Groggy from the long flight and interminable wait at the baggage carousel, we stepped outside the airport into the steamy, sweaty, air of night time Delhi to find a taxi. This wasn’t much of a challenge: almost immediately we were approached by a friendly man peddling rides “to anywhere you want go.” Excellent.
“This your first time in India?” asked the friendly man as he led us to his taxi. “Yeah, and we’re stoked to finally be here,” I naively responded. Mistake number one, I thought, watching his eyes light up with flashing dollar icons as the fare to our hotel visibly tripled and quadrupled. Mistake number two wasn’t long in coming. As we approached the taxi, it was noticeably quite…small. Looking around it swiftly became apparent that the average Delhi taxi is built on a far smaller scale than their European counterparts, and considering the baggage we had brought that was something of a concern.
“Hey boss, I think we need a bigger car – we need to fit these skis inside,” I said.
“Skis? What?” In the sweltering midst of India’s capital city this didn’t seem to be an unreasonable question – it’s hardly a typical winter sports destination – but it was an issue I had totally failed to anticipate beforehand. The driver stared blankly at the two 190cm bulky ski bags lying at our feet, then just shrugged.
“Huh, no problem Boss – we just put them through the windows.”
Fast forward a precarious ride – with a good 50cms of ski sticking out to the side through each window – through some of the most manic traffic on the planet, an uncomfortable night in one of Delhi’s cheapest hotels (mistake number three, NOT recommended, no matter how low your budget), another mind-boggling navigation of the most inefficient check-in and customs system known to man, a further internal flight and gauntlet-run of the inevitable butter-wouldn’t-melt hawkers and touts, we finally meet our driver outside Srinagar airport.
Attaching ‘snow rope-chains’ at the side of the road after a sketch near miss. Photo: ©Matt Clark
This feels a lot more like it. It’s snowing hard, flakes big enough that you can actually hear them land, and despite the rather ghetto snow “rope-chains,” the big jeep actually looks pretty capable (and certainly has room for our skis). I catch my buddy Tom laughing face-up into the falling snow and can’t help but grin too: we’re in Kashmir, about to fulfill an almost lifelong dream to ski the Himalayas, and the madness of the journey seems like the perfect way to kick the adventure off. The feeling lasts until we discover that Swiss Air, the bastards, decided to confiscate our airbag gas canisters. Despite promising to take them at check in, there’s nothing in the boxes other than a rather terse note, lying alongside our carefully printed off and highlighted regulations and specifications info sheets. C’est la vie. On the drive up to Gulmarg, we only see three car accidents. It seems the “snow rope-chains” are actually quite effective. We only endure the one near miss ourselves, skidding into a bank of snow at the side of the road.
The following morning we awake to clear blue skies, the brilliant sunshine dazzling as it reflects off the newly laid carpet of snow. After shoveling down a surprisingly tasty breakfast of curried omelette, we stumble out of the Heevan Retreat Hotel – a bizarre mixture of elegant colonial luxury, smartly uniformed staff, unreliable showers and plastic-wrapped windows – and click into our skis. Sliding down the road though well over 50cm of fresh powder, we look around in astonishment.
Preparing the heli for action ©Matt Clark
There’s no getting around it. Gulmarg is like no other ski area on earth. Amidst the half-buried shapes of poorly-constructed huts the occasional luxury hotel doesn’t stand out as much you might think, though that might just be due to the uniform blanket of snow swathed over everything. What does stand out are the half-finished skeletons of buildings, including the open-sided and incomplete shell that houses the gondola. Everything is just so much more raw than we’re used to in Europe and North American – and even Japan. It feels like the skiing equivalent of a frontier town in an old Western movie. In many ways it is exactly like a frontier town – Mount Apharwat, looming overhead, is quite literally the edge of the disputed “line of control” between India and Pakistan. In 2002, Bill Clinton declared it the most dangerous place in the world.
