Russ Juskalian for The New York Times. A skier in a backcountry section of the Gulmarg area.

Our friends at the New York Times appear to agree with our friend CJ that the place to be this ski season is Kashmir. Click the image to go to the story in the Travel section of Sunday’s edition:

The risks of a ski trip to Kashmir? Security, avalanches and the altitude. The rewards? Perfect powder, an absence of crowds and staggering Himalayan beauty.

…“Jon and I had come to Gulmarg in the Jammu and Kashmir region of northern India for a reason that, given the area’s militant history and lack of reliable infrastructure, might sound a bit absurd: to go skiing,” Russ Juskalian wrote in The New York Times.

We came for perfect powder, an absence of crowds and serene, stunning Himalayan beauty — as seen from the world’s highest-altitude gondola-serviced ski runs,” Mr. Juskalian wrote. “Those runs top out, dizzyingly, at more than 13,000 feet.”

This part of the Kashmir region, just miles from the disputed Line of Control that divides India from Pakistan, “remains heavily militarized,” but apparently all this doesn’t stop travelers, he wrote…

To read the whole story, click on the image above.