Snow Leopard Winter Expedition: Kibber & Chicham

Route: International arrival, Delhi

A private car meets every guest at Delhi airport, whatever the arrival hour, for the transfer into the city. The rest of the day is unscheduled — check-in and rest, with a winter-gear check in the evening, since the days ahead run from Delhi's plains to a village at 4,270 metres where night temperatures fall well below -20°C.

The gear check covers down layers, insulated boots, gloves, and a headlamp for the pre-dawn walks to the scanning points at Kibber — anything missing can still be sourced or rented in Delhi before departure the next morning.

Experience of the Day

—  Private airport pickup

—  Winter-gear check and packing briefing

—  Evening at leisure

Food

Welcome dinner at the hotel, with the option of a first taste of North Indian and Himachali dishes guests will see again on the road — dham-style lentils, rajma, and wheat rotis.

Activities to Do

—  Rest and acclimatise to the time zone

—  Optional short walk near the hotel

Route: Delhi → Shimla

The drive out of Delhi climbs steadily once it crosses into Himachal, trading the plains for pine forest and the switchbacks the old British hill-station road is built on. Shimla itself sits at just over 2,200 metres — a gentle first stage in the altitude gain toward Kibber, still nearly a week and 2,000 metres away.

The Kalka-Shimla railway, a UNESCO World Heritage mountain railway completed in 1903, runs alongside parts of the road for the final stretch — a slower, older way up the same hill that is still in daily use.

Experience of the Day

—  Scenic drive through pine and deodar forest

—  Arrival on Shimla's Mall Road

Food

Dinner at the hotel or a short walk to one of Mall Road's cafés for a first taste of hill-station cooking.

Activities to Do

—  Evening walk on Mall Road and the Ridge

—  Early night before tomorrow's longer drive

Route: Shimla → Narkanda → Rampur → Reckong Peo → Kalpa

The shorter route into Spiti, over the Kunzum Pass from Manali, is buried under snow from roughly October to June. The Hindustan-Tibet Highway through Kinnaur is the only way in and out of Spiti in winter — the road Kalpa, Nako and Tabo all sit on, and the one this entire outbound and return leg follows.

The highway itself follows the Sutlej river gorge for long stretches after Rampur, narrowing as it climbs toward Reckong Peo, where the Inner Line Permit for foreign nationals travelling beyond this point is processed. Kalpa, a short climb above Reckong Peo, opens onto a full view of the Kinner Kailash range at close to 3,000 metres higher than the village itself.

Note on the Inner Line Permit: Foreign nationals need an Inner Line Permit to travel beyond Reckong Peo toward Nako, Tabo, Kaza and the plateau villages — Kalpa, Sangla and Chitkul do not require one. BizareXpedition arranges this through a registered agent as part of the package; guests only need to carry passport copies and photographs.

Experience of the Day

—  Drive along the Sutlej gorge

—  Inner Line Permit processing at Reckong Peo

—  First view of Kinner Kailash from Kalpa

Food

Dinner at the guesthouse — Kinnauri cuisine leans on buckwheat, barley and dried apricots, a first sign of the higher, drier valleys ahead.

Activities to Do

—  Settle in and rest after a long driving day

—  Early dinner ahead of tomorrow's acclimatisation day

Route: Kalpa (no road travel)

A full day at Kalpa's altitude before pushing higher still into Spiti is deliberate acclimatisation, not a rest day for its own sake — Tabo and Kaza sit higher again, and Kibber tops out at 4,270 metres. Kalpa's old village, a cluster of wood-and-stone houses around the Narayan-Nagini and Chandika Devi temples, rewards a slow walk more than a quick one.

Kalpa was also home to Shyam Saran Negi, recorded as India's first independent voter in 1951, who voted in every election from then until his death in 2022 at the age of 105 — his house is still pointed out in the village.

Experience of the Day

—  Kinner Kailash viewpoint at sunrise

—  Old Kalpa village walk

—  Roghi village walk (weather permitting)

The Human Story

Shyam Saran Negi cast his first vote here in 1951 and his last in 2022, a 71-year record tied to this one village.

Food

Local Kinnauri thali at the guesthouse — rajma, buckwheat rotis and apple-orchard produce the valley is known for.

Activities to Do

—  Photography of Kinner Kailash's changing light through the day

—  Optional short walk to Roghi ('Suicide Point') viewpoint

Route: Kalpa → Nako → Tabo

Beyond Reckong Peo the landscape changes fast — the Sutlej's green side valleys give way to the treeless, wind-scoured cold desert that defines Spiti. Nako, a small lake village roughly at the halfway point, is a short stop before the road drops into the Spiti river valley proper.

