High Altitude Warfare: Skiing in Gulmarg India

We walked along the road that snaked 360 degrees around the valley. It’s probably a 10km loop or so. Early mornings are the perfect time for walking in Gulmarg because most Kashmiris don’t get going till 9 or 10 therefore the roads are perfectly still. No crazy drivers whipping around the corners honking their horns and no “sled wallahs”, muslim men who constantly approach you to pull you around on their toboggans.

No madness on this walk, just the tall pine trees, and the Himalayan horizon, with the occasional group of monkeys sifting through pollution in the ditch. The road continued into somewhat of a wooded area and the Kashmiri style hotels and lodges tapered off and barbed wire fences began. We walked past a guarded gate with a single Indian soldier standing post. He had a real non chalant grip on his machine gun and was more smiles than anything. He greeted us with a friendly hello which we returned and continued past him.

As we continued to walk, the compound that he was guarding started to emerge somewhat through the trees. We then arrived to an open clearing and an alpine military base came into full view. “High Altitude Warfare School” it said on the sign. Soldiers could be seen all around the compound washing and servicing vehicles and carrying out random duties. Another sign on the compound read “Gulmarg Gondola 1 km” with an arrow pointing left. This whole scene seemed to sum up Kashmir quite well.

Hostility, danger, conflict, war and skiing. Despite all the problems in Kashmir the government is still desperately trying to convince people that it’s a safe place to visit and that skiers and tourists visiting the Gulmarg area should pay no attention to the foreign travel advisories saying “stay out”. It’s such a wishy washy thing because as safe as you know you will be skiing high up in the beautiful Himalayas, you also realize that you are minutes from the “Line of Control” separating India and Pakistan and currently a war zone under an “iffy” ceasefire.

As we continued past the military training center we cleared the wooded area and the whole valley came back into view. The morning sun was strong and it was starting to feel as though whatever small snow was left in the valley would be melted by the end of the day. Luckily for us the gondola in Gulmarg rises 14 000 ft up in the Himalayas and at that altitude the coverage was ample for skiing. By far the story of our trip however, was the unseasonal lack of deep powder that makes the area famous.

Out in the middle of the valley there was a beginner’s slope with a poma lift. We walked over to get some pictures of the Kashmiris learning to ski. It seemed to be a pretty big novelty to them… way more than to first time skiers in Canada. Progression seemed somewhat the same as with North American beginners but when I saw one kid ski down without snowplowing the instructor caught up to him and gave him 3 big wacks on the ass with his ski pole. I guess the teaching style is a bit different. I can’t imagine teaching at Vorlage in Wakefield and pole spanking some kid in front of the rest of the class. Well sometimes I can, I suppose.

We continued on until we had looped back near the hotels and the gondola. “No snow!” the Kashmiri men would say with a smile as you passed them walking. They weren’t trying to be jerks by rubbing it in your face, they were just trying to make conversation by stating the obvious. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.

We grabbed our ski gear and paid the 400 Rupees ($9) for the lift ride to the top of Mount Affawat. The high altitude at the top made it hard to breathe. It was day 3 of skiing in the Himalayas and the air hadn’t gotten any thicker. A few turns seemed like a lot of work. Despite the snow at that altitude being decent we still had to pay close attention not to eat it on hidden rocks. At some points during the day I ask myself why we didn’t just go to Whistler or Vail (especially when you need to use the toilets, nasty…) but when you’re flying down an ungroomed, steep, Himalayan bowl , with 8000ers like K2 off in the distance for $9 a day… you answer yourself pretty quickly.

Twist of Fate:

2 days after we left it started to snow and didn’t stop. Gulmarg got 7 feet of snow and still counting as I write this. Today, almost 2 weeks after our walk though the Gulmarg valley, the area was rocked by a massive avalanche. The High Altitude Warfare School that we walked past that morning, took the brunt of the avalanche. 15 soldiers have been reported dead so far with many still not accounted for. It’s a sad bit of irony and we continue to watch the news for updates. So far soldiers are the only ones amongst the dead and no skiers have been reported missing. What a crazy twist. Mother nature is unpredictable.

IAAPA and UFC 106

I like fighting. For sport, not for rage. I often fight people in my sleep. In my dreams, I almost always win. If I start to lose I just wake up. You don't get hurt that way and your pride is intact. It's not fun to lose at something, even if you're sleeping.

I just think it's a fun sport (MMA), the ultimate 1 on 1 contest. It's kind of like tennis in that sense, only instead of driving the ball down the line you're driving your fist into someone's face. Violent? Yes. But so are alot of sports. In the end, everyone goes home with money.

