The Ski Capital of India

The Gondola ride is breathtaking and a not-to-be-missed ride, said one travel book. Well we did miss it going up. But we took another fascinating route up, which was to ride the horses.

The morning saw us head for Gulmarg. Before going there, I asked the driver to go to the bakery, where bought some of the delicious biscuits again for the journey. The journey, till you get close to Gulmarg, is nothing to shout about. Mostly dusty country side. The mountains start getting closer and taller as we get nearer to Gulmarg. The driver pointed to mountain range on the left side just before we got to Gulmarg and remarked that over the mountains was Pak Occupied Kashmir. We were really at the very border of India.

We started climbing the mountain. Stopped at a tea stall for some tea and our guide picked up a local guide. We also picked up some warm clothing and snow boots here. We started after the hot cup of chai and reached the base of Gulmarg, where the gondola starts. Gondola is the cable car which ferries people to the top of the mountain. Two mountains in fact. The first level is where people get off to go and play at the snow point or the glacier. The second level takes you to the top of the mountain range from where you can see the mountain range on the Pakistan side. We decided to take horses on our way up so that we can savor the scenery better and take the Gondola on the way down, so that we don't miss that experience either.

After some bargaining we got four horses and we started off the 5 km climb. Our guide trekked the mountain. As you climb the mountain, you realize how intelligent these horses are. They seem to know the route perfectly well. Each of the horses had a handler but not Harini's horse. The horse casually climbed the route without anyone telling it what to do. Added to it, the horses check how the surface is and then put their whole weight and their feet. There were many tricky places were we were not sure if the horses can cross but they did it and did it with ease. Another thing I noticed was when one horse saw another horse struggle at some place it took a small detour and avoided that stretch. Just like humans. Should actually say, better than humans.

The ride up was lovely. We first stopped near a stream and relaxed for some time. Then we stopped at tea stall. We got a panoramic view of the mountain range from here and also saw some great meadows in front of us. This area gets carpeted with snow during winter and this is the primary destination of all skiers in India it seems. After the rise of militancy, some place in Himachal has also started attracting skiers but if the magazines are to be believed, there is no place like Gulmarg to ski in India.

We finally reached our destination, the snow point. There were quite a few people there and we negotiated with some guys who had the snow sled. We walked up the slope and then we had to sit behind the guy on the sled as he ran the sled downwards. It was a terrific ride. The guys maneavour very well and all of us enjoyed it very much. You can climb even higher and come down but we were too tired to go higher than where we went. Higher up was a waterfall as well which we could see from a distance. The snow boots came in handy. After the sled ride we came to the gondola station and had our lunch there. Then it was time for the gondola ride. I wanted to go higher up to the next level of the mountain but it was getting late and hence we decided to go down. It was a great ride with us getting a panoramic view of the whole place. We got down and then started the ride back to the house boat and a well deserved rest.