Our Guides

Shafat Ahmad Tantray founded Gulmarg Snowkings and leads its backcountry guiding programme. He learned to ski at four or five years old in Babareshi, his home village below Gulmarg, on wooden skis his father made by hand, and began his career in the resort as a porter, because at the time no route into professional instruction existed for a local skier.

He holds AIARE Level 1 and Level 2 avalanche safety certification, has repeated the training with Avalanche Canada, and continues it with the Kashmir Avalanche Association. He has guided Mt. Apharwat and the surrounding backcountry since 2010, when a group of Australian and Irish skiers booked him directly, and now leads between 100 and 150 skiers through that terrain each season. He teaches in English, Hindi, Kashmiri and Urdu.

Bashir Ahmad Mir co-founded Gulmarg Snowkings and works as lead ski guide and senior instructor. He began skiing at ten and has spent every winter since on snow. He is widely regarded as one of the most technically accomplished skiers in Gulmarg and has represented the resort in freeride competitions across India.

He completed Avalanche Canada Level 1 and Level 2 in 2019 and continues his avalanche education with the Kashmir Avalanche Association. Alongside guiding, he is known for his patience as an instructor, working as readily with first-time skiers as with advanced clients on steep terrain. He also runs much of the day-to-day organisation behind Gulmarg Snowkings, and teaches in English, Hindi, Kashmiri and Urdu.

Mohd Shafi has guided backcountry terrain in Gulmarg since 2002, working these slopes before the Gondola's upper stage changed how skiers reach Apharwat, when the high terrain was earned on foot. Route selection is what he is known for: matching a line to the day's snowpack, the weather window and the ability of the group behind him, and being willing to say the answer is a different aspect entirely.

He is trained through Avalanche Canada and the Kashmir Avalanche Association, and is one of the guides the rest of the team has learned from rather than the other way around.

Waseem Hassan Rather has been training guests at Gulmarg Snowkings for more than ten years and joined the backcountry team in 2021. Alongside skiing he works as a professional mountaineering guide, and that background shapes how he runs a day: systems first, margins built in, nothing improvised that could have been planned.

Within the team he is as much a mentor as an instructor, and newer instructors take their professional habits from him. Guests consistently describe him as unhurried, which is usually the mark of someone who has already worked through the next three decisions. It is a rare combination.

Shabir Reshi was upgraded to backcountry ski guide by Gulmarg Snowkings in 2019, after several seasons on the instruction side. He holds Level 1 and Level 2 avalanche certification from Avalanche Canada and has volunteered on multiple avalanche rescues in the Gulmarg area, which is not experience most guides anywhere actually have.

He teaches in fluent English, Hindi, Urdu and Kashmiri, which makes him one of the easiest instructors to book for a mixed international and domestic group. He has worked with more than a thousand clients so far. He is young for the certification and rescue experience he carries.

Irfan Ahmad Sheikh has competed at both state and national level ski championships, and that racing background is usually visible within a run or two of skiing behind him. He is the instructor we assign to intermediate and advanced clients: skiers who can already get down the mountain and want to understand why their turns fall apart on steeper, faster or heavier snow.

He trained in avalanche safety directly with Shafat Ahmad Tantray and works as a backcountry guide as well. He books out months ahead, so reserve early rather than asking on arrival. January and February dates fill first.

Sajad Wani's reputation inside the team is for responsibility. He teaches at the pace the client is genuinely comfortable at rather than the pace a lesson plan suggests, and he notices the things that quietly ruin a ski day: boots done up wrong, someone getting cold and not saying so, a guest pushing harder than they want to.

His method of instruction is built on reading the individual in front of him rather than running a fixed sequence. He works as tail guide, the position responsible for everyone at the back of the line. He is progressing toward lead guiding.

Known across Gulmarg as Gul Sir, Gulzar Ahmad Tantray has close to thirty years on snow and has spent most of them teaching. In a typical winter he takes well over a hundred students, most of them complete beginners, to the point where they can ski confidently on their own.

His teaching is disciplined and structured, and he does not skip steps. Where a lot of instruction drifts toward whatever the student feels like doing on the day, Gulzar runs a genuine progression, with nothing moving on until the previous piece holds up under pressure. Beginners taught that way are noticeably more solid a season later. He teaches in Hindi, Kashmiri and Urdu.

Nisar Ahmad was teaching in Gulmarg before Gulmarg Snowkings existed and joined the team six years ago, after building a career on this mountain independently. He is one of the most senior instructors on the roster and has trained more than a thousand people.

