Gulmarg Gondola, booked properly

Written by Sweet Escapes Tours & Travels, J&K Tourism registered travel agent (reg. no. JKEA00003236). Facts last checked 14 September 2026.

The cabin leaves the station quietly, and the ground drops away faster than you expect. Pines thin out below you, then stop altogether. Somewhere around the halfway mark the noise of Gulmarg — ponies, tea stalls, the man renting boots — fades out completely, and what replaces it is a kind of ringing silence with wind in it. Most people stop talking around here. Then the cabin swings gently at a tower, and the whole Pir Panjal range opens up on your right.

It is the best hour in Kashmir, and a remarkable number of people miss it because of a ticket. Not the price of the ticket — the mechanics of it. Every week, families drive ninety minutes up from Srinagar, arrive at the station, and find there is nothing to buy.

This is how it actually works.

What the gondola is, and the two phases

The Gulmarg Gondola is a cable car that climbs the flank of Apharwat in two separate stages, and it is one of the highest of its kind anywhere.

Phase 1 runs from Gulmarg, at roughly 2,650 m, up to Kongdoori — a little over 3,000 m. It takes you above the treeline into a broad bowl of a valley. In summer it is green and full of wildflowers and grazing horses; in winter it is a snowfield with a handful of stalls selling tea.

Phase 2 continues from Kongdoori to about 3,980 m on Kongdoori Mountain, a shoulder of Apharwat Peak itself. This is the serious one. There is snow on the ground at the top for most of the year, the air is noticeably thinner, and the view runs out towards the peaks along the line of control. Phase 2 is also what the skiers ride.

The one thing to get right: book online, on the official site

Tickets are sold through the J&K Cable Car Corporation's own online system. Plan your day on the basis that there is no counter to walk up to.

The corporation names its own booking domain as etickets.jammukashmircablecar.com, and puts a warning beside it telling tourists to book online and not to fall prey to touts. Type that address rather than tapping the first result you see — the advertisements above the real listing are resellers, some of them perfectly functional agents charging a margin, some of them considerably less than that.

You log in with a mobile number and an OTP. The official system emails you a ticket with a QR code on it. If what you have received is a WhatsApp message with a screenshot in it, you have bought from somebody else.

Your ticket has a time on it

This is the detail that catches people who have booked correctly and still lose the ride. The gondola runs in timed slots, not open boarding. Your ticket is valid for the slot printed on it, and arriving two hours later because lunch ran long does not work.

Build the day backwards from that slot. Srinagar to Gulmarg is about 50 km and takes roughly an hour and a half in ordinary conditions — longer after snow, longer again on a weekend in May when everyone else has had the same idea. Then add the walk from the car park, and the queue at the station, which is real.

A mid-morning slot is the sweet spot. Early slots mean leaving Srinagar in the dark; late-afternoon slots run the risk that the wind picks up and the upper phase closes before you get to it.

What it costs

We are not going to print a number here, and you should be wary of pages that do. The corporation does not publish a public fare table — the price appears in the booking flow itself, and it is revised from time to time. Every "₹X for Phase 1" you find in a blog post is somebody's memory of a receipt.

What is stable is the shape of it: two phases, priced separately, with Phase 2 charged in addition to Phase 1 rather than instead of it. Budget for both per person, expect it to be modest for what it is, and read the real figure on the booking page before you pay.

If an agent quotes you a fare well above what the portal charges, that gap is their margin, not the government's price.

When the day you want is sold out

In peak season — the snow weeks of January and February, and the family rush from late April through June — slots go days ahead. If the calendar shows nothing, you have two options and one of them is better than it sounds.

The first is simply to move the gondola to a different day of your trip. This is why we build Gulmarg into an itinerary as a flexible day rather than a fixed one.

The second is the tatkal release: a late block of seats put on sale for the following day. It is reported to open at 5pm and to be gone within about five minutes, with a limited number of Phase 1 and Phase 2 seats in it. Be on the page before it opens, logged in, with your details already filled. It is a genuine second chance. It is not a plan.

Weather closes it, and that is not a fault

The gondola suspends operations in high wind and heavy snow, and Phase 2 closes more readily than Phase 1 because the ridge is exposed. This is a cable car at 4,000 m; the days it stops are the days you would not have enjoyed it anyway.

A weather closure is normally refunded. Missing your own slot is not the same thing and normally is not. That distinction is worth carrying in your head on the morning you are running late.

What to actually take up there

• Warm layers, even in June. It can be 25°C in Srinagar and near freezing on the ridge. The temperature difference is the single most underestimated thing about this ride.
• Sunglasses. Snow at altitude throws back an astonishing amount of light, and an afternoon of squinting turns into a headache.
• Sunscreen. Same reason. People come down from Apharwat burnt in February.
• Shoes that can be wet. There is meltwater and slush at the top for much of the year. Boots and jackets can be hired in Gulmarg village, below the station, usually more cheaply than at the base.
• Time, if you have any breathing trouble. Phase 2 gains altitude quickly. Walk slowly at the top, and if you have a heart or lung condition, treat Phase 1 as the destination.

The mistakes worth avoiding

• Driving up without a ticket and expecting to buy one.
• Booking Phase 2 for a slot so late that wind has time to close it.
• Paying an advertisement that sits above the official site.
• Planning the gondola for your departure morning, with a flight after it.
• Bringing a family up to Apharwat with nobody in a warm coat.

Get the ticket right and the rest of the day takes care of itself. You will be up there for maybe an hour and a half. You will remember it considerably longer than that.

If you would rather not manage the timings around everything else, this is exactly the sort of thing we fold into a Kashmir tour package — the Gulmarg day gets planned around the slot, with a car that knows how long the road takes.