Infra, facilities at Gulmarg fail to meet skier expectations: Report
Naseer A Ganai
Srinagar, March 29
In a damning report, a government-appointed Snow Safety Officer with the Tourism Department has observed that there was no other ski area in the world where infrastructure was so poorly prepared to meet skier expectations as in Gulmarg.
The report, titled “2024 end of season report”, prepared by Brian Newman, a Snow Safety Officer with the government of J&K, has called for making winter timings the official policy for the three months of January, February and March; to promote these timings transparently and publicly; and to provide support through incentives to operations staff while also holding them accountable for achieving these timings.
Hours of operation Not reliable
The gondola and the chairlift did not follow reliable hours of operation. For foreign skiers, who are used to ski areas publicising their hours, the absence of official operating hours saw operations staff failing to meet the agreed timings with little or no accountability. —Report
Newman, who looks after the Gulmarg Alpine Area, has attached a copy of the 2023 end of season report with the current report, saying: “None of the items from 2023 have been addressed.”
The author of the report says he offers them again in hope that they might be resolved. “Additionally, ski patrol radios, avalanche beacons, shovels and probes are due for replacement,” the report reads.
The report says the 2024 ski season at Gulmarg was cut short to two months. “For the third consecutive winter, seasonal snowfall was below average. Far below average. The entire month of January offered insufficient snowpack to open the ski area.”
“Despite this, skiers and snowboarders arrived in good numbers in February and March. Sadly, many of them expressed dissatisfaction with their experience at the Gulmarg ski area,” the report adds.
“The reason was consistently stated that the gondola and the chairlift did not follow reliable hours of operation. For foreign skiers, who are used to ski areas publicising their hours, the absence of official operating hours had led to operations staff failing to meet the agreed timings with little or no accountability,” the report reads.
The author of the report said he had met with the J&K cable car Operations Managers in February to confirm if they could achieve established timings from past seasons.
“I was told it would be no issue and was reassured since this was a new operations management team, one which I knew well from previous winters working together. The results were failure on every attempt to load ski patrollers on second phase for avalanche mitigation at 8 am,” the report reads.
The report says despite alerting the officials days in advance of a snow storm, the gondola was never available for ski patrol to begin the dangerous job of avalanche mitigation early whereby the ski area would be rendered safe and ready to open by the official time.
“With some of the excuses brought to attention, it is evident that if Gulmarg Alpine Ski Area is to set the standard for other ski areas soon to open in different states of India, then government policymakers must intervene,” the report reads.
“I am confident that you agree: the guests of Gulmarg Ski Area have a right to know what they are paying for when they purchase a ski ticket. They deserve to be informed about the ski area’s opening and closing times and have confidence that they will receive the number of hours they have paid for, especially when it snows — not in spite of it.”
