Kashmir is a place of beautiful simplicity and pristine natural beauty, and is painted with a unique culture that keeps tourists intrigued throughout their journey. Kashmir’s mountains always charm people and men are smitten to scale up the steepest of peaks to be one with nature. In a host of Himalayan countries mountain tourism contributes a great deal to the GDP, but unfortunately in Kashmir tourism is going through worst crisis in last two decades. The peaks of the mountain deliver Kashmir a completely unique charm making it extra attractive than Switzerland. Our mountains have a remarkable geophysical significance. Even the peaks of Kashmir’s mountains remain blanketed with snow in the course of the 12 months.
Kashmir was known as a trekking heaven and many trekking enthusiasts in Europe had it on top of their priority list in the 80s. The trekking tourism died a sure death in 90’s due to the situation. There were few tourists and very few would dare to trek mountains. In the early half of the 21st century many trekking enthusiasts in their early twenties took to mountaineering as a part time profession but sooner observing the career prospects in trekking made it their full time profession. These trekking enthusiasts took to the social networking sites to post about their love for mountains attracting attention of trekkers all across the world. Sooner, trekkers started flocking the valley and scaled the mountain peaks.
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The enthusiasm shown by these trekking enthusiasts who are now full time professionals has rejuvenated the trekking tourism in valley. The government can play a proactive role by training more and more youths in this regard as trek guides. The government should start spoken language courses in German, Spanish and Italian languages so that we are able to woo trekkers from these regions also. It is a matter of some years that Kashmir would again be on the priority list of all trekkers across Europe. Since the situation is improving in Kashmir it is time for the unemployed youth to take up mountaineering as a full time profession. There is money, fame, exposure and health to be gained from Trekking tourism. Let us pack our bags and start trekking.
