Firdous Mir

Firdous Mir is one of those rare skiers who makes the most technical terrain look effortless. Years of riding Gulmarg’s varied conditions have given him an instinctive feel for snow and slope that you cannot learn from a textbook. Wind crust, cold smoke, spring mash — he has skied the week’s whole dictionary.

On a guest day he is the skier you want beside you when the light goes flat or the line through trees needs someone who has already made the mistake you are about to make. He reads the mountain the way locals do: not as a resort product, but as a place that changes between breakfast and the last gondola.

At Himalayan Ibex he sits in the guiding and skiing crew that backs the founders. If your week is about skiing well in Kashmir, not only collecting altitude, Firdous is the kind of partner who keeps the standard high without making the day grim.