Barbed Wire, Guns and Tear Gas
James Morland •
A Visit to Kashmir
For a few years I'd heard stories about the bottomless powder and the empty slopes that have turned Gulmarg into an almost mythical phenomenon, so this year, along with Scott Flavelle, I decided to check it out myself and see what all the fuss was about....And arriving at the end of January to mountains that had barely seen a dusting of snow since November, I began to wonder.
To a large extent I was motivated to travel to Kashmir in order to meet Martin Jones, an entrepreneur from New Zealand who is looking to establish a heli-ski operation in the region - a handy thing when the gondola is shut much of the time. At best, it is unreliable, especially after a snowfall when you want it most. When it is open, expect to spend a significant part of your day drinking tea in a long queue watching other people shred your powder.
A small amount of snow before our arrival was just enough to make for some good turns. However, a week and totally rotten snowpack meant that the avalanche danger was towards the upper end of what's comfortable so we ended up tiptoeing around with little confidence to venture into avalanche terrain - which most of the ski area is! Potentially this is a very dangerous mountain with lots of terrain traps and many slopes the perfect pitch to hold large amounts of snow before reaching the tipping point. This was painfully illustrated just days after we left when a large avalanche struck tragically killing 17 soldiers.
Despite the vast military presence, you do feel safe in Gulmarg. However, Kashmir continues to be a volatile region that periodically erupts into violence. We got a taste of this on our way to the airport, when we caught the tail-end of some rioting in which a child had been killed by a tear-gas canister. This created an incredibly tense atmosphere and there was a striong sense that things were on the boiling point of mayhem. A teenager was shot dead a few days later.
The British Foreign Office has the following to say about Kashmir: "...there remains a high risk of unpredictable violence, including bombings, grenade attacks, shootings and kidnapping."
Courchevel it is not but all in all we had a good time in Gulmarg and it is obvious that there's some excellent ski terrain, not to mention a very healthy vertical drop from 3950m back to the village at 2,700m... or even below in some cases. But to get the most out of a trip here, you need an avid sense of adventure, be prepared to walk uphill with skins and have a bit of time to spare..
