On a March afternoon, the scenic town of Gulmarg is overrun by tourists armed with snowboards and skis. “Take off your board and run,” shouts one among a group of adventurers. Yanik Turgeon, known as the ‘Pink Panther’ to his familiars, boards from Phase II down Mount Apharwat at 4,124m and sprints to the finish line in a hot pink jumpsuit. It gets him a prize for being best dressed in the first annual Gulmarg Global Derby, a downhill ski and snowboard race.
“This race will become an annual event,” says Muddasir Mir, the organiser of the race and owner of the Pine Palace Heritage Hotel, with a hint of a New York accent. “We want the world to see that Gulmarg is a safe place for boarders and skiers.”  

There is no doubt that this little town, 52km from Srinagar, has the potential to become the world’s next adventure ski destination. Winter tourist numbers have tripled in the past three years from just a few hundred to nearly 1,000 this season and are projected to double in 2009. “The number of season tickets sold for Phase II increased by 220 per cent this year,” says avalanche safety expert Brian Newman. “And it’s only going to go up as more people hear about Gulmarg.”

In addition to tourists, the town also buzzes with foreign investors eager to introduce heli-skiing, build hotels, and market the world’s highest lift-accessible ski terrain. “The riding here is too good to be kept a secret,” says Dave Watson, an American skier who was hired by the private outfit, Ski Himalaya, to create a training programme for Kashmiri ski and snowboard guides. “Compared to last year this place has already taken off and next season we will probably host twice the number of tourists we had this year.”

Yet while tourism is bringing money and jobs to the region, there is concern that development is not occurring at a sustainable pace. Some visitors question how the ecosystem in an area with an already inadequate infrastructure will survive— even today Gulmarg lacks adequate running water and proper sanitation. The state government’s plans for building are still unclear, and seem to vary depending on which government or tourism department official you speak to. And as the number of tourists visiting Gulmarg increases, the infrastructure is further strained.

Skiers talk of the best powder runs of their lives followed by an unpleasant ski through the municipal dump, now part of the ski terrain. A stroll between hotels reveals piles of discarded waste, delicacies for the local monkeys. The garbage collected in the winter months is often dumped in the woods by trash collectors or pitched into the local stream by hotel staff. The High Court’s ban on polythene bags is not observed. Without the winter’s snow cover, Gulmarg’s summer tourists are greeted by piles of plastics consisting of grocery and chips bags and discarded water bottles.

Tourism consultant Carin Jodha gave the state’s tourism department his recommendations for eco-friendly development. The plan involved implementing a waste-management system like the one used in Kovalam. The idea was to train hotel staff to segregate, compost, and dispose of trash properly. A similar system could be used in Gulmarg and would provide additional employment for the locals, but nothing seems to have been done about it so far. “Outsourcing the sanitation system to local and international NGOs has been considered but presently no decisions have been made,” says Farooq Lone, chief executive officer of the Gulmarg Development Authority.

Another important step, according to Lone, would be the implementation of the ban on the use of polythene bags. However, rather than immediately implementing an eco-friendly waste management model, the tourism authorities are contemplating building a landfill outside the forest area on the outskirts of Gulmarg.