<span style="color: #222222;">Amid the lack of snow in the Kashmir valley due to dry spells, the tourists are making a beeline to Sinthan Top in the mountainous Kishtwar district as the off-beat destination. Being the only place in J&K that is snow-clad these days, scores of tourists are thronging to the Sinthan Top in Kishtwar district. Sinthan Top is a snow-clad mountain peak situated at 12,500 feet connecting Anantnag in south Kashmir to Kishtwar in the Jammu region via Kokernag. The higher reaches of the Kashmir valley, which used to look pristine with a white carpet of snow, are looking barren as most of the glaciers have melted up while the rest of the valley battles with dry weather and is going through one of its worst dry phases. The snow has melted at most places which usually remained covered under a thick blanket of snow for this time of the year. A large number of tourists, who arrived in Srinagar around New Year's Eve in the hope of enjoying skiing and other snow-related activities in the Gulmarg bowl, had to go back disappointed due to the lack of snowfall. Sinthan Top which has retained some amount of snow is providing some solace to the visitors. <br />''<br />''An otherwise off-beat destination, Sinthan Top is attracting tourists in hordes these days as local travel agents redirect the visitors to the spot to experience some snow. The tourists are changing their plans of visiting Kashmir when they heard about snow at Sinthan Top and are enjoying it so much. The tour operators are providing options to the tourists to change their itinerary and go to places like Sinthan Top to see snow. Many tourists are opting to go to Sinthan Top rather than other places in Pahalgam because of the snow there. The tourism players in the valley are worried about the absence of snowfall and the month of January has been a total loss. Experts have said that studies show the glaciers in J&K have dwindled by 25 percent in the last six decades, while 48 percent of them could vanish by the century's end even with moderate climate change. The Meteorological Department said there has been a large deficit in winter snowfall in J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Ladakh this year and the situation is unlikely to change before Republic Day.</span><br />