This is a long update...... make sure you are comfy before you read it....... Bonjour everyone! A big day in Gulmarg today, pretty knackered but we got a lot done! Anyway, Ill go back in time and catch up with events after we left Delhi. For me, I left Delhi with somewhat of a sense of relief, mainly because I was going somewhere very familiar and was looking forward to seeing all my friends in Srinagar and Gulmarg. The flight with Jet Airways was uneventful, we missed out on sitting on the right side of the plane unfortunately so we didnt have a view of the Himalayas. You could definitely see that the floodplains coming out of the mountains onto the plains of northern India had definitely seen a lot of water from the flooding and massive rains in Kashmir over the summer (more on that in a minute). The landing in Srinagar was fine, there were a few MIGs on display near the runway as we cruised in. Several people were taking photos on the tarmac as they left the plane, signs that security has loosened over the years Ive been going there (it used to be a big no-no to take any photos at the airport as it is an airforce base as well). All our bags turned up and The Mushtaq was there to greet us. He used to be just Mushtaq but now he has rightfully earned the title of The Mushtaq due to his kick-ass driving skills in the snow. Our plan was to have one night on the houseboats on Dal Lake in Srinagar, before heading up to Gulmarg on the 25th Jan. I love the houseboats as its a great way of unwinding either after a 2 week trip or even after a couple of days in Delhi, either way I was looking forward a night there and was keen to meet some of the locals and find out more about the floods that devastated Kashmir and destroyed parts of Srinagar over the summer. On the drive from the Airport to the lake, I certainly didnt see as much devastation as I was expecting. For those that didnt hear about it, Srinagar received the heaviest rains for more than 150 years over the summer and finally around the 5th September, the levees burst and the flood waters hit Srinagar. More than 300 people died and thousands of homes were destroyed. I think its a testimony to the Kashmiris resilience that they rebuilt and cleaned up all the flood associated mess so quickly. There are still a lot of homeless people as a result of the floods, living in tents in the city, but they definitely have worked hard to re-build the city. We did see several collapsed buildings and flood damaged cars that were being repaired at the mechanics, plus several houseboats at the start of Dal Lake that had been inundated and sunk. What was amazing was the visible high water mark that you could see on some of the buildings and the trees, in places more than 2 stories high. The effects of the flooding will be long-lasting. Speaking to some of the people that work on the houseboats, tourism in the Kashmir Valley has dropped by nearly 90%. That is huge for people that are trying to make a living based around tourism. Times are even tougher in Kashmir right now, you definitely get a sense of their desperation, when you can see how eager the vendors that patrol the lake looking at selling their handicrafts. Its hard to justify trying to haggle with them right now. I know Jerrod found it very hard to say no to them and pretty much bought stuff from every vendor, from a furry hat, to a wooden cat, a suede hand-bag and a bag of Lilly seeds that will probably never make it back to the US. We went for a one hour cruise in the afternoon around the side of the lake that I had never been through before, through the reeds before we got a little stuck. We backed out and made it around. There are a ton of birds on the lake, from swooping Kites to bright azure Kingfishers (my personal favorite). You are surrounded by the Himalayas and on a calm sunny day, there is no better place to be. I could go on...... but I wont. We had a lovely night, with Abdul our houseboat captain doing a great job of looking after us. The next day we were up early as we had to take the 1.5 hour drive to Gulmarg. The weather was just glorious, with the sun out bright and not a cloud to be seen. We had an amazing view of the mountain as we approached Tangmarg, the feeder village at the start of the mountain road. There was a little bit of snow on the drive up but sadly Gulmarg is off to its slowest start snow-wise in a long time. Its definitely the least amount of snow I have ever seen in my 6 trips to Gulmarg, but there is always reason for hope as it only takes one big dump before the conditions can be improved immensely. Im definitely holding out for that next big storm, as is everyone in Gulmarg right now. There are not many people around, everyone is holding off coming until more snow arrives. We checked into the Hotel Heevan Retreat, a 3 star hotel that weve stayed at at least 3 