Drung - Untouched powder run....
Ok, this is the last video I have from Gulmarg. I think this was the last day I skied. It was a big day. Unfortunately the second stage of the gondola was shut down due to maintenance so we only had access to the first phase and the chairlift. We could have done laps on the chairlift, but the snow was pretty tracked and that wouldn't have been a lot of fun. With some effort, we could hike from the top of the chair and have the whole mountain untouched (it had been snowing previously). Why not get one, long, quality run in?
So we took the chairlift up and started getting our gear on. There was a group of Slovakian splitboarders ahead of us and they put the track in. It was unlikely that anyone else would follow. The thought of there only being 15 or so people, on top of an untouched mountain, was pretty exciting. So up we went. We had our two groups, so with all the guides, there were 11 of us. A pretty big group but we had a massive area to play in.
The track can get steep at times and the kickturns were not easy, so I shoveled out a lot of the corners to make life easier for the team. It took about 2.5 hours to gain the top. We stopped and rested near the top of the gondola. Then we got ready for our run. Sure enough, the other group had continued on up towards the summit. We headed south down the ridge to the Drung bowls. There were no tracks ahead of us. This was the first time I had been down towards Drung and there were no tracks at all. This was pretty special.
We headed way down, past the army base and up to the small hill. We had to do a little bit of sidestepping to gain the knoll. Then we could look down and see the whole of the Drung drainage, untouched. Our target was the second ridgeline (there are 3 big ones that lead down to Drung). We skied several nice long pitches, before we got to the trees. The snow up high was great; untouched, soft and fun. We had a couple of different untouched bowls to play, so everyone had plenty of room to ride. I had a great vantage spot to watch both groups ride down safely, at the same time.
When we got into the trees, then the temps had really risen. The snow was pretty manky. It was survival skiing just to get down to the main gully and start the traverse out. Tough going but thankfully we had had, the quality of turns above, to make it more than worthwhile. It took a while but we got down in one piece. Then we took the skate/walk out along the track towards the hydroelectric powerstation. We didn't go into Drung as it was getting late, plus the track was not in through the trees and everyone was pretty spent. We stopped back in Tangmarg and had a lovely late lunch at the Downhill restaurant. The road was pretty clear and we made decent time back up to Gulmarg by taxi.
It had been a huge day with a big skin and a very long ski down, but another fun and rewarding day. It had been a great adventure! And that was it for me, for Gulmarg 2019, my 10th year visiting Kashmir. It had been the most eventful season, the situation with India and Pakistan that nearly got out of control, dealing with some other internal guiding politics...... it was a big challenge but all in all, a great season. We'd had a lot of quality runs this time out and enjoyed having the mountain nearly to ourselves. We'll be back in 2020, Inshallah! Thanks for following......
- Matt