Snow-capped mountains turn adventure hotspots, India’s warming up to winter sports

As more Indians hit the slopes, we explore the rise in skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand

At the age of five, when Aanchal Thakur started skiing, she used wooden planks made from a walnut tree for skis. With no equipment available in India, it was only at the age of seven that Aanchal — the first Indian woman to have won six medals at FIS (The Fédération Internationale de Ski) alpine ski competitions — was introduced to actual gear in 2003, brought by her father from a trip to Japan. “I got discarded equipment for her and others,” says former general secretary of Winter Games Federation of India, Roshan Lal Thakur, who is also one of the few ski equipment importers in India.

A lot has changed. Cut to 2023. The mighty, snow-clad peaks of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand are playing host to an increasing number of tourists and professionals wanting to hone their skills in skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and snowshoeing. Professionally too, winter games have gained popularity, with the first edition of national-level Khelo India Winter Sports being held in 2020.

Winter sports kept Kashmir tourism afloat to some extent in the pandemic year. Shabir Ahmad Dar, who has been running the Gulmarg Snow School since 2016, says his company received the highest number of tourists for skiing and snowboarding this season. Enrollments rose from 187 in 2019 to 310 in 2022, he says. “Most tourists have shown interest in alpine skiing. People from Mumbai contribute to a significant chunk of tourists,” Dar adds. According to government data, Kashmir got a record number of 1.62 crore tourists this season.

As per Uttarakhand’s Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam report on ‘Progress of Ski Training Program’, 286 tourists enrolled for ski courses during January, February and March of 2015-16. The number rose to 346 in December, January, February and March of 2019-20. Col Ashwin Pundir, additional chief executive officer (adventure tourism), Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board, says, “Last year, the first snowshoeing competition was held in Auli, even tourists took part in it.” 

Jyothi Purohit (@gullytrotter), a solo traveller and digital content creator from Hyderabad, tried skiing for the first time on her visit to Gulmarg a couple of weeks ago. “To begin with, trying an activity on snow is exciting. I would love do it again,” she says. Jyothi did a one day class as she was short on time. “I have promised myself to go back and learn both skiing and snowboarding,” she says.

Apart from private companies, government institutes — like The Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering and Winter Sports (JIM&WS), Pahalgam, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute Of Mountaineering And Allied Sports, Manali, Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM), Uttarkashi, and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute (HMI), Darjeeling — also train tourists.

Bhavani Thekkada Nanjunda, who hails from Kodagu in Karnataka, became India’s first woman to have won an international medal in cross-country skiing last month. She won a silver medal at Raiffeisen Langlauf Cup in Italy and qualified for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, which will be held in Slovenia in February this year.