Srinagar: Riza Alee carves through the fresh powder on the upper slopes of Gulmarg calmly. As he glides past a bend, the scene jars — heaps of plastic bottles, food wrappers, and discarded packaging lie half-buried in the snow.
Alee, a mountaineer and snowboarder, pulls out his phone and begins recording. “Now, we shouldn’t complain: Why is it not snowing in Kashmir?” he posts the video on his social media with this message.
Posted on his social media handles, the clip quickly circulates, striking a nerve in Kashmir’s winter sports community and beyond.
Athletes, environmentalists, and adventure enthusiasts share it widely, using Alee’s message to draw attention to the growing ecological stress on Gulmarg — Kashmir’s premier winter destination — at a time when the region is already grappling with an alarming snow drought.
Alee said he comes through such scenes as he camps in Gulmarg for snowboarding. “I come across such places with garbage everywhere. Even on the higher reaches where very few people visit, garbage is found. It shouldn’t happen. Everywhere in Europe, with such topography, is preserved,” he said.
This winter, most of Kashmir has been snowless so far, disrupting tourism, agriculture, and water supplies. Locals and experts alike warn that shrinking snow cover is no longer an anomaly but part of a troubling pattern linked to climate change.
The problem is not confined to Gulmarg. Rameez Raja, another vlogger, recently highlighted similar scenes from Sonamarg, a gateway to some of Kashmir’s most iconic glaciers and alpine meadows. His footage shows plastic wraps and bottles strewn along trails and riverbanks, carried by wind and meltwater into fragile ecosystems.
In many videos, even the tourists have highlighted the polluted areas in various tourist destinations of Kashmir.
Recently, MLA Gulmarg Pirzada Farooq Ahmad Shah said the government has chalked out a comprehensive waste management plan, including the setting up of around 15 solid and liquid waste management plants at a cost of nearly Rs 40 crore in Gulmarg.