Frozen Beauty: In Gulmarg, Kashmir

The first view of the Himalayas came from the flight. Brown alternating with white, covered by pretty clouds. The mountains extended far beyond the eye could see. There are very few places in the world where the color green - that faithful indication of life - is missing from the landscape. The mountains here are one of them. It was a view at once bleak and beautiful.

Mountains x infinity

When I first stepped out of Srinagar airport, I had a strong sense of déjà vu. This landscape was completely new to me - I had never even seen snow at close quarters before and the Valley was positively blanketed with it. Even as we traveled onwards to Gulmarg, the feeling didn't desert me. It was as if I had been here before. Maybe I was reminded of the pictures of Germany that my father had shown me after he went there during deep winter. Sloping roofs and snow-lined roads look the same to a sleep-deprived eye - even when separated by continents, it seems.  

Getting to Gulmarg

I was heading to Gulmarg for a basic skiing course with some distant cousins and assorted friends and acquaintances. Gulmarg has been a popular skiing destination and it’s here that the Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering (IISM) has been operating for many decades now. Our instructors had been at IISM for many years. They had now branched out and established their own school, called Gulmarg Snow School.

The closer we got to Gulmarg, the colder it got. On both sides were pine trees and snow, repeated ad infinitum. It can be both repetitive and strangely haunting. It was when we reached the hotel that it truly felt like being in another world.  Prepaid SIM cards do not work in J&K, and the hotel WiFi was down too. Despite that, it was positively luxurious – there was a heater in every room, and geysers that worked.  

The scenery just being casually stunning

 There was also a TV lounge room where Bollywood were projected onto a big screen continuously. Screens can be pretty distracting, so I got out of there and walked a bit in the corridor, trying to root myself in the surroundings. The view outside was beautiful. But it was also evident to me that living in this paradise-on-earth came at a huge cost. Simply bringing up a sack of potatoes through the snow and cold can be a big task. Windows can break if the snow piles up and snow from the roof crashes down onto it. A roof slide can even bury unsuspecting people walking under a roof. For those living here, it was man-against-the-elements for every day of the winters.

Let’s start skiing! No, wait…
On the first day of our instruction, all of us trooped through the snow to get our equipment from the ski shop. The skiing shoes were heavy (about a kilo each) and the skis even more so. There are a few techniques to carry them in a locked position, but I learned this the hard way. I had just collected my equipment and was going downhill towards the road, precariously balancing the skis and the shoes and the poles when I slipped and fell. Both the skis fell on my left hand. I got up and tried to soldier on, but the pain was a little too intense to ignore. I took off my glove and saw a swelling the size of a lemon.

Everyone else was definitely more worried than me, so I was taken to the hospital. An X-ray ruled out a fracture. The doctor said I could ski from the next day, and prescribed some painkillers. The dispensary was a small 5x5 ft room, stacked with some essential medicines. I had already got a sense of how bringing things here was a task during snow, because I had seen vehicles getting stuck a number of times. When something like this happened, the locals passing along would stop to help, but when the help wasn't enough, there wasn't much you could do except wait.

The bunny slope (Photo by: Anita Krishnan)

I couldn’t ski that day, so I went to the slope where the others had just started with their instruction. I watched a little jealously as everyone took baby steps on their skis and mostly just learned how to stop. “Snow plow” is the position that beginners use for stopping while going down. All it means is to have the front of your skis close together (but not crossed) while the heel portion of your skis are opened wide.

The next day, it was snowing too heavily, so we stayed indoors. As it turned out, by the time we came back after our 8-day course, Gulmarg had had the heaviest snowfall in several years.

“But is it safe?”

Before coming to Gulmarg, I had gotten a lot of concerned comments on whether it would be “safe” to go to Kashmir. It does make sense to address this. When you get down at Srinagar, it can be a little unnerving, because you encounter gun-toting army personnel very frequently. But Gulmarg is an established tourist destination, and it’s about as safe or unsafe as any other place.

On a bright day

Kashmir’s history is long and complicated, and I definitely cannot condense it over here. It’s not like the rest of India in sentiment, that’s for sure. Republic Day fell in the middle of our stay here, and it was one of the days when we were confined to the hotel because of the snow. It was also the day the first match in the India vs England T20 series was being played.

England was chasing, and many in our group were watching the match along with some Kashmiri kids who were also learning skiing along with us. As England got closer to the target, there were groans from our side and some cheers from some of the Kashmiri kids. I got asked by one of the kids which side I was supporting, and I said India, of course. “It’s an obvious question, isn’t it?” he replied. I asked another one of the kids why he didn’t support India, and his answer was simple, “They’re a bad team in T20s.”

The issue of why Kashmiris aren’t as nationalist as mainstream India isn’t as simple. I do know that the answer is definitely not “Oh-but-they-all-support-Pakistan”. As a visitor, I did feel welcome there and in fact, many locals said I should come back to experience the beauty of all the four seasons in Kashmir. The point to emphasize is that Kashmir is breathtakingly beautiful, all year round and it seems to be our own countrymen who are the most apprehensive about visiting it.

This became my favorite tree because of all the beautiful photographs it provided. 

One night at the hotel, there was a presentation on avalanche safety by the Ski Patrol. Apart from rescuing people who get lost, or buried during avalanches, the Ski Patrol also triggers avalanches so that it doesn’t occur suddenly without warning. But the “backcountry” area is left out, and so it’s a lot less crowded and a lot more dangerous, of course. The presentation was attended almost entirely by foreigners. These were hardcore skiers who ventured into the backcountry to seek out thrills and stayed for weeks on end.

Hopefully, this should dispel any doubts you have about visiting Kashmir. In any case, the kids in our group made friends with the Kashmiri kids and even exchanged numbers! Kids these days…

One of the days, we also visited the museum at the High Altitude Warfare School. You can’t go there if you’re an unaccompanied civilian, and we were lucky to have a defence person with us. The museum was built after the first successfully attempt by the Indian Army in climbing Mt. Kanchenjunga. Mountaineering is one of the most extreme adventure sports there is. My cousin is in the Navy once told me that it took them 4hrs to climb a 100ft vertical ice wall en route to a summit. And if you ever wonder why people climb a mountain, there’s a very useful answer I found on the museum walls:

“Because it’s there”.

(Part 2, about all the exciting skiing is coming soon)