www.kashmiralpine.com
On my first visit there in March 2004, I fell in love with Kashmir instantly. It is a place where unwelcome military presence meets starving tourist economy meets powder crazed adventure skiers meets the greatest government bureaucracy ever meets the intact flora and fauna of the Pir Panjal range of the Himalaya. The
legend of a mysterious gondola I’d heard of in the early 90’s turned out to be a reality and there was already a small international micro-scene, lurking, hiking and waiting for the Gondola to be completed.
In the winter of 2005, the 2nd phase of the gondola was completed but skiers and snowboarders were not permitted access to the gondola for riding the 1000m avalanche gullies. It was a big snow year and the hopes of the prepared like Miko, Stevie K and the TGR crew went unfulfilled. Desperate to shred from the top lift-accessed, Ido Neiger a Canadian French Israeli snowboarder who had been coming to Gulmarg for years, grokked the essential need for a ski patrol in order to even have skiing on the second phase of the gondola. Through the Jammu and Kashmir (J_K) Tourism Dept and in conjunction with the Gulmarg Development Authority, Ido organized
Mission Gulmarg, a plan to get equipment and training to create a local ski-patrol, organize avalanche control and open the gondola to riders.
In Decmber of 2005 Ido had everything ready to go. He held a fundraiser in Whistler for the patrol team’s avalanche rescue equipment and managed to get Intrawest to kick down some old rescue toboggans and uniforms. The team of international specialists was finalized as well, which was no small task getting professionals to commit for several months to a volunteer scenario. Bill Barker and Natasha Pritchard brought the patrol expertise as veterans from Mt Hotham, Australia and were there after Christmas along with Swedish aspirant guide Jorgen Karstrom. On New Years Eve, the first big storm of the year arrived leaving a meter and a half outside the door. Kip Garre and David Marchi, heli-ski guides for Points North Heli-Skiing from California, arrived just after the storm. I arrived on the 11th of January on a sunny day and the next day it began to dump another 80cm.
This strip of mountain with a gondola in the Northern Pir Panjal known as Aparwat, is not so steep, but the generally sustained
1000m morsels right off the lift make for a provocative speedway. Towards the end of the season when the rocks disappear, the mega-feature potential emerges. At tree-line, gnarly White Birch give way to giant Deodar and Himalayan Pine with zero brush in between. The lift also gives access to a considerable amount of backcountry terrain, especially for those who are psyched on covering a few kilometres. This winter was perfect for ski touring as the storms spaced themselves out nicely and always returned. Off the lift, Bad Boy Couloir on Sunshine peak turned out to be totally doable in a 9 hour day giving a
2800m ski down to Drang. But there’s so much nice stuff right on Aparwat, either 20 min up to the peak or clicking in right away to go down the ridge where you end up reverse ski-touring. Reverse ski-touring also expands the possibilities on the far side of the peak after hiking, to the north where the best trees are.
Throughout the season, the reverberations of the Gulmarg opening produced a full spectrum of representation from the Ski/Snowboard world. Manu Gaidet, Dan “Green Bastard” Treadway, Schroeder Baker and Tom Day showed up to film a Warren Miller Segment. Then there were 3 or 4 Frenchie film/photo crews (including “appearing in magazines” specialist Xavier Leonti, various Chamonix and La Grave Locals like Jerome Wilm and Simone Favier), photographer Christian Aslund with a Norwegian Swedish contingent and a murder of Russian snowboard punks being as new school as possible. But then there were people with a history with this place. Mountain Guide John Falkiner who had been here 16 years ago returned with a group of clients from the UK and Italy. Murray from Ausrealia along with in his group was a grande dame of skiing, Sarah Ferguson from Chamonix. With all that ski juju about, some epic aprčs ski sessions resulted at the Highlands Park Lounge (the only place in town with beer),
chillums a-blazin’.
The highlight of the season was the return of the grandfather of extreme skiing,
Sylvain Saudan. He showed up in March with Stages Vallencant guide Xavier to resume his heli-skiing operation with a group of French and Swiss clients. After Sylvain called it off early with the heli-skiing, the entourage showed up in Gulmarg for some very nice snow. “The Man” that started it all was still shredding into his seventies! Through the honour of meeting Sylvain, I realized that I was actually there meeting him because of him. Catching wind of his original inspirations, transforming the impossible into the possible has directed my life, as with generations before me. Another cycle within cycles that reconnects the continuous transfer of knowledge and ski vibe. Finally, at the end of the season, Aussie ex-World Cup downhiller and one of my favourite racers, Steven Lee showed up for an almost private gondola session as the last cold storms of March rolled through.
It was a very fulfilling experience to share knowledge with the local boys who were being trained as the new ski-patrol.
A great portion of the training was the first aid part of which Bill and Natasha took care of. The other big chunk of it was avalanche rescue and awareness which Kip, David, Jorgen and I instructed through doing classroom sessions, scenarios and skiing with the trainees as much as possible. Jorgen left at the end of January and Kip and Dave left in late February leaving, the culmination of the course with Natasha, Bill and myself. Still there was all the other patrol stuff like toboggan running, terrain marking, communications, snowmobiling and getting them to ski as much as possible to improve their “off piste” skiing on outdated equipment. The necessary liaison with the gondola staff was a somewhat of a stumbling block as was the enthusiasm of the government agencies that created and needed this project in the first place. It became very challenging towards the end.
