In a tragic incident, two Polish skiers had to pay with their lives after an avalanche struck Afarwat peak in Gulmarg on February 1. A video shot moments after a huge wall of snow started sliding down the mountain shows a group of men rushing towards the site while screaming that the avalanche had struck and the foreigners were trapped. After a long rescue operation, the bodies of two Polish skiers identified as Krzysltof and Adam Grzech were retrieved from a mountain of snow while 21 other skiers from Poland and Russia were rescued. This is not the first time that such a tragedy has taken place in Gulmarg. While its slopes offer some of the best powder found anywhere in the world, the lack of advanced rescue gear and a painfully slow rescue operation often proves costly. On top of it, the skiers often ignore the advisory issued by a very competent technical team based in Gulmarg. In this case too, it seems that the avalanche warning unit had already flagged concern about the impending tragedy around the Hapatkhud area of Mount Afarwat which is not groomed. There is always a degree of risk associated with sports. While some sports options like badminton and tennis are a little less dangerous, others, especially adventure sports like skiing and snowboarding always carry a degree of threat for the participants. While there is a lot of adventure for a skier in taking new, uncharted paths and a lot of adrenaline flows, there is also a significant amount of risk in getting involved in such adventures. The Hapatkhud area in Gulmarg, where the latest tragedy struck, was declared off-limits by the avalanche warning unit, which implies that if a snow avalanche gets triggered, it will not only impact those who are responsible for pulling the trigger but also those who are in lower reaches and others. Besides, as is communicated to the skiers in advance, rescue operations are painfully slow in Gulmarg due to equipment and other technical shortcomings. A thorough professional sports person would weigh the pros and cons of venturing into such a situation before taking the final plunge. It seems that the group of skiers who were swept away by the avalanche were thorough professionals. They must have considered the options before them. However, destiny had something else in store for them. For the others, there is a lesson that one bad decision can prove very costly. And nothing is more precious than human life.