Skiing courses to begin soon in Gulmarg

Indian Institute of Skiing and Mountaineering (IISM) will conduct six skiing courses in the Kashmir’s famous ski resort at Gulmarg.

“We have planned six ski courses of two weeks each till mid March next year,” Principal of IISM J S Dhillon said, taking the lead amongst all other Skiing institutes in the country .

“The weather has been very kind to give a reasonable fair snowfall in this month which has enabled us to start the training as scheduled,” he further added.

He said the institute has also sponsored local youths free of cost through Army and various other agencies. The number of such sponsored local youth reached to 30 this year.

The IISM has also sponsored two students of Delhi Public School, Srinagar to represent the country in skiing at South Korea while one of the instructor Sandy Ringzin will represent India in South Korea at Winter Games Federation of India, Principal said.

Four local boys from Lohab and another three from Leh are being given advance training in Alpine skiing by the Institute for National and International competitions.

Specialised avalanche preparedness training programme for joint ski-patrol rescuers was imparted by Senior Scientists C Bhan and supported by Coordinator, Disaster Management, Kashmir, Aamir Ali yesterday, an official spokesman said.

As a precautionary measure, Joint search and rescue ski patrol teams comprising members of state Police, Tourism Department, GDA and Cable Car Project have been formed and they will be stationed at Gulmarg and Kongdoori, round the clock to deal with any emergency situation including avalanches.