Tabo Monastery, founded in 996 CE by the translator-monk Rinchen Zangpo, is the oldest continuously operating Buddhist monastic site in the Himalayas. Its buildings are built low, of packed mud brick with walls half a metre thick and no windows on the exposed north side — a design shaped entirely by the need to hold heat through winters this severe, and it is that same low, thick-walled construction that has kept the monastery's 11th-century wall paintings intact for a thousand years. Several published sources describe Tabo as a UNESCO World Heritage Site; it is not — it is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India and was proposed for UNESCO inscription, but never formally inscribed.

Experience of the Day

—  Nako lake and village

—  Tabo Monastery's main temple and wall paintings

—  Cold-desert landscape photography

Food

Dinner at the guesthouse — thukpa and butter tea are the standard warming meal at this altitude and temperature.

Activities to Do

—  Guided walk through Tabo Monastery's temple complex

—  Evening at leisure in Tabo village

Route: Tabo → Dhankar turn-off → Kaza

Kaza, Spiti's small administrative headquarters, is a short drive from Tabo and the last town of any size before Kibber. The rest of the day is deliberately unhurried: final permit paperwork, a gear check with the naturalist who will accompany the Kibber block, and a briefing from the local spotter team on the past few days' sightings and weather.

The Tabo-Kaza stretch passes below Dhankar, whose old monastery and fort sit on a cliff above the confluence of the Spiti and Pin rivers; the short detour up to it is offered as an optional add-on for guests who arrive with daylight to spare.

Note on the winter road: The stretch below Dhankar, between Tabo and Kaza, can close for a few hours — in a bad year, over a week — under heavy snow. BizareXpedition builds a buffer day into the Kibber block for exactly this reason and advises guests to hold their return international flight with two to three days of slack rather than booking it tight.

Experience of the Day

—  Final permit and gear check

—  Naturalist and spotter-team briefing

—  Optional Dhankar Monastery detour

Food

Kaza's small market has the last real choice of restaurants before Kibber — Tibetan and Himachali dishes both feature.

Activities to Do

—  Kaza market walk

—  Optional Dhankar Monastery and fort visit

Route: Kaza → Key Monastery → Kibber

Key Monastery sits directly on the road between Kaza and Kibber, its whitewashed buildings stacked up a conical hill. Founded in the 11th century, it has been destroyed and rebuilt more times than almost any other monastery in Spiti — by Mongol raiders, in two separate 19th-century wars between Ladakh and Kullu forces, by fire, and again by the 1975 earthquake — and now houses close to 250 monks, the largest monastic community in the valley.

From Key the road climbs the final stretch to Kibber, at 4,270 metres one of the highest permanently inhabited villages on this route. The rest of the day is settling in: homestay check-in, an orientation from the spotter team on how the next six days will run, and the first dusk scan of the trip from a ridge just above the village.

Experience of the Day

—  Key Monastery visit

—  Arrival and homestay check-in at Kibber

—  First evening orientation with the spotter team

—  First dusk canyon scan

Food

First dinner in the Kibber homestay, cooked over a bukhari wood stove — thukpa, momos and butter tea are the winter staples here.

Activities to Do

—  Evening scan briefing

—  Early night ahead of the first dawn scan

Route: Kibber (Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary)

The pattern for every full day at Kibber is the same, and it follows when snow leopards actually hunt, not simply convenient daylight hours. Blue sheep, the leopard's main prey here, graze the sunlit canyon faces hardest in the first and last hour of light, when the previous night's cold air is still settled in the valley floor and the exposed slopes warm fastest. Snow leopards hunt on the same clock — which is why the spotting team is in position on the ridge above the village well before sunrise, and again before dusk, rather than scanning through the middle of the day.

Between the two scans the day is unstructured: rest, a walk through the village, or time at the homestay's stove. Every scan is led by a local spotter working from a fixed vantage point with a spotting scope, watching the far canyon wall rather than walking into the terrain — the animal is never approached, only observed at distance.

Experience of the Day

—  Pre-dawn canyon scan

—  Free time at the homestay through midday

—  Dusk canyon scan

Food

Homestay meals throughout — the same bukhari-cooked thukpa, momos and butter tea, with Maggi noodles as the reliable quick option between scans.

Activities to Do

—  Dawn and dusk scanning sessions

—  Optional short walk around Kibber village

Route: Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary

Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 1999 and later expanded to over 2,200 square kilometres, spanning elevations from 3,600 to 6,800 metres. It has been the site of a snow leopard research and conservation partnership between the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) and the Snow Leopard Trust since the late 1990s — one of the longest-running of its kind anywhere in the cat's range.

More than 25 men and women from Kibber have worked on this research over the years, and the village's own base camp has produced over 50 published research papers, many co-authored by local community members. A livestock-loss compensation scheme run alongside the research programme has, over time, helped shift local attitudes — herders who once saw the snow leopard mainly as a threat to their animals now have a direct financial reason, alongside the compensation itself, to protect it rather than retaliate against it.

A state-wide camera-trap survey completed in October 2025 recorded Spiti and the neighbouring Pin Valley as having the highest snow leopard density anywhere in Himachal Pradesh, with eight local Kibber youths leading the camera-trap deployment and an indigenous women's team from the village carrying out the data analysis — the first time a survey team of that kind has done so.

