How to Save Kashmir

Every breath came wheezing out of me, like an asthmatic in trouble. My legs felt like lead and though it was cold and windy, my clothes were damp with sweat. “Only 30 minutes more,” Qasim Wani, my much older and fitter forest-guard friend and guide said. What he never added was that the kilometre-long trudge to our next rest stop, Sangargulu in Upper Dachigam, 4000 metres above sea level, was almost straight up!

Himalayan paradise
We had walked for five straight hours, starting from the lower reaches of Kashmir’s Dachigam 
National Park, roughly following the course of the Himalayan glacier-fed Dagwan River up to its source. I had come to know and love this crystal mountain stream well. It sustained an incredible diversity of plants and animals before pouring its mineral aqua into Srinagar’s famed Dal Lake. Without the Dagwan, the health and economy of Srinagar would be at risk, I thought to myself as I paused, frequently, to take in the sight of black bears, yellow-throated martens, Dachigam’s highly endangered hangul deer, Hanuman langur monkeys and the throb of multi-hued insects all around. And, my word… the birds! Red-billed blue magpies, redstarts, orioles and woodpeckers combined with warblers to set up an orchestra, providing a welcome mist-laden breather from the leg-after-leg goat-track hike that stole my breath away.

Like leaves of a book, every 1000 metres or so, new stories unfolded as the natural canvas changed. 
Verdant chinar, oak and walnut groves gave way to higher-elevation forests of silver birch and conifers where spiders and saw-scaled vipers shared silent space in the dark root-hollows of ancient trees. Above the tree line, amidst junipers and one of our planet’s most spectacular wildflower fields in Sangargulu, 
I momentarily caught my breath, lay down and slept for a while.

I awoke renewed, to the buzz of bees. In the distance I heard a shrill whistle… the promise of marmot sightings lay ahead. Above me