Steep and Deep

2/13/10
Gulmarg

An amazing a mount of snow has fallen over the past few days, and a lot of it made it down to lower elevations. We spent a couple of the days skiing down to Tangmarg, a small village about 700 vertical feet below Gulmarg valley. From there we’d rent a jeep to drive us back up for about two bucks per person. The snow down to Tangmarg got progressively wetter and stickier, until it was almost became more of a problem than a good thing.

The second day we skied down to Tangmarg we hit beautiful weather. Blue bird skies illuminated the huge mountain above and the brightness of the snow in the morning sunshine contrasted nicely with the dark green trees almost entirely covered in snow.
There's a bus somewhere under this snow...

Soon we dropped into the trees and I encountered snow that was deeper than anything I’ve ever seen. Although the slope was plenty steep and I was perched on my knees facing uphill, it was nearly impossible to put a hand down and push myself up to my feet. My arm would just disappear into the light snow. I ended up having to throw my upper body backwards and use the momentum to get up on my feet.

The mountains here get steeper and steeper as you lose elevation. The run down to Tangmarg soon became quite steep and I had to do jump turns in critical areas to get around trees and cliffs. Many of the massive trees had fallen down due to the amount of snow we’ve had and provided a fun surface to skid and jump over.

The whole way down I was holding a little waterproof camcorder with a wide-angle lens. I initially attached it to the nose of my snowboard, but that soon popped off, so I decided just hold the thing in my hand.

Here’s a few stills taken from the video.





I saw a funny bumper sticker in Delhi on my way up to Gulmarg. It said, “India, Never Again”. I am starting to see how that phrase makes sense and It’s difficult to swallow.



The upper stage of the gondola has been closed for the last 10 days due to the storm, avalanche control, then visibility and wind issues. Yesterday we waited all day long for it to open. It isn’t the waiting that is difficult. If we knew we had to stand in line for four hours until we could shred down 3000 vertical feet of fresh powder it would be fine. It’s the waiting in limbo that is the problem. This is just like my 3-day airport experience in Delhi. It takes a lot of patience.

When we realized the gondola would not open we decided to skin a ways up the mountain and hit some fresh stuff anyway. The sun poked out for a while and it was a nice skin up through the sparse pine trees. Two other splitboarders joined us on the way up. It was nice to finally be around a couple other riders after being the lone snowboarder amongst a group of “proper” skiers. It can get old being the brunt of every joke. It’s jokes against my sport, not me personally, so I don’t really mind much. I am first to admit: backcountry snowboarding sucks 90% of the time. It takes longer to get places, the technology is far behind ski touring, climbing up steep snow is much harder, traversing is very painful, and learning to skin feels quite foreign.

However, when everything is put back together and I am again just a snowboarder, surfing down a mountain, nothing can compare.

I’ve definitely never worked this hard for my turns before. I’ll never take a chairlift for granted again, but there is a lot to be said for hiking up for your turns. It’s less vertical feet riding, but it’s also part mountain climbing and I’ve already gotten a little taste of the satisfaction when you reach the peak. It just makes riding down that much better.

Today we again made our way to the gondola early to be the first in line. There is actually quite a bit of people here in Gulmarg. By the time the first stage gondola opened at 9:30 there was a crowd of at least a hundred people waiting. Luckily, most people need to buy tickets every day and they don’t start selling tickets until the gondola starts loading. I bought a season pass when I first got here, so that means one less line to wait in. It is no way near an economical solution, but when you get to ride the first gondola after a storm has dropped over ten feet of snow it’s priceless.

Again we had to wait at the mid station for the upper stage of the gondola to open. The wind was down considerably from yesterday but it was starting to cloud up. Patches of cloudless sky illuminated the white giant above. Huge cornices, some well over 30 feet, have formed along the top ridge and there is evidence of some avalanches.

After a few hours of standing around we were all starting to get cold and antsy. So far we had been doing to good job at claiming the front of the line, but soon Kashmiri ski guides began to inch closer and pull their 5-8 person parties with them. We’d have none of it. Things got a little pushy and we made it clear that we were going to be the first one up this mountain if the gondola would ever start loading. As the saying goes, there are no friends on a powder day. Guess that throws out being a polite stranger.

Then the impossible happened. A gondola worker just gave us a slight nod and asked for our tickets. We all screamed “SEASSON PASS!” in unison and immediately started piling into the tiny gondola. Half way up, we entered a huge cloud and were surrounded in a total white out. Not ideal, but at least the snow would be soft and smooth.

At the top of the gondola I literally ran down the steps and strapped in as quickly as possible. I soon found myself inches from a cornice above the main bowl. Whoops. I jogged left a bit and found an entry point to the bowl. Now the visibility was poor at best. Total white out. I stayed within sight distance of Alan and we carefully made our way down the ridge. Sometimes it was impossible to tell if you were actually moving at all. It was the quick rush of a rock or a feeling of dropping that confirmed that we were actually moving. And fast at that.


Eventually we made it to the bottom of the cloud layer and there before us stood an immense bowl, completely untouched. I took the GoPro out of my pocket, aimed it back at me, and dropped into probably the best run of my life. It was nearly 50 seconds of untouched powder. Steep powder. It was completely effortless. I couldn’t help but imagine the looks on the faces of the people in the gondola right above me as I slashed large carving turns down this unblemished face.

I sped along a flat section then dropped down again in between some loosely spaced trees. A small rock with the perfect pillow of powder soon emerged and I jumped right off the thing, sticking the landing. When I got back down to the gondola I felt too good to wait in line for a second run. I had reached nirvana. I wanted to end on a good note. By the time I’d get back up, the main gondola bowl would probably be tracked out, and I just wanted to sit on this good feeling so I rode down the rest of the mountain back to the hotel. When the weather clears up, there will be many backcountry opportunities to ski things far greater than the main bowl. That thought is almost impossible to imagine.

The weather forecast is calling for more snow this week. A couple feet. The temperatures will also be very cold. This is great news for it will produce a very light, fluffy snow sitting on top of 4-20 feet of creamy powder. When we finally get a few days of high pressure and bluebird days, this place will turn on and hopefully live up to its legendary fame.

Here's a GoPro video from the other day. hopefully this loads... if not, my appologies.