The Shifting Sands

Everything you need for a ski trip, a cheap room, ski gear and six Kingfisher Strong beers I was more prepared for this trip to Kashmir than ever before.  I had included legs into my weight routine and had trained in a hypoxic chamber for the month leading up to the trip.When I was last in France I had purchase myself an avalanche airbag pack to help reduce the outcomes associated with avalanche risk.  I was ready. Kashmiri food stalls a the top of Stage 1,  while  the Valley was in cloud it was all sun on the slopes Now with the unpredictable nature of work I only had 5 days away which included two travel  days. My first challenge was getting the compressed air bottle, which was part of my avalanche back pack, on the aircraft in Mumbai.  It is approved for air travel by IATA but it still took 45 minutes of arguing and all the IATA Guidelines in my hands.  It helped escalating it to the Head of Security w...

Risk and reward can be seen as two sides of the same coin.  Normally, when you go to a downhill skiing resort, the coins that you flip are small, small risk small reward.  One of the reasons that I love Gulmarg is that you play the game with bigger coins. Paul and Sam, my brother in-law and nephew, had heard great reports about Gulmarg from Jack, Sam's brother, despite Jack coughing up blood for most of his stay.  They decided that a visit to India was in order and, as Sam is a keen skier,  Gulmarg was the priority destination. The adventure started when we boarded the aircraft in Mumbai when I was informed by a Kashmiri on the same flight that Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri native who had been convicted of supporting a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, had been executed earlier that morning.  Needless to say things were going to be interesting in Srinagar as this had occurred after a number of fatal military clashes on the Lin...