Experience of the Day

—  Pre-dawn canyon scan

—  Visit to the research base camp and a conversation with a local spotter about the conservation programme

—  Dusk canyon scan

The Human Story

Eight Kibber youths led the camera-trap survey that found Spiti has the highest snow leopard density in Himachal Pradesh; a village women's team then carried out its data analysis.

Food

Homestay meals as the previous day.

Activities to Do

—  Dawn and dusk scanning sessions

—  Research base camp visit

Route: Kibber → Chicham Bridge → Chicham village → Kibber

Chicham sits across a deep gorge from Kibber, and until 2017 the only way across was a hand-pulled trolley on a steel cable, a crossing locals used for everything from moving livestock to reaching a hospital. Chicham Bridge, opened that year at roughly 13,600 feet, is widely cited as Asia's highest suspension bridge — a single-span steel structure that turned what was once a dangerous crossing into a two-minute drive.

Chicham gives the spotting team a second canyon wall to work, on the opposite side of the gorge from Kibber's usual scanning points — a change of vantage that matters when a cat has been using one side of the valley more than the other in a given week.

Experience of the Day

—  Cross Chicham Bridge on foot and by vehicle

—  Chicham village walk

—  Afternoon canyon scan from the Chicham side

Food

A packed lunch is carried for the Chicham day; dinner back at the Kibber homestay.

Activities to Do

—  Chicham Bridge crossing

—  Canyon scan from a second vantage point

Route: Kibber (Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary)

This day is built into the schedule as a genuine buffer, not filler — a slot that absorbs a delayed arrival earlier in the trip, a weather-shortened scan, or simply gives the spotting team a fourth full dawn-to-dusk day to work with rather than three. The routine is the same dawn and dusk canyon scan as every other Kibber day.

By the third and fourth day, most guests have learned to read the terrain themselves — which slopes hold blue sheep, which ridgelines a cat is likely to use to move between feeding grounds — even before the spotter calls it out.

Experience of the Day

—  Pre-dawn canyon scan

—  Free time at the homestay

—  Dusk canyon scan

Food

Homestay meals as previous days.

Activities to Do

—  Dawn and dusk scanning sessions

—  Optional visit to a village handicraft maker

Route: Kibber (Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary)

The final full day at Kibber runs the same dawn and dusk scan pattern, with the evening set aside for a wrap-up conversation with the spotting team over dinner — a review of the week's sightings, weather and tracks, and, for guests who want it, a chance to contribute directly to the village's conservation fund rather than an informal tip.

That evening conversation is as much a part of this stop as the scans themselves — a chance to hear, in the spotting team's own words, what a week's worth of tracks, sightings and near-misses across the canyon actually looked like this time.

Experience of the Day

—  Pre-dawn canyon scan

—  Farewell dinner with the spotting team

—  Dusk canyon scan

Food

A farewell dinner at the homestay, with the spotting team joining where the household allows.

Activities to Do

—  Dawn and dusk scanning sessions

—  Optional conservation-fund contribution

Route: Kibber → Kaza → Reckong Peo → Kalpa

The return to Kalpa runs direct in a single long day rather than breaking again at Tabo, retracing the Hindustan-Tibet Highway back down through the Spiti gorge and the Reckong Peo checkpoint. It is a full day of driving, with stops built in at Kaza and Nako to break up the distance.

Experience of the Day

—  Long scenic drive back down the Spiti valley

—  Stop at Nako

Food

A packed lunch en route; dinner at the Kalpa guesthouse.

Activities to Do

—  Rest during the drive

—  Evening at leisure in Kalpa

Route: Kalpa → Reckong Peo → Rampur → Narkanda → Shimla

The road back down the Sutlej gorge to Shimla retraces Day 3's route. The lower altitude and thicker air of Shimla, after a week above 3,500 metres, is a noticeable and welcome change by the time the vehicle pulls in for the evening.

Experience of the Day

—  Return drive along the Sutlej gorge

—  Arrival in Shimla

Food

Dinner in Shimla, with a wider choice of restaurants than anywhere on the trip since Delhi.

Activities to Do

—  Evening walk on Mall Road

—  Rest after the week's driving

Route: Shimla → Delhi

The final overland leg retraces Day 2's route back to Delhi. The evening is kept free for repacking and rest before the international departure the next day.

Experience of the Day

—  Return drive to Delhi

—  Evening at leisure

Food

Farewell dinner at the hotel.

Activities to Do

—  Repacking and rest ahead of departure

Route: Delhi

A private transfer to the airport is timed to the guest's international flight, closing out fifteen nights on the road and six full nights at Kibber.

Experience of the Day

—  Private airport transfer

—  International departure

Food

Breakfast at the hotel before transfer.

Activities to Do

—  Final packing and check-out