December 25, 2018
We left Srinagar early and reached Gulmarg by around eleven in the morning — that famous hill town in Kashmir known as the “meadow of flowers,” though in December it turns into something else entirely: a vast white canvas of snow.
Before we set off, our guide had already warned us that Gulmarg’s weather doesn’t go easy on anyone. On his advice, we ended up renting heavy winter clothing, snow-appropriate boots, and a vehicle built to handle the snowbound roads. Looking back, we probably didn’t need quite that much gear — but for a first trip into snow-covered mountains, that extra layer of caution didn’t hurt.
In summer, they call it the meadow of flowers. In December, it forgets its own name and becomes only snow.
After a short rest at the hotel, we headed straight for the cable car. By then the ground around us had turned into a solid stretch of packed snow — white in every direction, as far as we could see. The cable car carried us up, and we stepped out onto the snow-covered mountainside.
Walking there turned out to be as slippery as it was thrilling. We lost our footing more than once on the icy paths, and a couple of falls were unavoidable. But the view made up for every stumble — an endless sweep of snow-draped peaks in every direction, under a sky so clear it almost didn’t feel real. Standing there in a bright orange jacket against all that white was too good a photo opportunity to pass up, and we made sure not to.
After a good long while of wandering around and wrestling — happily — with the snow, we took the cable car back down to the hotel, tired but still somewhere up on that mountain in our heads.
The mountain doesn’t remember you fell. It only remembers that you got up, laughing, and kept walking.
The next morning brought its own surprise. We stepped outside to find the entire town buried under a fresh blanket of overnight snowfall — so much of it that even the hotels around us had blurred into the whiteness, barely distinguishable from one another. We took a short walk through that otherworldly scene and grabbed a few last photographs, because that was the day we had to leave for Pahalgam — Gulmarg behind us, and a new destination ahead.
