High Himalaya: The Ladakh Trekking Expedition

The dawn flight crosses the Great Himalaya in one held breath — then Leh: prayer flags, poplars, a horizon made entirely of 6,000-metre teeth. Today is deliberately empty. Rest, hydrate, stroll to the bazaar at apricot pace. Acclimatisation is the summit that makes all others possible.

Acclimatisation, active phase: short walks with big rewards. Thiksey monastery at dawn — horns sounding across the valley as the sun hits the Maitreya's gold face — then Hemis in its hidden gorge, and the ruined grandeur of Shey Palace's rooftop for sunset breathing exercises with a view.

Boots on. The Sham Valley trek begins beneath Likir's hilltop gompa: a river-cut trail through barley terraces, two modest passes prayer-flagged like celebrations, and villages where every rooftop stacks winter fodder against a turquoise sky. Camp at Yangthang, tea arriving as you unlace.

Over the Tsermangchen La (3,750m) with juniper smoke drifting up from the valley of sacred cedars below. Hemis Shukpachan is the trek's heart — a green village folded around its juniper grove, where the campsite neighbours a family orchard and the evening's entertainment is the light show on the peaks.

The trail crests Mebtak La then drops through a gorge streaked rose and copper toward Ang and Temisgam, where apricot orchards run to a fortress ruin. Tonight is the route's reward: a hosted night in a 400-year-old village house, dinner with the family beneath smoke-darkened beams.

A final morning's walk brings you down to the Indus and the trek's ceremonial end at Alchi — home to the Himalaya's greatest surviving early Buddhist murals, painted by Kashmiri masters a thousand years ago and never restored. An hour inside by torchlight recalibrates what 'old' means. Drive back to Leh for hot water and celebration.

Legs rested, altitude earned — today spends it. An expedition drive over one of the planet's highest motorable passes toward the Nubra approaches: glacier snouts, double-humped Bactrian country beyond, and a picnic at a height where your tea visibly steams harder. Backcountry Ladakh, no walking required.

A curator-led morning through Leh's mud-brick old town and the nine-storey palace of the Namgyal kings, then an afternoon entirely yours: the bazaar's pashmina houses, coffee among the apricot trees, the long gold light on the stupa. Farewell dinner with the whole crew — leader, cook, pony-men — as guests of honour.

The morning flight recrosses the range — window seat, left side, one last audience with the peaks. Delhi's warm air arrives like a different country, because it is. Your trek log, route maps and the crew photograph follow by courier: the paperwork of a changed sense of scale.