What he is most requested for is group handling. A ten-person mixed-ability group is where most instructors either lose the strong skiers to boredom or leave the weakest one behind. Nisar keeps a large group moving as a group, which is why he is assigned corporate bookings, school parties and extended families. Nobody gets left behind.

Arshid Shaikh has been skiing in Gulmarg since the 1990s and instructing for Gulmarg Snowkings since 2015. In a normal season he takes roughly a hundred skiers from their first day on snow through to advanced terrain, a heavy teaching load by any ski school's standard and one he has sustained for a decade.

He is known inside the team for how hard he works: on the hill early, never cutting a lesson short. He covers the full ability range, which makes him useful for groups whose real levels only emerge on the snow. He is strongest over multi-day blocks.

Known on the mountain as Western Guide, Anaytullah Khan has been instructing in Gulmarg for more than eight years and is one of the most naturally gifted teachers on the team. Breaking a movement down so that someone who has never worn ski boots can feel what you mean is a separate discipline from skiing well, and it is his.

He does not get frustrated at the fifth repetition of the same mistake, and the tone of a lesson stays positive even on a cold, flat-light day when progress is hard to find. Nervous adult beginners are where he excels.

Baidar Ahmad has been instructing in Gulmarg for around ten years and is one of the core members of Gulmarg Snowkings. He has trained more than five hundred guests, though the more telling number is his rebooking rate: an unusually high proportion of his clients ask for him again on their next trip.

He is calm to the point of being unflappable, a technical asset on a mountain where the weather changes fast. He teaches the full range, from first-timers through to advanced skiers working on off-piste technique. Consistency across several days is what returning guests keep booking him for.

Basharat Ahmad Tantray is the person the rest of the team calls the backbone of Gulmarg Snowkings, and his particular ability is making a first-time skier stop being frightened. That is harder than it sounds. Most people arriving for a first lesson are managing some combination of cold, unfamiliar equipment, altitude and the reasonable suspicion that they are about to fall over in front of strangers.

He is patient, cheerful and consistently encouraging, and he never lets a nervous student feel they are holding anyone up. Returning guests request him by name, often specifically for a partner or a parent who is anxious about trying.

Aqib Lone joined Gulmarg Snowkings when the whole operation was fewer than ten people, and he has taught under its name ever since. Almost every instructor now on the roster arrived after him.

That matters beyond seniority. The standards the ski school runs on today, how lessons are structured, how clients are handed between instructors, and what is acceptable on a bad-visibility day, were set by the small group he was part of. He teaches right through the season rather than appearing only for the peak weeks. Guests booking with Aqib are booking the longest working history inside the company.

Shabir Shaikh has been with Gulmarg Snowkings for eight years, and the word used about him internally is loyal, in the sense that matters on a mountain: he is where he said he would be, when he said he would be there, with the client he said he would take.

Ski instruction across a busy season runs on that kind of reliability far more than it runs on flair. He works as both an instructor and a guide, and is trusted with clients who need someone genuinely attentive. Multi-day bookings are where that kind of reliability matters most of all.

Rais Ahmad Ganai is a ski instructor and mountaineer, and he speaks fluent English, Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi and Kashmiri, the widest language range on the team.

He teaches through drills. Where some instructors coach by feel and demonstration, Rais builds sessions around specific exercises targeting specific faults, with close attention to core strength and body position, because much of what looks like a technique problem in skiing is a stability problem. He is the strictest instructor on the roster, and it is why his clients improve visibly faster across a week. Plateaued intermediates tend to start moving again under him.

Shahid Shafi is a national-level athlete and has taught Gulmarg Snowkings clients since 2021, but what he is unmatched at on this team is younger skiers. Children and teenagers settle with him within minutes, which is a specific and rare skill: teaching a young skier has less to do with technical knowledge than with keeping a small person warm, engaged and unafraid for two hours.

Parents booking family trips ask for him by name. His own skiing is at competition standard, so he is equally capable with adults. Family bookings that include children are almost always assigned to him first.

Waseem Bhat works as a ski coach as well as an instructor, and the distinction shows in how he structures a lesson: a stated goal, a progression toward it, and a check at the end of whether the goal was met. He has been teaching for seven years and has competed in multiple state-level games, including skiing.

Group teaching is his strength, keeping several skiers of different abilities genuinely occupied instead of parking the quick ones while the slowest catches up. His method is known among instructors across Gulmarg. Athletic guests who want coaching rather than escorting suit him best.

