Milam Glacier Trek

The Milam Glacier trek begins not with a climb but with a drop, as jeeps carry the group out of Munsiyari through the artist village of Sarmoli and down a switchbacking dirt road that loses height steadily toward the Gori Ganga. This is the old gateway to the Johar valley, once walked entirely on foot by Shauka traders herding sheep laden with borax and wool bound for Tibet, and the road itself only reached this far in recent decades. Where the jeep track finally gives out, a short forest path takes over, dropping through chir pine and stands of ringal bamboo toward the milky roar of the Gori Ganga, which will be the trek's constant companion for the next several days. Lilam appears as a scatter of tin-roofed shops and a forest department checkpost squeezed onto a narrow river terrace, the last point with mobile signal and the true starting line for the walk ahead. Porters here load mules with sacks of rice and kerosene destined for villages that see no road at all, a small daily reminder of how remote the upper valley remains. Camp is pitched on a flat stretch above the river, tents facing the gorge that swallows the trail the following morning. Guides use the short walking day to distribute permits, since this route falls within the Inner Line restricted zone bordering Tibet, and to run through the days ahead in detail, including the altitude gain awaiting the group at Bugdiyar and beyond. Dinner is taken early against the steady white noise of the river, and the drop in elevation from Munsiyari means the evening stays comparatively mild, a rare gentle night before the gorge trail begins testing legs in earnest tomorrow.

Today's walk earns Milam its reputation as one of the more dramatic trails in Kumaon, the path clinging to sheer rock faces high above the Gori Ganga for long stretches, at times reduced to little more than a ledge blasted into the cliff by generations of trade traffic. Waterfalls drop directly onto the trail in places, forcing a quick, damp dash under overhanging rock, while elsewhere the route crosses the river on narrow iron bridges that sway gently underfoot with every step. Landslide scars are common along this stretch, a reminder of how actively this gorge continues to reshape itself, and porters move with practiced ease over sections that make first-time trekkers slow to a careful crawl. The forest alternates between pine, oak, and occasional walnut groves near the rare flat terraces where tiny hamlets cling to the slope, their terraced fields the only visible sign of settled life in an otherwise vertical landscape. Himalayan griffons are frequently seen riding thermals above the gorge, and langurs crash through the canopy on the quieter forested sections. Bugdiyar itself sits on a wider bend in the valley, historically one of the most important overnight halts on the old Tibet trade route, with the crumbling stone walls of a colonial-era rest house still visible near the modern campsite. The name is said to derive from a local word for a place of shelter, apt given how exposed the gorge feels on either side of it. Evening temperatures drop sharply once the sun disappears behind the western ridge, and guides use the stop to talk through the trade history of the valley the group is walking into, a route that carried salt, wool, and borax between Kumaon and western Tibet for centuries before the 1962 border closure ended it abruptly.