Well well well, a month after our return, I get into it and put a few photos from Hans, Jared, Jack and myself's skiing trip to Kashmir. The photos are not in order, but they do give an impression of what we got, which from a skiing point of view was totally satisfying. Lots and lots of snow: it had been snowing continuously for 7 days before our arrival and kept on snowing steadily most nights to provide ultimate conditions for about 20 days. Here, myself on the wide flat ridge at 4000m with a military camp in the background, cause you know.
Here the team minus Jdog after a skin up, about to go down one of the basins for a big smile session.
Jared in the middle of a run, shuffle the powder a bit. Since it's there, might as well shake it
Hans after a near miss on a rock, but styling as usual down a shoot.
A dude, like many others, taking his AK47 for a wander. It's midday in the snow, by the stage 1 gondola station
Tangmarg, the village below to which we would quite often ski, all the way through the tree, in knee deep powder. From there, Tata Sumo taxis would pick us u for another ride. We sometimes spend the 13km up hanging at the back, skiing a rutted snowed road with no sight of what's coming up and our skis squeezed underneath the back bumper/exhaust of the jeep. Good times!
Dogs here have brought fashion to kennels and developed an attractive, easy to use and versatile alternative to the out-of-date standard wooden box. Here pictured during a street performance.
The Tangmarg-Gulmarg Rd: always something happening over this steep windy icy snowy stretch of road. Never a stopless trip. You either wait for wood to be tied back on, military convoys to unstuck their 4wd chained vehicles (they are mainly south indian privates with fuck all experience in driving on the snow), or your own vehicle gets stck and you have to push. Either way it's fun and always entertaining.
The 12 monkeys army, plus family and friends, having a bit of a rumble in the snow on our way to the shop in Gulmarg.
More monkeys hanging in town, checking each others fur for fleas
Hans after an unfortunate landing. That's after him worming for a wee while to get his head out.
When the skiing trned to sticky and crusty, and as our bodies claimed a bit of rest, we travelled light through some of the more sunny and colourful india: McLeod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama has found asylum, and Goa, where beach rave parties are supposed to crank all year and in peticuliar at the full moon. We didn't quite catch that but had an incredibly chill out time on the beach, swimming with half naked german girls, smoking with guitar and percs playing hippies and holly men in the middle of the bush by some real cool tree at some ancient sacred place. We ate great sea food, and drunk fresh beer, swam in warm water, playing in the waves and got overwhelmed by more bikinis that we could handle: exactly what we needed after the black and white muslim and covered women dominated kashmir that we had left.
We ended coming back to Gulmarg to come to the conclusion that winter was over and made a slow move back to Dehli, where we separated. Hans to go to Thailand and vietnam (poor little broken bird he was) and us to go back to work (me and Jdog through a 3 day stop-over in Taiwan, which we spent attending our diarrhea in the close intimacy of whichever toilets we found.)
The crew: Chris, Shaun, Emma, Jacqui, Richard and Jeff at the start of the run.
Shaun and Chris scouting "Widowmaker" (Grade 5)
The entrance to the first canyon. Most of the river flowed below huge canyon walls
Chris paddling towards "the ledge" (grade 4)
Definitely a very good way to start off our time in the states. 4 days on a spectacular river with an awsome crew.
Our accommodation was superb!
