Week 1 in Gulmarg

Here is the first of the planned weekly updates so you can keep in touch with how the season is panning out here in Kashmir .

A classic Gulmarg week and the best start to winter for a few years.

New lift’s opening, high avalanche danger, new lift’s breaking down, no change at the ticket counter, but…..the skiing was epic!  For the few of us out there, plenty of safe options with dry powder were on offer.  All you needed was the right gear and be willing to put in a little effort (once the lift broke) to be hugely rewarded. Every run was fresh freeze dried powder and we rode different areas each day.

Patrol Director and all round Mt Hotham legend, Larry Doyle, has been here for the week and is calling his best skiing since somewhere in the States back in the 80’s.   Admittedly he doesn’t get out much, but still, 6 days of sunny skies and untracked lines is great by anyone’s standard.

The base was great (but not perfect) in the alpine area, but until today, most of the lower elevation tree skiing was best avoided.

As I write this, it is snowing reasonable hard, adding to the 40cm we have had here in the village since midnight. Once the storm clears, all areas should be in pretty good to great shape, and the extra load of the new snow may have caused some natural slides in the alpine area which will help to reduce the avalanche danger.