This is a rest and acclimatization day before you start for this long Trans-Himalayan Trek. Explore the beautiful Panikhar landscape and village. Since this trek is challenging and goes to high altitude, it is essential to spend a day here for acclimatization. It has a way that goes to Zanskar and towards the Nun Kun Expedition. You will see villagers busy in their farming life and will relish their hospitability.

• Altitude: 10,700 ft to 12,350 ft
• Distance: 14 km
• Duration: 5-6 hours

The first day of trekking takes you first to the shimmering Panikhar Nallah. The trail walks parallel to this nallah and then crosses the bridge and goes to the other side of the nallah.

In a short walk, the village recedes and vanishes. The trail is wide goes through a narrow valley and has a gradual ascend. The landscape in the surroundings is barren. To the right side of the trail, the river cascades down beautifully.

As you walk along the trail, it unfolds varied attractions. There is a bridge crossing and a fantastic lush grassy meadow that has river streams cutting through it. You will come across on your way to the shepherd settlement. Immediately afterward, you reach the Sumdo campsite. This is the place of confluence of two rivers.

The trail now narrows down to a wide walking track. Continue walking on the trail. Another half-hour later, over a wide curve, you get the first glimpse of the two intersecting valleys up ahead. Below is Sumdo, your camp of the day. The campsite is scenic with rivers, meadows, and mountain chains in your surroundings.

• Altitude: 12,350 ft to 12,875 ft
• Distance: 3 km
• Duration: 1.5 hours

On this day there are many river streams you will have to cross. These multiple streams that are close to each other take around half an hour to cross. The water is cold and makes your feet numb. Panikhar Nallah is in your vicinity. This valley has another shepherd settlement.

Start the day by taking off your shoes. Multiple streams need to be crossed to get to the other end of the basin. The direction to take is the valley to the left, sticking to the right of the Nala that rushes down the valley. Immediately after the river crossings, you will see the basin of Denora and Sumdo. This is a gorgeous view. The landscape and this basin are quite wide and unending. The meadows are strewn with colorful flowers around you.

Shortly, you will see the meadow of Kalapari. You will camp in this meadow beside the river stream.

This is the shortest trek day and the gradient of the day is easy. All other days are challenging.

• Altitude: 12,875 ft to 11,550 ft via 14,550 ft
• Distance: 17 km
• Duration: 11 hours

This is the longest and the toughest day of the trek. You will have to start early in the morning. After having a hearty breakfast, gear yourself for the tough trek day. The trail is definite. However, what makes the day difficult is the length of around 17km, and the glacier traverse. The glacier trekking here does not need any equipment other than trekking poles. This is quite a safe maneuver. The trail goes through moraines.

Shortly after you have left the campsite, you will go via moraines and get a view of Kalapari summit and glacier. From the top look back towards your campsite, it looks so much spanning and vast and gives a panoramic view of the valley down.

You will now see the famous and only lake on the trail. The lake is fed by the glacier and has chunks of snow floating in it. The trail is beside the lake and exposes you to the long glacier about 1km wide. This is the brackish glacier is called the Kaintal Glacier.

After the glacier walk, the trail leads to the valley. After this valley is another glacier, you will be walking on the moraines and then get below the Kalapari mountain. Shortly after his glacier, you will have to ascend towards the pass. The pass stands at an altitude of around 14,550m. You will see multiple lakes on your way most of them almost frozen.

Large snowfields lead out from the pass. They are gently sloping and easy to walk on. Get on to the snowfield in front, keeping a general direction towards the valley opening towards your right. It takes about half an hour to get there.

On your right, a large lake, almost frozen, is in your view. There is a steep boulder section that can be difficult to negotiate as you descend. This is until you get close to the opening of the valley. At the opening of the valley, you get your first view of what lies in store on the other side.

