-Kashmir Skiing 2023
It’s a sentence that my friend Lou always says when we start some exotic trip. For me this usually sounded funny, but this time -while driving in the Kasmir valley and passing military check point after check point and the sights around me look like what Pakistan or Afghanistan appear in a war movie -well, that sentence seemed appropriate . So how did we really get there ? Well , a few years ago while in Antarctica – I met an Aussie guide who gave a presentation about skiing in ..Kashmir. Kashmir…Sounded so exotic.
Frankly, all I could associate it with were sweaters. But then I learned about it, and that it was a disputed area in between India and Pakistan and China , and according to Clinton “the most dangerous place on earth “, however the ski area is in the Himalayas -so I couldn’t resist NOT to go. I was intrigued about it, and sold the idea to my friends ( quite a hard sell initially ) So -on Feb 15 Rob, Joe ,Jeff, Lou, Ed, and myself were on our way .We flew via London, to New Delhi. As soon we landed, we were hit by the terrible pollution of that city . We stayed however at an amazing hotel, the Oberoi. We had a tour of Old Delhi and Agra . Started with visiting the Red Fort , which used to be the seat of power of the Mughal emperors, built by Shah Jahan emperor(who also built the Taj Mahal ) .Afterwards we walked right in middle of hustle and bustle of Old Delhi Chandni Chowkto, where everybody is honking constantly and have to be careful not to be run over .Total chaos. We had a great dinner at the hotel and even better breakfast, Lot and lots of stray dogs in Delhi , and actually all over India. And monkeys , in the cities, jumping from roof to roof. We all had lunch at Haveli Dharampura in the old town, which was a restored mansion. It reminded me of the Riads in Marrakech.We later took a rickshaw and went to Jama Masjid., the largest mosque in Delhi. Day 2 we were off to the city of Agra to witness the beautiful Taj Mahal , no wonder it’s one of the seven Wonders of the world . At the entrance there was sign that advised visitors not to look at the monkeys nor to make eye contact. Agra was fun and we had the crazy spicy food that we ate at
Pinch of Spice restaurant. That day happened to be Shiva’s festival – Maha Shivratri as it was the very special Lord Shiva birthday. We were accompanied by our guide Naman , who brought along Anita, who has a phD in historical architecture. Next day we flew to Srinagar , in Kashmir. As soon as we landed
we were told not to take any pictures, because the airport is controlled directly by the ministry of defense. The airport was full of soldiers in full combat gear, with loaded submachine guns and a finger just above the trigger. Outside the airport there were military fortifications with sandbags . To my surprise , the air seemed very polluted.Turns out Srinagar made the list of one of 1 the 5 cities most polluted in the world. There was no cell service in Kashmir, unless one buys a local SIM card, which by the way takes 3 days to obtain. It’s due to the “security “ needs . In 2019 the Indian government changed the status of Kashmir, and as a precaution to an insurgency it disconnected the Internet and the lines of communications and brought in a lot of military. So here we were… We met Bill Barker , the Aussie guide who organized the whole ski adventure.He has been doing it for 15 years. He first came to Kashmir to train the locals to become ski patrol. We got into a few cars and started our drive.The towns were polluted with trash spread all over and so were the streams. We found out that there is no public trash collection. Finally we made it to Gulmarg. It did not snow for a few days, and there a dust storm from one of the deserts nearby -so the snow looked brown. The taxi pulled over in the middle the road and told us: ”Here’s your hotel “.We look around and see a burnt down building up a hill . Rob looks ta me and says -“If that’s the hotel , I’ll be on the next plane tomorrow “. Well , this WAS the hotel ,called Highlands Park but it happened to be the back entrance , and the burnt building was a structure that caught fire due to a tree that fell on it. Our
rooms were actually nice .They all had stoves which required wood, and we were assigned attendants who were in charge of those stoves.The attendants were very helpful . I recall Nasir’s name , the others had names lesss pronounceable. We were joking that we would like to take them home with us.The hotel was the second nicest hotel in town .In fact the night that we arrived we had dinner in the dining room next Raoul Gandhi, the head of the opposition in India. We were surrounded by lots of military and security officers fully armed and told not to take pictures of him. He actually skied the next day, and I found it funny to see his security entourage on the chair lift-dressed in suit and tie and street shoes holding a submachine gun. Bill introduced us to our guides :David,an American from Oregon, who first came to Kashmir 15 yers ago along with Bill, and Dean -an accomplished mountain guide who led 9 expedition to Everest. He was accompanied by his life partner, Lydia Bradey, who skied as a paying client .She is an accomplished guide as well with seven expeditions led to Everest , AND is the first woman to ever summit Everest without oxygen. We also had local assistant guides , Walli and Muhammad. They were excellent and extremely helpful. The gondola in Gulmarg is the highest in the world . There are actually 2 gondolas. One that goes to the mid station and the on to the top.There is complete chaos to get inside the gondola, and if it were not for the local guides that pushed the people around us and ushered us in I would still be in line … At the base of the gondolas there was a multitude of people, mainly looking at the
snow or being pulled on sleds, or riding snowmobiles -in a circle. It appeared very chaotic. 99.99 % of the skiers were Westeners . Gulmarg is situated in a valley. To my surprise it was very polluted -because the only form of heating was from burning wood. There is no infrastructure in this town, but we stayed only in our hotel and twice went to the Kyber hotel for dinner , which is a very luxurious one, that appeared to be totally out place in this part of the world,surprisingly we had very good pizza there. Once the gondola takes you above the valley, the air is clean and the beauty of the Himalayas shows up in its full glory.From the top, at 4,150 m we can see across the whole Kashmir valley and the Eastern Himalayas with its 8,000m peaks. We skied in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, and we were right on the border with Pakistan , very close the “Line of Control”. We skied right by the Indian army outpost , complete with barbed wire around it. The Indian soldiers were looking at us and taking pictures and we took of them. There is only one sort of groomed run.The rest was wide open terrain ,and is very much avalanche prone. 2 weeks before we came a huge avalanche swept away 2 skiers who did not survive. Luckily enough for us, the snow pack was good we came, and we were lucky to have a day of snow, and had great runs in powder. We climbed with skins to the Afarwat peak , and had very long runs. The last day we skied down about 5,000ft vertical and ended up in a village called Drung, where we had tea and cookies from locals that Bill knows. Skiing through that village and seeing the locals and the kids, the colorful houses and how the
locals live -it felt like a Nat Geo expedition. On our way back we stayed one night in Srinagar on a boat house on lake Dal. The lake used to be very beautiful, but is heavily polluted now. I was told that all the sewage from the boat houses spills right into the lake. Yuk!!! We visited the town , and saw a few historical mosques and the fort. The city is very chaotic and we saw the sewage spilling right alongside the curb on the streets.Not a pretty sight . The local people were very friendly and Yusuf and his son, our guides there ,were extremely nice. We also saw the site that some locals believe its Jesus tomb !. When I asked Youssuf if this true, he said “No.Of course not.Jesus is buried 80 km away in a mosque “ How did he end up in Kashmir? “”Allah brought him”. And our trip cameto end. Of course we all got the “Delhi Belly “ .What a trip and what an adventure!
