Missing on Kashmir’s beloved ski slopes: snow and tourists

Residents in a globally renowned resort town bear the brunt of an unusually dry winter that’s being blamed on unregulated tourism and climate change.

Gulmarg, Indian-administered Kashmir – A dismayed Javad Ahmad gazes up at the clear blue skies, and at the barren and crimson ski slopes in Gulmarg, a popular tourist destination in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

Sitting outside his closed ski shop, he is hoping for snowfall as an unusually dry winter disrupts tourism and threatens livelihoods in the Himalayan region.

A ski trainer by profession, Ahmad is usually booked nearly every day between December and February as millions of Indians visit the picturesque valley, skiing on its white slopes and sightseeing around the snow-capped mountains and dales.

But he is out of work this year, along with hundreds of other trainers and mountain guides.

All the ski slots booked until early February have been cancelled. On average, he says, the mountains used to have 30 to 40 feet [9-12 metres] of snow at higher altitudes. Now, that’s down to three feet of snow.

The famous Gulmarg ski resort, located close to the Line of Control that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan, now wears a deserted look.

“This is for the first time in 20 years of my skiing career that I am sitting back without work in the month of January,” the 41-year-old says.

“It breaks my heart to see these mountains snowless.”

The snowless mountain slopes have forced Ahmad to rethink his profession.

“I don’t see the future in skiing. I am thinking of switching my job, which again is not easy for me. If the situation remains the same, I may have to look for an alternative livelihood,” he says.

Muhammad Yasin, one of the oldest ski trainers in