Finally up... but someone made it down fast!

The second stage finally opened and we were able to finally get the so precious ticket! The most common way to go in Gulmarg is to buy single ride tickets at 250 roupies (5$) for a single ride, it doesn't cost to much!

As one would have expected, some kind of Chinese downhill took place as the first people on the gondola have been able to made it up! We were able to get some good turns, but the meter or so that had fallen in the past days have been quite carried around and packed up by the wind. Consequently, we were skiing in only about 4-5inches of fresh.

We were able to see some of the avalanche the patrols have triggered earlier during their control. It was some certainly some really big ones, that would have been quite hard to survive!!

Since the avy level was quite high, we stayed close to the resort. On our last run, we had the chance to bump into Brian, which happen to be in charge of the patrol. We venture to a ridge slightly out of bounds and were able to get some our best turns of the day in!

The following day was nice, clear and without much wind. I was still quite concern about the avalanche, so we stuck to pretty much the same run Brian took us down.

We then bump into Justin Abbiss and Robert McGilliguddys (exactly like the Doctor who invented the Fireball!!!) who are both here to give a hand to Brian with the patrol. 

We tagged along the guys and head towards Paper Trees.

After a little hike and some traversing on the way down, the received a call from Brian concerning an avalanche that happened in a nearby bowl. One person was missing. They quitted us and rushed down towards mid-station to help out with the rescue organization.

The full story can be found on the Gulmarg Snow Safety page, but to make a long story short, one skier triggered a class 3 avalanche that carried him for 300-400m and down a 15m waterfall. The skier was fully burried, but he was rescued by his skiing partner and miraculously was unharmed. The lucky guy only lost his poles! His skis stays on the whole time and didn't even broke his legs or injured him in any way!

Nevertheless, this call certainly took our stoke level down quite a bit! We stuck to our plans and went down to the paper trees. This was the first time I was really hitting those trees. Some part of them was quite tight, but a bit lower down, it opened up and we were able to cruise down.

We skinned up and made another laps before heading down to hit the bottle of Jim Beam!

The following morning, as I was having breakfast with Robert, he informed me that he would be going up and digging pits to try to see the weak layer that failed in the involvement. Since I am not a big fan of digging pits, I figured, it would be interesting to see how the pros are doing!

We spend more than half of the day with him. It was also quite interesting to ski around their usual bombing route. This was certainly some adventure skiing as some south facing aspects are really bushy and rocky! This must be quite a challenge to ski this route when the avalanche danger is quite high and staying safe.

Anyway, it was certainly quite instructive and I was quite glad to have spend that day with Robert and M. Anward, a local Kashmiri ski patrol. We took off and went for some skiing. Since an other weather system bringing snow was coming, we figured it might be the last time we could make it up the second stage for this trip. The clouds had moved in and definitively cut both the visibility and our motivation for another run.

Last night was quite interesting. As we were trying to sleep, we heard people screaming and yelling at each other. After a little while, I went out to ask them to shut up. I then found 3 russians trying to hold down an other drunk russian guy who was pissed drunk. Unfortunately for the 3 fellows, the man was really strong and not quite willing to let them win. Anyway, after some time, they walked him back to his room. To be sure he wouldn't come out, they locked him in his room. He was so vodka-intoxicated, that he broke the window and jumped off it…. He didn't get hurt and didn't do much after though….

Today, the stormed had moved in. The second stage of the gondola was closed. The snow was falling much dryer than what we had experienced with the previous storm. We figured a run down towards Babareshi would be a good idea. Babareshi is a village located down of Gulmarg but still quite much higher than Tangmarg. Going to the north end of the plateau where Gulmarg is located gave us a view of quite much things we haven't seen yet, like the big army base, the Indian Mountaineering school and some more poma lifts (for beginners run). We took the road that was going around the children park. When the roads ends up, you keep walking for 2 minutes and you are now at the top of the run.

Unfortunately, it was now around noon at the initial nice and light powder was now quite wet. The run down to Babareshi is quite steep and the beginning but quickly becomes flat. Since I was still concern about the snowpack we stuck some treed ridges.

The first taxi that came by us was filled up with people staying at the same other as we where. We jumped in their taxi and made it down to Tangmarg for lunch and some more pastry from the SnowBakery!