Anayat Mir has close to twenty years of teaching behind him and joined Gulmarg Snowkings in 2021. He became one of the team's most appreciated instructors quickly, which is unusual for someone arriving mid-career into an established group.

The reason is that he adapts. Every lesson is built around the pace of the person in front of him rather than a fixed plan, and he attends to each individual in a group rather than teaching to the average. That is precisely what family lessons require. Private coaching and family groups are where his adaptability is most obvious, and most useful.

Abbas Ahmad Tantray built his whole skiing career inside Gulmarg Snowkings, from his own first lessons through to instructing, and has more than eight years of teaching experience. Guests who return year after year tend to know his name.

Within the team he is called the Child Specialist, and it is not a joke title. Working with young children on snow requires a different set of instincts from working with adults: shorter sessions, more warmth, more play, and an accurate read on when a child is genuinely finished for the day rather than cold and needing ten minutes indoors. He is calm enough that anxious parents relax as well.

Gowhar Ju has been with Gulmarg Snowkings for six years and is booked repeatedly for one reason: his clients progress fast. Some of that is his own skiing, which is at athlete standard. Most of it is that he does not let a lesson drift.

Terrain gets harder as soon as the client is ready for it rather than at the end of the week, and guests routinely ski runs on day three they had not expected to reach. He is also one of the instructors the team trusts with groups. Fit, confident learners get the most out of him.

Shabir Rather teaches both skiing and snowboarding, which makes him one of the few instructors on the team a mixed group can book together. He has been teaching for around eight years and joined Gulmarg Snowkings in 2019.

He speaks good English and is known for a calm manner, which counts for more in snowboard instruction than most people expect. The first two days of learning to snowboard involve a great deal of falling over, and Shabir does not rush that stage or make anyone feel slow for being in it. Mixed ski and snowboard groups can book him together.

Jahangir Ahmad began his instructing career at Gulmarg Snowkings in 2019 and has never worked under any other name. He skis more than sixty days in a normal season, a serious figure even for a professional, and a good share of that is on his own time.

That is the point about him. Some instructors ski because it is the job. Jahangir takes the job because it is more time on snow, and enthusiasm on a cold, flat-light afternoon is difficult to manufacture and easy to recognise when it is real. He teaches beginner and intermediate skiers through the season.

Owais Ahmad is the gentlest instructor on the team, and that is a professional description rather than a soft one. He listens properly, which sounds trivial until you have had a lesson with someone who does not.

A beginner saying they are fine while visibly not fine is an ordinary moment in ski teaching, and the instructor who hears the second thing rather than the first is the one whose client returns the next day. Client satisfaction is explicitly how he measures his own work. Anxious beginners, older guests and skiers returning after a long gap do well with him.

Syed Arif is one of the newest appointments to the instructor team, though new applies only to the role. He has been skiing since childhood and came to formal instruction in his late twenties, taking lessons in teaching method after years of already being able to ski, a route that tends to produce instructors who still remember what learning felt like.

His own riding is freeride, and powder skiing is what he most enjoys teaching, which is not the same job as teaching on piste. Skiing deep snow well means unlearning several of the things that work on hard snow.

Kamran has been skiing since childhood and joined Gulmarg Snowkings in 2021. He is among the most-reviewed and most-requested instructors on the team this season, and now one of its most skilled.

He is also training directly with Shafat Ahmad Tantray, which is a deliberate arrangement rather than an incidental one. It is how the company moves its strongest younger instructors toward guiding: the technical skiing first, then the decision-making, then the mountain itself. He works most often with beginners and intermediates. Intermediates working on technique are where he is strongest, and his progression through the levels has been quick.

Furqan Mushtaq has a few years of teaching behind him rather than a decade, and he is the fastest-improving instructor on the team. His skiing is strong, his professionalism runs well ahead of his years in the job, and he takes coaching from the senior guides seriously rather than defensively, which is the best single predictor of how good an instructor eventually becomes.

Shafat Ahmad Tantray rates him highly for that reason. Not because he is the most experienced person here, but because he is visibly better each season than the one before. He teaches beginners and intermediates and works on the youth training side.

Danish Naik has been on skis since he was five years old and took every one of his instructor courses through Gulmarg Snowkings, qualifying as a junior instructor in 2023. He teaches under the supervision of a senior instructor, which is exactly how it should work and is worth stating plainly rather than hiding.

A supervised junior instructor is not a lesser product. It is a lesson delivered by someone with a fresh, closely-checked technical foundation, with a senior instructor accountable for it. He is moving up the levels quickly and works most often with beginners, children and young teenagers.