Sunlight hits the snow

Gulmarg - a finale.


On our second Tuesday in Gulmarg, we found out that the forecast for the remainder of our stay would be ‘clear’. So for the first 10 days, we’d had unrelenting powder, and now we were to have my other favourite extreme of snowboarding conditions – Sunny cruisy days of having to wear very little in the way of insulation, along with awesome al fresco lunches at the foot of the mountain. The hunt for the untouched powder would also keep us more than entertained.

Our guide took us off the beaten track down some powdery gullies, and onward through the tree line to a village inaccessible by motor vehicle (at least, the wheeled variety) called Derang. On the way here, we entered a wide snow filled valley of snow pillows. It was relatively tough going on the legs as the track was so flat, but the views were some of the most amazing I’ve seen whilst strapped into my board. Here, local children greeted us shyly, and giggled and pointed at these strange looking white men wearing bulky synthetic clothing with huge over sized mirrored goggles. Some of the kids would come and stand on the back of our snowboards whilst we slid thru the village. Looking at what these kids had, we must look like space men gliding through on our shiny snowboards. I was a little aggrieved at having to rush through as quickly as we did, as it was a humbling experience to talk with these kids, and I didn’t get much of a chance to photograph things there as I would have liked.

Eventually we would arrive back at the main town of Tangmarg. After crossing a large flat bed river, the pathway elevated above the suburban sprawl and afforded us awesome snow capped views of thousands of Kashmiri’s homes. More kids would talk to us and practice their English, some would just ask to carry our board or ski’s whilst walking – for a ‘tip’ of course!

***

Fatigue was truly setting in with the group, and everyone took turns in sitting mornings and afternoons out with burned out muscle groups. Those of us left out, were happy finding stashes of north facing snow that hadn’t become sun baked. I was after the money shot with my camera, and it took several attempts, and a couple of occasions getting covered in snow… but I was happy with the final results:

With a couple of days riding left, I decided to hang back in bed for a morning to give me one last strong afternoon and a final day with the “don’t give a @#$%” attitude toward getting an injury. Myself and Nick headed up for a final couple of runs, though in honesty, we had now seen Gulmargs best offerings and now we were just chasing a dragon which we wouldn’t find. We trudged back from the cat-track to the hotel to discover the other lads had also headed back in early. They were midway through building up a couple of snow park features right out the front of our hotel. I gladly obliged in assisting and after a few hours of grueling work, we were ready to leave the features to set overnight for a final day not in the midst of tall trees, not standing 4000metres above sea level, but barely leaving our hotel.

Friday was bright and sunny, some of the older guys staying there opted to take the day off completely and sit in the sun and relax watching the younger guys do their best to hurt themselves. I like to point out that we saw our guide take a knock to his knee cap earlier in the week and saw the standard of the local hospital… and therefore it was that we would try extra hard not to land awkwardly, concuss or even break ourselves.

The kicker offered many pops of fun, Hux and Jubs the keenest to hit it hardest; my kicker best sadly a few years past, it would seem now. Luckily I was there to take so decent shots instead and of course look pretty for all the fine young looking, err, hold on – snow monkeys.

Midday past, and the sun started to dip. The temperatures dropped off quite rapidly and before we knew it, Gulmarg was dumping again. Big chunky flakes of snow fell around us. The brown tinged snow paths becoming virginal white again, the tracks in the snow we had trudged out, being filled again. Gulmarg tries her best to forget it’s guests as quickly as possible, and before we’d even left, near all evidence we’d ever been there had been erased from the sands of time.