The descent from the pass has little patches of snow walking and it leads to the famous Bracken glacier here. This patch of a glacier is quite hard and icy. You need to be careful with your steps. The icy glacier recedes and then comes the rocky moraines. Immediately afterward, you will see the Kaintal valley below. This valley has a rocky trail and then turns into a vast grassland. The campsite is amid this grassland.

It takes over two hours to descend through the moraines to get to the edge of the glacier and a faint upper grassy area. It is another hour of descent through very rough moraines before you get to the basin of the river that emerges from the bottom of the glacier.

Although the trek is challenging, the campsite is rewarding. This is the patch of heaven here.

• Altitude: 11,550 ft to 10,950 ft
• Distance: 16.5 km
• Duration: 6 hours

This day is long with continuous ascents and descents dominating the trail. From Kaintal the trail goes alongside the river and passes through shepherd huts. The trail has many river streams till Humpet.

The grass fields and meadows are long with horses grazing charmingly. The trail within a short distance takes you to the top of the hump which gives you a spectacular view. There are many such humps till the next campsite.

The trail on its way has many river basins. After almost every grassland you will see a couple of river crossings. The water is shallow but cold. You need to remove your shoes to ford these streams.

There is one famous grassland called Sar grassland. Post this grassland, the bracken glacier is out of view. A couple of hours of the trek after the Sar grassland, you get the view of the Humpet.

Humpet gives you a contrasting view of both Kashmir and Ladakh. To the west are far-stretching lush mountains of Kashmir and to the East are barren mountains of Ladakh.

The campsite of Humpet is on a grassland. From the campsite, you get a fantastic view of the shepherd village called Thangkam.

• Altitude: 10,950 ft to 9,225 ft
• Distance: 16 km
• Duration: 7-8 hours

This day of the trek is a long downward trek towards Sukhnai Valley. On the way, one gets a view of the route that leads to Amarnath Yatra. Sukhnai is in Warwan Valley which holds 285 plant species of which 26 species are said to be threatened.

The trail starts with an ascent and then a long descent for about 4 hours. The descent takes you to the beautiful grasslands and gorgeous Sukhnai Village.

A trek of a couple of hours takes you to the junctions where a clean river merges with Kaintal Nala and becomes a wider river. Towards your one side is the mountain range and the trail that reaches to famous Sheeshnag Lake and the Amarnath Yatra.

From this junction is what starts the exotic Warwan valley. The valley is not wide and has many river crossings like in the previous days. The trail is decent from here. You will see a bridge here and near to it is the trail going to Sheshnag Lake. 

On this day you will have to cross some overhangings, so you need to be careful with your steps. Be confident and careful while traversing these overhangings.

Immediately afterward, you will get a fantastic view of Sukhnai. The view is of long grasslands. It takes a further 2 hours of trek to reach the village of Sukhnai. The trail goes through farms with short fences. This gives it a countryside look of Europe. This part of the trail is superbly beautiful.

• Altitude: 9,225 ft to 8,300 ft
• Distance: 17.5 km
• Duration: 6-7 hours

This is the last trekking day of this trans-Himalayan trek. This day of the trek beholds the beautiful grasslands and Marwah River and the pretty village of Rekenwas. The trail is strewn with ascends and descends. After a couple of hours of walking, you will see the beautiful Rekenwas village.

The striking feature of the day is the succession of pristine villages and the Marwah River. One such village is Basmina. It is a slightly bigger village than others. It has few shops and a hustle-bustle. The people live here with traditions and are untouched by modernity.

The people here are welcoming and curiously will ask where you traveled. The village has a river on one side. From this village, the endpoint of the trek i.e. Chaudraiman is around 5km. By evening you will reach the campsite.

• Distance: 153 km drive
• Duration:8-9 hour drive.

This is the last day of the trekking trip. Drive from Chaudraiman to Srinagar. The drive is long and takes you first to the famous Margan Top and then descends to the Anantnag district. Passing via villages and orchards, the road merges with the NH1 highway and takes you to Srinagar.