Chadar Trek Cancelled 2015

Why Chadar Trek got cancelled for the year 2015.

Chadar Trek Route and Surrounding region is sitting on a Nature's Time Bomb.

The J&K government has sought the help of the National Disaster Management Authority to avert an impending disaster in Ladakh's Zanskar area, where a massive artificial lake created by a landslide is threatening to submerge dozens of villages.

Authorities have closed the famed 150km Chadar trek, a journey on the icy surface of a frozen Zanskar river, after the landslide blocked the Phuktal-Lungnak, a major tributary, resulting in the formation of the lake upstream.

"The artificial lake is increasing in size every day. It is now 10km long and 500m wide. The fear that it will burst any time has caused panic in entire Zanskar,". "If it bursts now, it will submerge 30 villages. It is like a ticking bomb."

Loose soil made up the 200ft barrier formed by the landslide but there appeared to be "no immediate threat".

"The temperature around the artificial lake has dropped to minus 30 degrees or more, which has resulted in the formation of a 3-4ft-thick ice sheet over it," he said. "That is why it may or may not burst immediately. But it is expanding and thus a threat to low-lying areas. The barrier formed by the landslide is 200ft high and it (the water level) needs to rise only 30ft more (for the lake) to overflow."

The crisis may magnify if the lake's surface starts melting. "That will put more pressure on the barrier. Alternate strategies are being worked out to defuse this natural bomb.

Zanskar, which spreads over 7,000sqkm, can be reached through a 450km road from Leh via Kargil. But Zanskar remains cut off from the outside world for several months in winter because of heavy snowfall in and around the Panzila Pass, which connects it with Kargil.

The trek over the frozen Zanskar, called Chadar trek, then becomes the only way local people can travel to Leh. The authorities have closed this trek - to both tourists and local people - so that they don't get into trouble in case the artificial lake bursts.