Oh well. It’s India, which has its own special way of things and it’s Kashmir, which is a hybrid of many things.
Just by being there you have to accept certain things. This way it’s ended up has also ironically preserved many things. The military presence around all the border areas has kept those mountains closed to commercial exploit. Besides the military pollution, the forested mountainsides remain, for the most part, wild. Gulmarg itself is butted up right against an eastern bulge in the line of control and so military is, for the moment, inextricably intertwined with resort. The military, despite several well drawn out meetings, didn’t want to involve itself with any avalanche control program, especially since Ido is/was an Israeli army land-mines expert and Bill is trained in explosives as a ski-patroller. This left us with a very exposed and responsible situation regarding allowing the skiing public up the lift because we could only use
“organic” avalanche control techniques.
One day, the eager crowd of international skiers, snowboarders and telemarkers were all undoubtedly gazing upwards in anticipation of the 2nd phase of the Gulmarg gondola opening sometime before lunch, when my shovel released a good portion of the main bowl’s cornice right underneath the lift. I leaned over onto the tension of the safety line to watch while simultaneously prodding Simone with the video camera to check it out. That always eerie aura around a cornice dropping multiplied exponentially as the entire bowl propagated around ridges, launched over the newly constructed avy wall and
ended up in a class 4 heap at the bottom. Needless to say we kept the lift closed for the day and it settled out nicely the day after.
Being there for the whole season, we weren’t necessarily psyched on pushing it because we’d always be ski cutting the super exposed main bowl ourselves as part of the daily hazard and opening assessment. Dropping the constantly reforming cornice onto the main bowl starting zone was a regular control procedure and would give us our first indications after a multi-day storm. Every storm ended differently and we needed to be vigilant in order to avoid disaster, not miss out on good skiing and try to give the riders the respect of self-responsibility on a wild mountain. As the avalanche control team, voluntarily putting our lives on the line as part of assessing the safety of these unique circumstances, with limited resources to back up our responsibility, all had to be put into perspective.
Waiting at least a day after a major storm ended up to be the way to deal with it and protect ourselves along with the naive. Ultimately, this preserves the skiing better than bombing the shit out of it while unstable. The “cleanness” of the terrain here has a lot to do with the enjoyment factor. Unnecessary debris is a bummer. The snow and wind that buffs out the gullies into such rideable cosmic tubes is also responsible for those feelings of uncertainty, watching the day unfold after opening and seeing all those riders that claim their worth to ski uncontrolled terrain from the lift, do exactly the wrong things. At the moment, the scenario remains La Grave style and it will into the near future but because of the exposure of the terrain off the lift, a new etiquette must be understood, something akin to backcountry skiing meets a surf line-up.
With the expected mini-boom of skiing in Gulmarg, the traffic on the mountain will become a factor in various ways. There are plans to expand the area forthcoming, including a lift from the Drang valley up to the Kongdoori plateau and a chairlift from mid-station to Mary’s Shoulder on the gondola ridgeline. For Gulmarg to become a functional everyday ski mountain means a whole revolution in infrastructure and spirit of enthusiasm by the Gondola Corp and Tourism Dept.. It is still is searching for understanding on what is necessary in the skiers interests and not their own. For example, Chris Kettles, was brought over as a grooming specialist, to instruct Sonaula, the local cat driver, on proper techniques and to make recommendations on their program. Chris and Ido ended up having to forcefully insist on being allowed to burn fuel to do any serious training or grooming at all.
It was scary having all this responsibility without having been provided all the equipment this winter. The radio sets arrived the last week of the season. The day after the rescue toboggans arrived (already two weeks late because of bureaucratic crap), we had our first casualty while I was the lone patroller. I grabbed trainee Shabir and ski patrol leader/trainee Mr Dar and snowmobiled up to the scene. Incredibly, my first wreck as a ski-patroller had the exact same injury that I had sustained the first time I needed a ski patroller, a fractured tib/fib, fortunately below the boot. I knew exactly what he was going through and we were both very stoked to have him successfully rescued from the mountain.
A few things allowed me to see life from the other side this winter. Those were finally my tracks coming down the unopened mountain back to the gondola to announce the opening or not. In reality, any glory was strongly tempered with the subtleties of exposing oneself and making decisions for all those people in the lift line, especially as a volunteer. I’ve gained a lot more respect for ski-patrollers for sure. My Love for skiing and the opportunity to share and be part of the unfolding of modern skiing in the Himalaya definitely has something to do with it all. The scenario was a great exercise in the blending of the modern and traditional in cultivating a “garden of skiing” in Kashmir. Ultimately, over the winter, my true reward has come from local people taking a bite of that still somewhat organic product and tasting some quality bliss.
The golden age at Gulmarg is at hand. There’s a rare breed of access lift, up and running in Kashmir.
The atmosphere is that of a scene that wants itself to happen. The promise of potential within an environment that is comfortable, tolerant and not overbearing. The vacuum void that once was here is sucking in all kinds of glisse vibe from the world over to shred some pow and chuff some garda. If you want a western style resort, don’t come here. If you can’t share the silence with the shooting practice of the army, stay home. There is a simplicity and that needs to be appreciated while it’s still around and a mountain realm that needs to be experienced while you still can.
