Stanzin Chotak
One characterising sentence about Stanzin Chotak — what he is known for on the trail.
Read his profileKulé kulé Zanskar
One region, walked slowly, with the people who know it
We are Stanzin Chotak and Stanzin Lhamath, childhood friends from Zangla, a village in the north of the Zanskar valley. We guide trekking routes, cultural journeys and trips built around your own dates — all of them here, in the region we come from.
Kulé kulé means slowly, slowly. It is how we walk, how we let you acclimatise, and how we think this place is best understood. More about how we work.
- Based in
- Zangla, Zanskar
- Group size
- 2 to 10 people
- Booked
- Directly with the guides
- Season
- June – September
The guides
You will be walking with Chotak and Lhamath
We were born in Zangla and started guiding on paths our families have used for generations. Most of what a guide does here is not showing people things. It is deciding when to stop.
Stanzin Lhamath
One characterising sentence about Stanzin Lhamath — what he is known for on the trail.
Read his profileJourneys
Different ways to spend time here
All of our journeys cover the same region and are led by the same people. What changes is the pace, the terrain, and how much of it you sleep outside.
Trekking
Zangla to Phuktal
Wide valleys, high passes and camp life, ending at a monastery built into a cliff above the Tsarap.
See the route
Trekking
Phuktal to Tsokmichik
Most people reach the monastery and turn around. This route starts there and keeps going east.
See the route
Cultural
Villages and monasteries
The valley without the tent: Padum, the great monasteries, village days and short walks.
See the journeyNothing here fits your dates or your group? We build journeys to order — that is how most of our trips start.
The region
Places worth knowing before you come
Zanskar is not one valley but several, joined by rivers and separated by passes. These are good places to start reading.
Why travel with us
You book with the guides, not with an agency
The person answering your message is the person walking in front of you. There is no office in Delhi in between, and no commission on top.
We are from here
Not partnered with a local operator — from the valley itself, with family in villages you will walk through.
The pace is the safety plan
Altitude is the main risk on every route we run. Walking slowly is not a philosophy we sell; it is how we keep people well above 4,500 metres.
Small groups, and we mean it
Two to ten people. Beyond that the valley stops being quiet and the villages stop being able to host us properly.
From people who walked with us
This section is deliberately empty. Two or three real traveller quotes, each with first name, country, which journey and which year.
Ask every traveller two weeks after they get home: what did you expect, what surprised you, and who is this trip not for? Ask for permission to use their first name, country and a photo in the same message.
Practical
Three things people ask first
When to come
The trekking season runs from June to September. July and August are the warmest and the busiest; early September is our own favourite.
Best time to visitHow to get here
Fly to Leh, acclimatise for two nights, then drive to Padum over the Nimmu–Padum–Darcha road. That road is open in summer only.
Getting to ZanskarHow fit you need to be
If you can walk six hours a day on rough ground for a week, you can do our trekking routes. Altitude matters more than speed.
Fitness and difficultyTell us what you have in mind
Dates, group size, how much walking you want, or just a question about the region. We answer every message ourselves, within three working days — sometimes longer, when we are out on a route or the network in Zanskar is down.
A person answers, not a booking system.