Cold Play

Ever thought of climbing a Himalayan mountain and sledding down it? Neither had Erik Fearn until he saw an opportunity to shred the biggest Super-G’s of his life, lying on his stomach.

It sounded like a good idea at the time: go climb a mountain in the Himalayas, find a massive snowy couloir and sled down it.

A year later, I found myself standing at the top of a snowy incline so high and steep that I could barely see through the swirling clouds below, making the Indian village of Gulmarg nearly 2,000m below me seem dream-like. It looked, and felt, like the edge of the world - finis terra. All over the world today, people would be dragging themselves to work, stuck in traffic jams, wreathed in exhaust smoke. And I was going to drop into a 60+ degree avalanche-prone snow-chute with nary a bottom in sight. I stifled a scream.

Todd, my American sledding partner, was standing, hands-on-hip, taking in the impossibly beautiful scene before us: The legendary Vale of Kashmir in India’s disputed north, was spread out in from of, and 3,000m below us, guarded by steep mountains on all sides.

Todd shot me a relieved ‘I’m-glad-you’re-going-first’ look as I slowly adjusted my gaiters and gloves. The thin air at 4,150m up was making my nervous breathing raspy and short. It didn’t help that the icy midday - minus 20C - was making my hands numb and stiff. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

These days, adventure of some genre can be found at every turn, yet very little of it is of the pioneering kind. Think about it: when was the last time you replaced good sense with near-imbecilic audacity, and laughed in the face of self-preservation to be the first to discover a thrill-ride that left you bug-eyed and slightly trembling for days?

Last summer, a Swiss company named Airboard asked me to test-drive their revolutionary speed-sleds in the most adverse conditions I could find. In the end, Kashmir, which turns into one giant snowdrift in winter, seemed the perfect outdoors lab.

A few years ago, the good people at Airboard designed a slick-hulled, puncture resistant, inflatable fun-machine (with handles and leash) that has taken Europe’s and New Zealand’s Alps by storm.

Because these sleds have a flat, ribbed hull instead of more traditional runners, they don’t sink in waist-deep fresh powder, and have become the weapon of choice among the world’s off-piste powder hounds. Oh, and you lie face-first on them and steer by dragging your feet as you reach terminal endorph-ocity.