Accepting a steaming cup of the glorious local speciality Kahwa – a sweet and fruity spiced tea – from a Chai Wallah, we ask for directions and slide on, past monkeys gorging themselves on hotel leftovers and locals towing overweight and shivering Indian tourists on homemade wooden sledges. Looking up, an eagle flies overhead.
We meet Katrin and Billa from Kashmir Heliski at their paddock on the edge of Gulmarg Village, and help the team stamp out a platform of firm snow to start prepping the heli. It’s hard to believe that this is actually happening. We’re high in the Himalayas, on a bluebird day with over half a meter of new snow, and we’re about to go heliskiing. As Katrin introduces us to our guide for the day, Mushtaq, she smiles at our obviously overflowing levels of stoke.
This is the last day of the heliskiing season. This far south, the spring sun comes in early and hot. With all the new snow and rising temperatures avalanche danger is high, and Mushtaq makes the call to head to Hell Bent Woods, where we can warm up in low risk terrain and get a feel for the snow. After a quick safety talk, we load the skis into the heli, climb in, and look around with sudden nerves.
If you’ve never been heliskiing it’s an odd experience to describe. The helicopter is small, with room for just six people (including the guide and pilot). It feels flimsy, and the windows flex when you lean against them. The noise and vibrations are incredible as the pilot opens the throttle, and all of a sudden it really hits you that you’re about to fly around some of the biggest mountains in the world in a machine smaller than your average family car. The nerves fall away as the heli rises into the air, left behind in a chorus of whoops as we soar away from the village. The views are incredible in the cold clear air, and the mountains stare us right in the eye.
As we approach the woods, the pilot disconcertingly drops the nose and drives forward and down; nose ploughed firmly into the snow he levels out and sets the heli down. Clambering out, we hunker down and squat, trying to keep as low as possible as the whirling blades rotate too fast to see just over our heads. GoPros are forbidden on the first few landings until the snow gets packed down – the heli sinks further than we do into the powder, and the risk of clipping the blades is just too high. We regroup as it flies away, clicking into our skis in the sudden silence. With a whoop, Mushtaq sets off, tipping over the edge of the plateau and into the trees.
Matt hits one of many Kashmiri pillows ©Tomasz Fichtel
With a quick tap of my ski poles I roll over the lip and drop in behind. Driving down the fall line, I slash my skis sideways to make the first turn, and – UUMMPPFFF – snow sprays up and slams into my face. My god this is good! Left, right, thread the gap, straight, straight dammit, there’s a space it’s time to drift. It feels like slow motion, and I drag out a full ten second face shot. This is the ultimate pillow fight. As my vision clears a cloud of snow slams past on my left. It’s Tom, but even his six foot frame is obscured by the sheer amount of powder billowing on the air. He sends a pillow and disappears below the horizon as I cut right. A fallen tree appears in front of me like a diving board, should I hit it? Yes? No? Screw it. I suck my knees up as I hit the ramp to absorb the compression, I can see the snow cracking off the sides ahead of me, but I’m at the end of the log now. Suddenly weightless, suddenly enveloped in another cloud or marshmallow or down feather duvet.
As I come to a stop I look around, and spot my skis sticking up in the air a few meters away. The snow cushioned my fall so well I didn’t even know I’d crashed. At the bottom of the slope I can see Tom and Mushtaq laughing at me, and I can hear the heli approaching to pick us up for another lap. Dear god, this is good! As I arrive at the pick up zone, I choke out a few garbled sentences, slurring the words in my intoxication. “It’s like Hokkaido, but steeper.”
Praise doesn’t come much higher than that.
Tom sends a cliff in the Gulmarg resort area ©Matt Clark
Editor’s Note: Gulmarg – or ‘meadow of Flowers’ – is a small village in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, lying at 2690m in the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, 56km from the state capital Srinagar. It is just a few kilometers from the “Line of Control,” the disputed border between India and Pakistan. You can find more information about Kashmir Heliski here.
