‘Ski Festival’, unlike what the name specifies, is an ‘event’ which is carried out yearly at Auli in the state of Uttarakhand. The state holds a skiing championship at National level in the month of February and sees an influx of players both amateurs and professionals from across the globe.
Skiing is a very popular recreational activity and an adventure sport that finds its signature worldwide be it United States, European countries or the Asian region. This is a game which involves the player to move at a tremendous speed while at the same time being grounded. The speeds sometimes exceed even the mark of 50 kmph and thus makes the sport a really risky endeavor, topped with hurdles like that of boulders in between the skiing slope.
There are mainly three popular locations back at India known for their skiing activities- Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir, Manali in Himachal Pradesh and Auli in Uttarakhand.
Out of these three, Auli is the most popular one which lies about 16 kms way from Joshimath. Here, the slopes range from 8400 ft to 10,000 ft, spreading over 3 kms of area. Auli, which also becomes the host to the yearly championship of ‘Ski Festival’, acts as an ultimate platform for players to compete not only at ‘National’ but also ‘International’ level.
Unlike other snow sports, skiing needs sufficient amount of snow and there have been instances in the past when the championship was cancelled on the ground of lack of snow. This time the prospects are very grim for an easy organization of ‘Ski Festival’ owing to the status of snow as there was a large deficiency of any kind of precipitation in Uttarakhand in the month of December. Looking at the records we see, only 1.6 mm of precipitation in December month, as compared to the normal of 21.3 mm (which is deficient by a total of 92%). In January as well, the trend hasn’t reversed, and the state is ‘Largely Deficient’ by 73%. However, a good and prolonged wet spell is expected January 20 to 25 onward which for sure holds some hope for the things to turn out favorable for ‘Ski Festival’.
Image Credits – https://www.thrillophilia.com
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