It was the best day, then worst day, then the best again

2/3/10
Gulmarg

Beautiful weather today. A deep blue sky and a bright, white mountain contrasted nicely with the translucent icicles hanging onto the roof right outside my window.



I’m getting quite tired of the breakfast here. I am already a picky breakfast eater and was never that fond of eggs (unless we’re talking eggs benedict). Needless to say, eating a paper-thin pancake of an omelet that tastes like plastic is becoming harder and harder to stomach. Everyday.

But we are really only doing two meals a day and it is really important to get a good breakfast in you. So I chew through it.

It’s a good thing I got all the energy I could today.

We were at the top of the mountain by 10 A.M. and immediately started hiking another 500 feet to the very top peak, Apherwat. The air is so thin up here at 14,000 feet that it is important not to overexert yourself for it is hard to catch your break once you’ve lost it. Slow and steady win the race. Matt and Amet had a fifteen-minute head start over Wes and I and were already well ahead of us, skinning up along the overhanging cornice of some huge, steep bowls. Wes and I were bootpacking. It takes such a long time for me to transition my splitboard into touring mode and then back again that sometimes it’s just quicker to strap the thing to my back and start hiking. I was actually feeling much better than I had expected and rarely had to take breaks. We veered left and headed out into the backcountry. The idea was to make our way over to a fairly low-angled bowl facing southeast that had pretty solid sun exposure. This would be our safest bet. It was nice just feeling on top of the world as we hiked up and up along steep ridgelines.


I got my first glimpse of the real fun stuff here at Gulmarg, and it was painful to keep walking past these steep, massive bowls filled with feet upon feet of powder, knowing that dropping into one would most likely mean suicide. This stuff will only become skiable if a massive storm rolls in and rips out the old snow layers.


Wes and I, trailing now by about twenty minutes, stopped to film on the opposing ridge while Matt and Amet dropped in to a completely untouched bowl that had fairly safe snow. They both carved long turns, carrying good speed down a 1,500 vertical foot bowl.

Wes and I were next.

We only had another steeped face to traverse then a little rock pile to walk through before we could strap in. The snow became quite hard and icy on a 30° slope and it was difficult to get a good footing. A couple of times my foot slipped and I caught myself just before what would have been a pretty long tumble down the mountain. I realize I have a bit of a fear of heights and when I encounter situations like these I must remind myself not to look down and try to focus only on things immediately around me.

We make it to the start of the hill and strap up. Wes throws a helmet camera on me for the ride down. Stoked. The snow looks pretty darn good. About 8 inches of creamy powder lay over a soft bottom with minimal rocks. It’s a wide-open bowl with minimal danger. It’s nice not having to worry so much. But my guard is still not down. My Avalung tube (avalanche snorkel I talked a bout earlier) is out and only a quick bite away- just incase I were to become stuck in a slide.

As I drop down onto the main ridge and gain speed, my board just seems to float effortlessly and create fluid turns. The slope soon becomes steeper as I enter a large rollover on a heel-side turn. I can see the shadow of my spray as I shift my weight into a huge toe-turn, dragging my hand in the snow. My turns are progressively larger and larger as I gain confidence in the snowpack and pick up more speed.

It’s like flying. And surfing. This board is amazing. It’s long, gently slopping nose has no problem staying on top of the snow, and its short tail makes for deep, powerful turns with minimal back leg burn.

A dozen turns later I’m staring back up at my tracks in awe and am completely flooded with happiness. This is why I came here. I needed this assurance. Here's our tracks

However, the day is far from over. I have to earn these turns. Time to break the board into skis and slap the skins on the bottom and start sweating. At first things seemed fairly easy as we were taking our time skinning up mild stuff and I got into a pretty goos rhythm.

This was just downright peaceful. The vast mountain range now towering behind us had sharp, blue shadows outlined every curve and smooth surface. Just beautiful. I am fairly sure that snow-covered mountains are of a feminine quality. The air is crisp and still. The sun is heating me up quite nicely and I have stripped down to my baselayer; wrapping my jacket around my waist. When I stop to rest, nothing. Absolute dead silence.

The altitude is starting to get to my brain and I can feel my thoughts slow down. A song is stuck on repeat in my head as I zone out, gliding my right foot forward, then my right pole, left foot, left pole. My breaks become more and more frequent and I am only able to skin fifty steps before I have to stop and rest. My breath is quite hard now and my lungs are beginning to burn. There’s just not enough oxygen in the air.

