Skiing in Afghanistan – it's one hour up and two minutes down — theguardian.com

“I am like a mountain goat!” says 24-year-old Ali Shah Farhang, smiling broadly. “When I was very young, I would walk for five hours every day to school and back, five hours across the peaks in all kinds of weather: minus 20 degrees, through deep snow, all on my own. These mountains are in my blood.” The vibrant young Afghan is sharing the story of his rapid rise to sporting glory as we sit in bright, spring sunshine, drinking green chai from a battered thermos. We’re high up on a hillside by the crumbling shell of a hotel, looking out across the valley towards the towering Buddha niches of Bamiyan, in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan.

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