The IAAPA tradeshow that we exhibit our bungee stuff at every year was in Vegas this past week. We took the opportunity of being in Las Vegas to attend the UFC 106 event at Mandalay Bay. The tickets were in the upper deck and cost $325 per seat. The floor seats were $1000 and the lower 100s were $750. The fights on the card were pretty thrilling, but I figure I won't likely be going to another event in the near future because of the outrageous price of the tickets. So I guess not everyone goes home with money. My friends and I sure didn't.

Here are some pics of Vegas and the UFC. More pics on the slideshow on the top left.

The Big Apple, Letterman, Obama and U2

Obama was on Letterman on Monday. I think that’s pretty cool of a major world leader. I don’t remember Bush being on any popular show. If he was, the show wasn’t popular afterwards. Not only did Obama do Letterman, but Clinton did it the day after. Props to Letterman for bringing in the big wigs. So who would he get Wednesday? Well my brother, Pablo and myself actually got tickets to Wednesday’s taping as we happened to be in NYC at the time.

Some dude recruiting audience members for the show in Times Square offered us the free tickets but the condition was he couldn’t tell us what star was going to be on as guest. So we took the chance that they would continue their hot streak of bringing in major names in the world of politics and showed up at the Ed Sullivan Theater on Broadway at 3pm for the taping.

To my complete amazement the major star interviewed by Letterman was… Simon Baker from CBS’s The Mentalist. Disappointing? Me thinks yes. I had never heard of the guy. No offence to him, but it seemed a pretty weak follow up to the two previous episodes. It was still pretty cool to see the theater and see the show. Mary J Blidge was the musical performer which was also decent. She has 6 Grammys. Not so bad.

After the show we took the bus from the Manhattan Port Authority Bus Terminal to Meadowlands New Jersey where we saw U2 with Muse at Giants Stadium. What a bunch of insanity that was. Because U2’s stage is a 360 degree stage this allows for the entire football stadium to be filled up with people while maintaing a view of the stage from all angles. 82 000 people filled Giant’s Stadium setting a new record for that venue. It was nuts. As usual the band didn’t disappoint mixing up new songs with classics and performing a show well worth the trip to see.

Here's a quick clip of the show, you can hear my brother signing in the background.

When the concert was over everyone tried to leave. All 82 000 of us. The Meadowlands parking lots, public transit systems and roads were a mess. Of course we had no idea which bus or train to take and waiting in line for them would take hours anyway. We thought the best option would be to walk around the area until we found an empty taxi. At one point my brother just started hitch hiking. A funny scene, my brother, exhausted, trying to hitch hike in grid lock on the New Jersey Turnpike. It took us almost 2 hours to find a taxi. We got back from the concert at 2am.

New York, what a town. I’m glad to actually finally write something about NYC as I have been there multiple times since I started this travel blog. It truly is the most famous city in the world and has never been boring on any of my trips there. I highly recommend going and spending some time there if you haven’t been or haven’t been lately.

Return to Bloggage!

It’s been a while since my last entry into this travel blog. Last thing I wrote about was climbing rock in tropical Malaysia in March. I have had a few trips since then and not really written anything. I will have to put some quick pics up for those trips soon. Now with another winter already in full force, my travels shift gears slightly from climbing in Malaysia to skiing in the Alps. 2 entries from Switzerland below.

Gornergratbahn: Up to the Matterhorn

Right now I am mid way over the North Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America. We’re exactly at that area where turning back either way would be almost impossible in case of emergency. I’m sure pilots have a name for this area, probably the “no-fuck-ups-zone” or something like that. At this point I’m feeling really good for having chosen skiing in Switzerland over skiing in the rockies. I can sum it all up with one word “MATTERHORN”.

The rockies are great. I love skiing there also. But they don’t have the Matterhorn. If you’ve been there and seen it, then you know what I mean. If you don’t know what it is, then you should Wikipedia it right now. Find out. I can’t explain it all here.

It wasn’t till I got on the Gornergratbahn that I really saw it. The Gornergratbahn is a COG railway that goes up from the town of Zermatt to the top of the mountain directly above it. It uses rack and pinion tracks to climb straight up it. But that’s not the cool part, you can find that anywhere in the Alps... the amazing part is that it passes directly in front of the Matterhorn. We rose up it’s neighbouring peak and as soon as we cleared the town and the trees, the full mountain became crisply visible.

