Last report from Gulmarg.... at least for this year!

The storm rolled in and last exactly as expected. Was was not expected is the freezing level to drop down and the amount of snow coming with it!

So we had to relay on Mary's Shoulder again to get some turns in. The storm has been on for now 4 days and breaking the trail was quite a work out. The snow had a fair amount of water in it and wasn't super light.

As we got to the top of the run, we realized all the northern aspect (the run we intended to ski) has already avalanched. Our only option was now the south face. The south face of Mary's Shoulder is a bit less steep than the north face. There was about 40cm of snow up there and the turns we carved were really deep.

The face we were skiing wasn't steep enough to get enough speed to get the skiing we liked. So after only one lap, we went down the Gondola Phase 1 and head straight down to the hotel for some cleaning to get ready for the next part of my trip!

As a daily routine next morning, I went out before breakfast to check out how much snow has fallen overnight. To my great surprise, the snow was really light and nice! Every 45cm of it was just what we hopped for!

So we hit Monkey Hill again! We had swore not to ski it again since it is a bit short and boring….. but still what we figured what was our best option. Not being able to ski some good terrain during a massive storm is certainly something annoying about Gulmarg. It is even worst since you cannot get some good snow this season all the way down to Tangmarg which is usually the backup option.

The snow was really deep and probably the lightest we had ski in Gulmarg since we got here.

We made laps through the sparse trees in some really deep snow. We kinda have to ski a little bit backseat since we were sinking in that about 1.2m of fresh snow. The run on the south side of Monkey is definitively much better than the north side offering more pitch and longer runs. It is a nice run to ski down on the south side, skin back on the road and start from the skintrack just next to the police station.

Blue sky, no wind and an early start from the gondola lined up everything we could hope for our last day of skiing. After a little chat over breakfast with the patrollers, they were certainly quite optimistic about being able to open up the mountain.

We had a lazy morning since neither Babareshi, nor Monkey Hill, nor Mary's Shoulder were appealing to us.

We wanted to ski Phase 2!!!

We got to mid-station around 11h00AM and put ourselves in the line. There was only a group of three skiers in front of us.

We waited while soaking in a warm midday sun to the sounds of avalanche control nice bombing sounds.

The lineup in Gulmarg is like nothing I have ever seen in any resorts. First you get in line as we did in the morning. Then, you gotta send someone go get the (always) so precious single ride ticket. They only start selling the tickets when the ski patrol give their clearance to open the mountain. It is a real shit-show to watch (or in my case, being part of) how everyone is pushing and hustling to get the tickets. The Kashmiris are particuliary goods are sneering any kind of lift line since they are locals.

Once you get your tickets, you rush back up the hill to get back to your skis that are in line. Then, at the confluence of the waiting lines, the staircase that you have to climb when coming back from buying the tickets and the tiny little opening to get in the gondola is where the most aggressive pushing, yelling and insult festival I have seen in a ski line up is taking place.

People are trying to sneak in, local Kashmiri guides are trying to get inside from another door to get their foreigner clients inside and fellow skiers who have been waiting in lines for hours who are getting quite pissed by what is happening all at the same spot.

Apparently it is getting better nowadays. Just 2 peoples that day have been involved in a fist fight…

Anyway, since we were in the front, we managed to get on gondola #4 (after a Kashmiri guide and is clients…..)

The snow has again been blown off and from the about 2m of snow that probably has fallen over the last few days, only 20-40cm were left on the ground. We didn't really stop much for talking and discussing our findings on our first run.

We rushed down fast to get as many run as possible.

We have only been able to get 3 runs in…. but they were certainly some of our best turns of our whole 3 weeks in Gulmarg.

Like in Japan, it was frustrating to have to leave in what was some of the best conditions of the season. I have really liked the experience of skiing in Kashmir. It is an ski trip that goes way beyond the deep turns in fluffy powder we are all looking for.

The taxi driver who came to picked us up to go to the airport hasn't been able to make it to our hotel since his tires were too shitty…. So we had to walk about 400m with our gear in the snow to get to his car. Fortunately for us, the military forced him to put chains to go down the slopes.

The security check in Srinagar are the thighest I have experienced. We had our luggage scan at three different places. It is thigh, but everything went pretty fast. I think it is a good idea to get to the airport at least 3 hours in advance.

When we got to Delhi, the airport pick-up we were supposed to have wasn't there. So we walked to the prepaid taxi stand and realize the hotel where we were staying were charging us 3 times what the regular fare is….

It is really simple to get a taxi from the prepaid stand and I would highly recommend to anyone going to India to just get their taxi straight from there.

One more day spend wandering in the so crowded and chaotic streets of Old (smelly) Delhi and we were off to go back to the airport to fly off from India.

As I am seated now in Amsterdam waiting for my friends to show up for the last part of my trip that will lead me to ski for my first time in Europe, I am quite excited about catching up with 4 really good friends, renting a RV in Budapest and taking off for this roadtrip!

Our first plans about hitting Slovakia and Poland will certainly change since it has been a quite bad year for snow in this part of the world. The fact that a storm is rolling it the southern Alps of Italy may totally wreck what we first thought about doing. Whatever happen, I'm quite sure it will feature a quite epic ski/travel/smelly experience in that RV we are about to get!!!

Stay tune for more coming from Europe!

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