Now I am only able to make twenty steps before I need to stop and breath deeply, trying hard to slow my heart rate down, but nothing seems to work too well. I feel so tired and peaceful I just want to curl up against one of the larger rocks next to me and take a nap in the inviting sun.

Now its ten steps at best until I need to rest. This isn’t good, but I’m not too worried. I am in no immediate danger and I can take all the time I want getting back to the gondola. My lips chap as I take hard breaths through my mouth. I seem to produce a large amount of thick saliva and need to keep on spitting and blowing my nose. Every now and then I get into a coughing fit and a considerable amount of fluid and phlegm come up.

This is hard work. Forty-five seconds of pleasure for three hour of pain.

By the time I reach the gondola station (13,500 feet) I am completely exhausted. That doesn’t even sum it up. I can’t stand up, can’t breath through my nose, can hardly take a break in breathing to sip some water, and forget about talking.

I stumble up the steps of the gondola station and immediately get on a gondola all to myself and collapse. As I start my decent I feel many things: triumphant for my memorable turns and then making it back up the mountain, proud of the fact that I pushed my body to the limit successfully, and sadness, surprisingly, for I’m realizing that this is really hard work and the fun is definitely not free. After a few minutes I just feel drained.

I get to the Gondola mid station and have to transfer cars. I get the typical inquiry from the gondola workers to see my ticket and I say the usual: “season pass”. However, they want me to show them. This makes me a little grouchy. I reach into my pocket only to find it completely empty. No season pass, no money, no nothing.

Oh shit.

I rush back into my gondola, but it’s not there. I turn to the Indian man and explain my situation but he is not cutting me any slack. I either have to buy a ticket or ski down. I refuse both. I have already spent a huge amount of money on this season pass and am in no mood to ski the icy, tracked out lower slope.

I have no smile now. I demand to see his manager. I really get into the Indian mentality and start yelling at this guy and getting up in his personal space. I keep demanding to speak to the boss of the boss etc. I want nothing more than to go home and sit down, but now I’m stuck in a gondola office, arguing with these Kashmiri men, and I’m drawing a crowd. I can’t understand why they won’t just let me ride down. There are no lines, and if anything it’s actually saving the gondola a bit of energy having my weight counter the cars carrying people up the mountain. Don’t worry; I didn’t use that in my argument.

Eventually I’m able to go down and I immediately walk into the mangers office. I explain my predicament to the two men sitting behind a large desk and get empty stares back from them. I realize that I’m walking a fine line in trying to be stern and assertive, yet not offensive. They say it is “an impossible situation” because it’s my fault and what were they to do about it. “Easy,” I say, “write me another season pass”. Simple stuff.

OK, first of all you must realize what these season passes are made of. It’s a hand-written piece of paper with your name on it, a cut out photo (that you must supply- luckily I made a few copies of my passport), and a scribbled signature of some guy. It definitely doesn’t look like something that would cost over $500. No receipt.

When loading the gondola in the morning and they ask to see your ticket, we just say, “season pass” and they usually let us walk through. Sometimes they ask you to show them the season pass and when you even begin to pull it out of your jacket, they wave you on without looking at it. So it’s not like there’s any scanning, or checking if the right person is using the pass. I thought about just bringing a piece of white paper with some writing on it and they’d probably not notice the difference. So you can understand my frustration that they won’t just write me another one.

Amet explained the situation quite accurately when he said, “Indians have an underdeveloped sense of consequential logic.” He did, after all, get his MBA here in India.

I ended up writing the head manager a letter and set up an appointment to see him the next morning. I drag myself back to the hotel, physically and mentally exhausted. I retell my predicament to Matt and slump down on the couch and try my best to look for some good out of this situation, but cannot help but feel cheated.

I mope around my room and start to clean some stuff up, when out of nowhere some Norwegian dude walks into my room holding my season pass…

I nearly do a backflip.

Turns out he and his girlfriend had followed our lines up and down the mountain and ran across my season pass, money, and goggle case scattered along the skin track up the mountain. I had wrapped my jacket around my waist and apparently had forgotten to zip up my chest pocket. But how did he know who I was and where I was staying? Turns out he remembered us digging the snow pit a week earlier and talking to us a bit. There are not too many Americans here in Gulmarg, and most people know the largest group is staying at the Hotel Green Heights. Gotta love the small community atmosphere here.

I’m talking them out to dinner tonight to show my gratitude.