of at least 30 to 35 kilometres of solid ice is needed to walk the gorge safely, and that for the first time in memory, the ice never reached that length. Winter 2025-26 averaged minus 8.6 degrees Celsius in the region, the report said, the warmest winter in eight years. The season was eventually called off, and 101Reporters reported that porters who usually earn upward of two lakh rupees in a good season, and homestay owners who typically host 70 to 80 guests, lost most of that income.

Booking a 2027 slot

Operators have reopened batches for next winter regardless. Leh based trek companies list four standard runs for the 2027 season, roughly 16 to 24 January, 25 January to 2 February, 3 to 11 February and 12 to 20 February, with bookings for the previous year's season opening by October or November. None of this is a government guarantee that the river will freeze on schedule. It is the operators' own planning calendar, built around a trek that the district administration can still postpone or cancel at short notice, as it did last year.

For an Indian trekker, one Leh based operator's package runs close to 50,000 to 55,000 rupees a head for the standard eight to ten day itinerary, against roughly 800 US dollars for a foreign trekker. Group size is capped at 12 trekkers a batch under All Ladakh Tour Operators Association rules.

Permits and who can go

The Chadar cannot be booked independently. It needs an All Ladakh Tour Operators Association no objection certificate issued only to registered agencies, a wildlife or gorge permit since the route runs through a protected zone, and a medical fitness certificate, with operators naming SNM Hospital in Leh as the place to get it. Age limits of 20 to 50 years are enforced without exception, by the operators' own account. Leh's permit portal confirms the broader structure, a wildlife fee and an environmental fee sit alongside the standard domestic or overseas tourist registration, though the portal itself does not carry Chadar specific detail.

The district administration's response after last January's scare, extra National Disaster Response Force personnel and marked rescue points along the route, suggests the trek will run with tighter safety cover whenever the ice does hold. Riders and drivers planning a winter Zanskar trip by road rather than on foot should expect the same caution from the administration on road openings this season.

Sources

• Chadar trek postponed as Zanskar river fails to freeze
• How Chadar trek's cancellation has hit Ladakh's winter economy
• Chadar Trek 2027: Frozen Zanskar River, Cost and Dates
• Leh District Tourist Management System permit portal