By Paula Froelich for Newsweek
At first glance, things in Kabul look promising. Emirates Air started flying there in January and the city feels like a boomtown: sidewalks full of pedestrians, semi-paved streets full of cars, half-built buildings everywhere—including a very ambitious Marriott Hotel nestled next to the U.S. Embassy. There is even a huge Olympic compound, which houses an arena and a skate park called Skateistan
[…] “In 2009, the Aga Khan was looking into developing a ski project,” says Ian MacWilliam, a former communications officer for the Aga Khan Development Foundation. “We hired a mountaineering specialist to be a ski consultant, and he and some others started surveying the parallel valleys in the area and talking to the village elders. We tried to tell them it will be like the 1960s with all the tourists. In 2010, the Aga Khan Development Fund produced a guidebook and set up a shop in a local guesthouse. There was some old equipment from some French people, and our first clients were foreigners living in Kabul who needed a break and spent money.”
More On the Slopes in Afghanistan – Newsweek.
Earlier related:
Writing the Guidebook on Ski Touring in Afghanistan
Skiing in Bamiyan, Afghanistan – NYTimes.com
AKDN: Ski Afghanistan: A Backcountry Guide to Bamyan & Band-e-Amir
Ismailimail 