Amassive sea of water must have burst out of the Himalayas on a path of destruction when, suddenly, a magic wand froze it into a cascading, glittering mass of ice—and it stayed there forever.
This is how visitors feel when they see the Pindari glacier, 3km long and 365m wide, close to Mt Nanda Khat. This magical ice sculpture that never melts completely, 3,820m above sea level, is the final destination of a popular trek in Uttarakhand.
Trekkers struggle through expansive meadows, damp jungles and loose gravel, slip and slide on transparent ice for five days over 45km to reach zero point. They leave quickly as the loose, crumbling mountains surrounding the glacier are too dangerous to linger on.
The glacier is one of approximately 15,000 in the Himalayas and is in the vicinity of Mt Nanda Devi, named after the goddess Durga, one of the tallest peaks in India at 7,816m above sea level.
Somewhere on top of the glacier lies a slippery route for professional mountaineers even as the bottom drips water into the Pindar river meandering down a deep valley to merge with the Alaknanda river.
The Himalayas look lonesome, though the passage to Pindari is well-trodden by trekkers on their way to the icy glacier. But they have different reasons for being in the harsh outdoors, where the climate can change from sunny to stormy to hostile in hours.
Jay Kutchins from Chicago, US, dressed skimpily with just a little backpack, has been jobless since the economic downturn of 2008. A Russian couple wants to expose their five-month-old baby Lev to the land of yogis. A class of schoolchildren, all in their early teens, is on an environmental trip to pick up non-biodegradable waste.
Most poignant is the case of Tobias Kost from Stuttgart, Germany, who has come to Loharkhet, the village from where the trek begins, in memory of his father. Peter Kost died in 2000 on his way to Pindari, suffering a cardiac arrest just 9km into the trek.
“I have come here for memories,” says Tobias, accompanied by his mother Heiderose.
Peter Kost’s memorial stone, placed prominently in a lush meadow en route, reads “Your paradise is here”, and moves trekkers to place little wild flowers on it. They didn’t know him, but they understand his struggle.
livemint.com
This is how visitors feel when they see the Pindari glacier, 3km long and 365m wide, close to Mt Nanda Khat. This magical ice sculpture that never melts completely, 3,820m above sea level, is the final destination of a popular trek in Uttarakhand.
Trekkers struggle through expansive meadows, damp jungles and loose gravel, slip and slide on transparent ice for five days over 45km to reach zero point. They leave quickly as the loose, crumbling mountains surrounding the glacier are too dangerous to linger on.
The glacier is one of approximately 15,000 in the Himalayas and is in the vicinity of Mt Nanda Devi, named after the goddess Durga, one of the tallest peaks in India at 7,816m above sea level.
Somewhere on top of the glacier lies a slippery route for professional mountaineers even as the bottom drips water into the Pindar river meandering down a deep valley to merge with the Alaknanda river.
The Himalayas look lonesome, though the passage to Pindari is well-trodden by trekkers on their way to the icy glacier. But they have different reasons for being in the harsh outdoors, where the climate can change from sunny to stormy to hostile in hours.
Jay Kutchins from Chicago, US, dressed skimpily with just a little backpack, has been jobless since the economic downturn of 2008. A Russian couple wants to expose their five-month-old baby Lev to the land of yogis. A class of schoolchildren, all in their early teens, is on an environmental trip to pick up non-biodegradable waste.
Most poignant is the case of Tobias Kost from Stuttgart, Germany, who has come to Loharkhet, the village from where the trek begins, in memory of his father. Peter Kost died in 2000 on his way to Pindari, suffering a cardiac arrest just 9km into the trek.
“I have come here for memories,” says Tobias, accompanied by his mother Heiderose.
Peter Kost’s memorial stone, placed prominently in a lush meadow en route, reads “Your paradise is here”, and moves trekkers to place little wild flowers on it. They didn’t know him, but they understand his struggle.
livemint.com
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