Skiing in Gulmarg!!!

dora b

Hey everybody,

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Need a bit of help figuring out the next trip... Gulmarg Kashmir. Have heard it is a fabulously beautiful place.. But there aint too much information available on it.. so need some help figuring it out..

The trip is being planned for the last week of December for about 10 days. Am catching a flight to srinagar on the 24th. We actually want to go there for skiing. So here comes the questions..

1) Will there be snow there end of december? even if there is no snow [God forbid!!] there are things to do and places to see right??
2) Accomodation is really turning out to be a costyl proposition so any good knowedge about some good place with running hot water would really be appreciated. The lowest price that i have been able to find online so far is rs 3000 per night.
3) How expensive is the travelling part [cabs and all] in that part of the country??
4) Any idea about how much one of those week long skiing trainings cost or where i can get this information from??
5) What kind of budget can one expect??
6) Any government accomodation available??

And any other information/ picture etc that you might think will be of help..

Thanks in advance guys.. I am really looking forward to this trip but seriously there is so little information around on Gulmarg so any bit of information woud be of help.. .. am counting on all those awesome imers who were so forthcoming with their help about VoF...Solotrekker.. where are you???????? Help!!!

Cheers mates!!

Dora

sunnykashmir

hi
it can snow in kashmir from nov mid onwards, so hope there will be snow in december, if you want to join skiing courses then govt institutes are the best and the only ones, there are i think at least 3 institutes
1 Indian institute of mountaineering and winter sports
2. Jawahar institute of mountaineering and winter sports
and another is of the jammu and kashmir state govt institute.

They are the best and the cheapest way of learning and enjoying gulmarg , if you want i can try to get details about them, i have done my basic as well as advance skiing courses from jawahar institute of mountainneering and winter sports but that was long back in 1989.

dora b

Oh Man, i am sure if you are an advanced stage skier you would have been there more than once !! Lucky you!! Must have been an awesome experience i am sure. I would definitely love it if you could give me the contact details for the institutes. However i was reading in an article online that you can hire a trainer for a day.. I was thinking incase we cant get the courses we will take this approach. Would that be advisable you think?

Also in this article and on some websites I came across this cottage called rosewood hut which offers accomodation. Also read about small places like this which is working out to be a lot cheaper. Would you suggest this??

Also it will be worth staying put in gulmarg for about a week. We are planning to spend a night in srinagar and another night or two in pahelgam. Would you suggest us to go to any other place ? or does the outline of the trip sound okie???

Again Thankyou so much for your help..

Cheers

Dora