It’s a site that’s impossible to forget. It’s not like any mountain in the world. You can’t mistake it. I don’t think that you need to be a mountaineer or rock climber to appreciate it either. Anyone would be in awe. I saw all these pictures of it before, and took a ton of pics while I was there... but I think there’s really nothing that can do justice to standing in its presence. Mark my words- See the Matterhorn up close... it’s worth the trip just for that.

Oh... and of course skiing. We were ripping right down 13 000 ft peaks with the Matterhorn as our backdrop. Powder runs, with the option of skiing down into Zermatt, Switzerland or Cervinia, Italy. You pick. If you’re reading this and you ski or climb, one word; “MATTERHORN”. GO!

In The Shadow of The Eiger

The one down fall to spending time in Switzerland is the price of eating and drinking. Opening a menu in a restaurant is like having the waiter hold your hands behind your back while a 500lb gorilla sacks you. Apart from that, it’s an amazing country. There’s ton’s of awesomeness packed into a small area.

About 2 years ago, I saw a movie on tv called the Eiger Sanction, starring Clint Eastwood. Clint Eastwood tries to climb this gnarly peak in the Swiss Alps, The Eiger, while being sanctioned to kill one of his climbing partners... but he doesn’t know which one... he has to figure it out on the mountain. It’s total B movie quality. But it still has good Clint lines. It was really the first I had heard of this deadly mountain, which I later realized had been made the subject of a number of books and movies.

When I got to Switzerland I was anxious to see just how massive the Eiger is. I was quite interested to find out that many of the neighbouring peaks and plenty of other mountains in the Swiss Alps are in fact higher than the Eiger. The fuss, it turns out, is not about its height, but more it’s shearness and overall unforgivingness.

In the Bernese Oberland there are Eiger Restaurants, Eiger Hotels, and even Eiger beauty salons. Everyone who lives around the area can point exactly where the Eiger is. I suppose some of this can be attributed to Clint, and the cult following that the Eiger Sanction has... but most of it is due to the fact that it’s a really gnarly climb. Around 700 have climbed the North Face and almost 70 have died on it.

It’s basically a 6000ft climbing wall. All vertical climbing to the summit. In German North Face is called Nordwand. The Eiger’s North Wall was given the nickname “Mordwand” or “Murder Wall” due to the death to climb ratio on it.

Strangely this ratio makes it more appealing to climbers. Desire to summit the North Wall boarders on obsession for serious climbers. As twisted as this seems, I must admit, while skiing directly in the shadow of the North Face, I myself, almost hit several trees while looking at possible routes up it. It’s almost hypnotic. One can’t dismiss the strange allure of the Eiger. It’s one to train for I guess.

Rock!!

We were at the Batu Caves, a large limestone rock formation just outside the city of Kuala Lumpur. The actual caves themselves hold a large hindu shrine, a huge tourist actraction in Malaysia. People come from all over the world to worship and bask in the holiness and all that stuff. Kinda neat, but fun for all of 20 minutes.

The real reason we went out to Batu Caves was to rock climb. There are over 200 sport climbing routes scattered around the crags, cliffs and walls nearby. A little more action then worshipping.

We were up in a cave on top of a cliff, something you would expect the Grinch to live in. I was 60 ft up the cave wall, trying to figure out a move that I was stuck on. I managed to reach up onto a hold with my foot and tried to squat my body up onto that ledge. The whole formation of rock that made up that foothold snapped off from the wall. I don't mean a small hold braking off, I mean a huge ass 80lbs section of rock crumbled away from beneath me.

I was fine. I managed to hang off the wall with my hands for a bit until I could find something else to brace my feet. The problem was... Mike was down below belaying me. The protocol for a climber when he drops a piece of rock is to immediatly yell ROCK! I was kind of late with this reaction. I mean... I yelled it... but the boulder was already 3/4 of the way to Mikes head.

Thankfully Mike had watched this whole fiasco unravel and with a quick reaction let go of the rope and jumped for his life. The rock smashed into the ground inches from him, and broke

into many pieces directly where he was standing. However, anyone who has ever rock climbed would know that when the belayer lets go of the rope it usually means your climber is up shit creek without a paddle.

Luckily Mike was using a special belay device that immediatly locks when you remove your hands from it. My paddle. So technically, even though Mike completely abandonned his post, I was never technically off belay. Had he been using another device it could have been a bad deal.

Disaster averted in the end. Not to dramatisize or over analyse, but had Mike reacted a split second later he would be dead. I'm pretty sure of it. Nothing like near death, to make you feel alive. Just ask Mike.

A small piece of what was.