So here I am sitting in my hotel room and watching outside some quite nice snow falling…. It is fairly frustrating not to be able to make it up the second stage when it is snowing. It is even more frustrating not to be able to hit the usual back up run down from Gulmarg since the snow level is not low enough…

We are still here for about 4 days, so we'll see what happen!

Cheers,
evans

Down times in Gulmarg

The past days have been fairly hard on the moral! After cursing about the blue sky and wanting more snow, we are now cursing at the (too much) snow we are currently receiving.

This year is not a really great snow year for Gulmarg. On a good year, you can pretty much ski anything around the town and even ski down to the other town that lay about 1000m down from Gulmarg call Tangmarg. This is usually the ski plan when a good snow storm is hitting Gulmarg and the gondola is not opening.

I have understand that the gondola cannot withstand much wind and whenever a major storm hit Gulmarg, they shut the upper section down. For the past 5 days, we are left without the access to the great alpine terrain surrounding us.

On our first day, we checked our alternatives: the old chairlift?

Don't think it has run in a long time!

The poma lift?

Sorry. Maintenance in progress.

Anyway, I don't think we would have ski on the golf course! It is an interesting experience to see how the people can enjoy the parcel of winter they are having with gear we would have thrown away without a single second of hesitation!

Since we could't ski down to Tangmarg, we took a shared taxi (20 roupies per person=50cents) down to visit the town and it's market.

This is a quite major hub comparing to the tiny Gulmarg. After wandering around some hanging dead chicken and some not so fresh looking fruit, we made it to the Snow Bakery!

This is certainly a stop everyone coming to Gulmarg should do! Not only it is really cheap, but it is really tasty and fulfilling!

The clearout in the weather made us thing we might be able to get on the second stage of the gondola…. Wrong!

Since we were halfway up, we decided to give a go to what is call Mary's Shoulder. It is an about 100-150m vertical run just next to the gondola. Since we were already in the need for some turns we gave it a go for couples of lap.

The snow was quite heavy but we were still able to enjoy it!

As we skied down to our hotel, it was quite warm and the snow that was falling was much rather to some nasty sleet than the cold powder we were hoping for. The slush-fest continue until the next day and as good powder-princesses, we called it off!

We figured it might be cool to test the public transportation from Tangmarg back to the capital Srinagar to just spend the day. The public bus cost only 20 roupies a person for an about 2 hours ride to 'downtown'. Srinagar was quite busy even if it was during the weekend.

Here's the proof that much of the things you see on the internet as: 'Only in India' are true!  

It is funny to say that even if the scenery of Kashmir is full of army guys armed with machine guns, I feel safer than in some places in USA that I have been… It might be a ticking bomb, but doesn't seems quite problematic at the time I am visiting. By talking with people that are not at their first visit in the area, the concluded the same thing as I am….

Back to the skiing! We spend the past two days hitting Monkey Hill. This hill of about (again)150m vertical is laying just looker's left of the first stage of the gondola. We decided to ski it because it offers a much better pitch than the first stage of the gondola.

On the first day, my dad was sick and wasn't skiing any good…

He nevertheless ski for 3 runs before we called it off. The weather as cooled down and the snow is now a bit better than what we experienced in the past days at the same elevation.

Today, the gondola was supposed to open, but due to the …. hum….. kashmir organization and lifestyle, it didn't. The extra guys needed to shovel up the upper unloading station just showed up at around 10h30 leading the avalanche crew up only about 12h00...We went back to the Monkey's and ski some quite decent powder.

Tomorrow is supposed to be THE day every skier in Gulmarg has been waiting for the past days. The problem is the past storm system has dropped about 2m of snow at the top of the mountain. The guys responsible of the avalanche control has triggered some quite unsurvivable avalanche in their control and a lot of the bowls and gullies has already triggered naturally. A weak snowpack that receive a large new load a snow with a blue sky is an explosive recipe for catastrophe in the backcountry.

I certainly gonna have to refrain myself to ski any too exposed stuff in the coming days as the resort is offering some quite limiting terrain….

Weirdly enough, I am now hoping for no new snow for couples of days!

evans