times. The thing I love the most about the Heevan is the hospitality and the warm welcome you receive. They dont treat you like a guest, they treat you like family. So, its hand shakes and even more hugs, when you arrive. We put our stuff into our room and then it was time to head to the bar at the Hotel Highland Retreat for a cheeky one; a quick little beer to officially celebrate our arrival in Gulmarg. For me it was great to see Jerrods reaction to coming back to Gulmarg. He did his first trip to Gulmarg in 2011, our first commercial trip. I always tell people that you can always do 2 trips to Gulmarg..... Generally the first trip, most people find the first trip pretty overwhelming and they often walk around like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Its not until the second trip that you can really start to relax and take it all in. It has been no different for Jerrod, he says hes finding it so much more relaxing and he feels so much more at ease with everything. Thats a good thing! At 5:30pm we had several locals guides come to the hotel for the start of a week of avalanche safety training. I have 2 local guides (Jeelani Rather, Dawood Hussain) that are working with me now, so it was important that they receive some training, but also I had a couple of new guys (Farhad Naik, Abbas Alli and their friend Raja) I had met on Facebook that were keen to develop their skills as guides as well, so I agreed to have them come along and take part as well. For me, its important to start to give back to the local community. If I can help some locals improve their skills, then thats the least I can do. So we started their training with a 2 hour indoor powerpoint presentation and theory session. We would give them the theory and then go and practice those skills up on the mountain. So we had 5 local Kashmiris sitting on the end of my bed in my room, going through all the slides on our TV. It was a pretty cool scene, they all seemed pretty pumped and eager to learn, thats the kind of enthusiasm that makes it all worth while. Love it! I definitely get my stoke sharing that knowledge. I then had to go to a meeting at our other hotel, the Khyber to meet their new GM, so by the time the indoor training and the meeting at the Khyber was over, I was pretty beat. I got my best night of sleep that night for sure. We had to be up early the next day so we could get on snow and practice what we had talked about in the indoor training session. After a decent breakfast (cereals, toast, omlette, baked beans and some hash browns!), it was time to meet the guys at the road next to the hotel. Unfortunately Farhad had been called in to work at the newspaper he works at (hes a writer) and Abbas was sadly no where to be seen. Not sure what happened to him? The first order of business was to practice the mandatory beacon check that we do at the start of the day when leaving the hotel. I showed the guys how to check a beacons ability to send and receive a signal. Then we went down to the gondola to take the ride to the mid-station to start our day. The plan was simple, over the course of the week we want to improve our beacon and rescue skills, whilst learning as much as we can about the snowpack and stability. It was rather disheartening to see up close, the lack of snow thats on the mountain right now. Its definitely the least amount of snow Ive seen in Gulmarg in my time. I guess if there is one positive in that, then we get to see whats on the ground, when its not completely covered in snow. Theres definitely some nasty looking shrapnel on the ground (both natural and plenty of man-made obstacles) that is usually hidden. Its kind of like getting to check out a reef when the waves are flat in surfing (not that Ive ever really had to do that, but I did see it in the old surfing movie The North Shore, which I always thought was pretty cool, bra!). So, getting any quality turns was out of the question, we could at least find a quiet spot to work on our beacon skills. I decided to work on single burials (multiples tomorrow) and we did a bunch of dry runs where I assisted the guys, then we went into solo, timed runs. It was fun to have a little competition to see who was the fastest, but what was really cool, was that there was a marked improvement in the guys skills, by the end of the session. We finished the day by taking the chairlift up to Marys Shoulder and a little bit of a ski down to a much steeper area to do 2 final passes of beacon practice. It was hard work but very rewarding for all involved and I really liked the effort that everyone put in. Tomorrow will be multiple burial practice and if we have time, well be digging some pits in some undisturbed locations. Thanks for reading! Matt
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:29:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015