Kashmir heli-skiing season to take off today

The seventh season of Kashmir Heli-Skiing would start at ski resort of Gulmarg, from January 19 ( Tuesday).

Within seven years of its launch, Heli-Skiing has made Kashmir as one of the preferred destination for skiers across the world.

Launched in 2010 at Gulmarg by the JK Government, Heli-Skiing run by local skier and Director Kashmir Heliski,  Billa Majeed Bakshi has become hit all over the world and has attracted some of the well known extreme skiers and personalities during past years.

Apart from making the virgin turfs of different sections of Gulmarg accessible, the skiers are also able to get access to those peaks and slopes which were out of bounds for the adventure sports lovers previously. The Heli-Skiing group led by Billa conducted survey of the area where they intend to run their operation for about a week and finally decided to launch the season from Tuesday.

“To prolong the season we have launched our operations this season little late than the usual. The other reason for being little late is low amount of snow, though it is still less comparable than what we would have liked, but for us it will work as we operate in high altitude and virgin places of Pirpanjal and Tosamaidan areas,” said Billa.

“The late start will help us to pro-long the season till end of March. Normally we used to wind up in first week or mid March. However, this season we have decided to make it upto end of the March,” he said.

He said that response from the high end extreme skiers is amazing and the company is booked for whole season. “We have got booking for the whole season. It is almost full despite operating with two choppers. All the clients are from West and queries are still coming,” Billa, said.

 Kashmir Heli Ski claims to sport a zero-accident record and it also provides back country skiing and snowboarding facilities in addition to a number of customisable packages.

“Before the launch of the Heli-Skiing we provided professional guided backcountry skiing and snowboarding tours since 1998. We used to take skiers to absolutely untouched terrain without prepared pistes, without crowds when the choppers were yet to be introduced. We know the terrains well and all the local guides with the company are highly trained,” he said.

“The experience has helped us to keep the Heli-Skiing accident free. The skiers trust our capabilities and we are also guided by some of the well known foreign experts. We have six international guides and all of them are well known in adventure sports arena. One of the guides Woody has climbed Mount Everest eight times while other guide Mark has climbed the Everest five times. Others have also climbed the Everest two to three times and all of them have been guiding people to climb the world’s highest peak,” he added.

Apart from foreigners company uses local guides to the perfection and they are led by Billa himself.

Billa has been skiing since he was four years old. He started guiding in Himalayas in 1996 when there was no gondola or ski lift in Gulmarg. He is the first qualified ski guide in India and was the first guide to introduce free riding in Gulmarg. He invited lots of free riders like K2 pro riders Andy Maher, Pep Fujas, Warren Miller, Salomon TV France, Match stick production and many more ski bums to promote Gulmarg. Billa went to New Zealand to study snow science at Otago Polytechnic College and in 2010 Billa started the Kashmir Heliski-Operation in Gulmarg.

Billa claims that Heli-Ski is attracting lot of foreigners to Kashmir.

“Since the start of the Heli-Ski number of well know winter sport lovers and persons associated with the business have thronged Gulmarg. In 2011, world’s best ski film crew Warren Miller from USA, Salomon ski France were our clients.

 In 2012 former International cricketer Jonty Rhodes also did the heli-skiing. Last year there was first ever heli-skiing competition held in Gulmarg that was organized by a chopper company,” he said.

 Pertinently it was Sylvain Sudan in late 70’s to start Heli-Skiing in the Valley and he is known as pioneer of extreme skiing. Known as a ‘skier of the impossible’, for his dare-devil skiing feats in Alps and other peaks in Europe and Asia, the 74-year old Swiss born French Heli-skier Sudan was considered to be instrumental in launching Heli-skiing in Kashmir in late ‘70s.

He continued his date with Kashmir even during the years of conflict by bringing skiers.

However, Sudan stopped coming to Kashmir after his helicopter crashed in a mountain range on way to Sonamarg in 2007.