Dad Climbing

This remote canyon is near the small village of Dad, which is at the end of a long single track road from Debring. Dad is roughly an eight-hour drive from Leh. The village of Dad has a small monastery that is occupied year round and the nomadic herders occupy their stone huts in the winter. The Dad canyon sees some trekking groups, but reportedly less than it used to.

The canyon is beautiful and festooned with limestone cliffs. A European team has reportedly done at least one huge route on Kharnak Chu, which is supposedly a 2-3 hour hike from Dad and on the left side of the canyon. Ask Jamy at the Gravi T climbing gym in Leh for more details.

Once you reach Dad, the main canyon is obviously slightly to the right of the village. Just on the outskirts of the village is a footbridge that goes over a river. From this bridge, it is about a 40 minute hike to reach the mouth of the canyon. Roughly 30 minutes more hiking (70 minutes from the Dad footbridge) will get you to a second footbridge by some chortens. If you make it this far, you will have passed lots of limestone cliffs, the quality of which is uninspiring. Presumably if you continue further up into the canyon, the rock quality improves.