SHERAGHAT ON SARAJU RIVER ( Like Frankfurt am Meins)

SHERAGHAT is a tiny place on the Bank of Saraju river. It has few huts, on both sides of the road, selling essential things for the villages spread around in the Hills. People get down from the bus to have a cup of tea, hot Pakodas and boiled eggs too. It has been always our stopping point, after a nerve breaking drive, ( with few Rum stops)  on our way to Choukari from Almora. This place has some emotional attachment thats all. You may pass through the place without realizing.

I am posting here few photos and marked the locations of the photos on it. 

You can see the Saraju river flowing down. A tributary joins on the left. The road from Almora comes from the right bank, crosses the bridge and goes to Berinag. The tributary has a foot bridge. ( Please read the note on the map below.)

The Sheraghat Bridge on Saraju river. Someone is already on the bridge and I am going on to the bridge on the left.

The upstream of the river as seen from the bridge. 

The down stream, a cremation is going on, you can hear the people crying. The bridge faraway is the foot bridge on the tributary. It is almost late afternoon and  trees are casting long shadows and time for the Leopards to get up.

Two people are sitting on the foot bridge and watching the cremation.

This photo was taken seconds before the blue atired girl vanished from the bridge, (on the left).( I mean, she did not fall from the bridge, just left.)

I saw her at the bus stop sometime back and she was quite pretty.. People normally hurry back before evening due to Leopards, who come out for hunting at dusk, They generally don't eat human beings, but love to eat dogs.

This is one of the rare trips, we ( we 2 brothers) , had allowed our wives to come along..My tea is waiting for me to finish the photography. While my brother is framing driving strategy with a smoke , ladies are enjoying tea. Guess who is someone ??

In our subsequent trips since 2006, we did not go via , Sheraghat, we took a longer route via Jageswar, Gongoli hat, ( the famous Kalika temple)  and Patal Bhubaneswar. That is another story  

TRISHUL, INDIAN HIMALAYAS

In my  previous writings I have posted few photos of Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot. I have also shown various peaks which surrounds Nanda Devi. These peaks are also called the jewels of Nanda Devi. ( Please read the introduction to Nanda devi and Nanda Kot).

Here I will post  the photographs of the famous peak, TRISHUL. It looks like the Trishul, trident of Lord Siiva from a particular angle.Trishul in its full glory is seen from the place called Kausani, 51 KM from Almora. ( Trishul height is 7120 M)

I will cover separately how to reach these places and this posting will be limited to photographs of Trishul taken from Various places in Kumaon. The view dramatically changes as you travel from east to west keeping the mountains to the North. Amazingly I may suddenly see Lord Ganesh with a cute trunk, some times I may  see a face with beard and Mustache, ....

These photographs were taken during my numerous trips to the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand Province. As I travel during the same time (end November to 1st week of December) of the year, the peaks look the same year after year. Only difference is due to any cloud formation that changes the view dramatically.
Some times I travel end of March, to enjoy the Rhododendron blooming every where (above 6000 ft).
I could only select a few photographs, as it is difficult to frisk and search the whole storage place. :-)
I shall give here photos taken from Kausani tourist bungalow, few taken from a new place which I traveled 1st time and some views from the road as we traveled west to east

PHOTO FROM KAUSANI

I shall post here the sunset and sunrise photos of few years and the mid day..

1. An Old friend posing from the boundary wall (Trishul to the left and Devisthan on the right.)

2. Sunset 1, I think it was taken in Dec 2005 , the peak looks the same year after year except the cloud, that  makes all the difference and the time of the year. 

3.Sunset 2 taken in Dec 1998 

3. Sunset 3 taken in Dec 2005 or 06

4. Mid day the peak is white and no cloud at all, taken in Dec 2006

5. Sunrise-1, on Trishul from Kausani, sun has hit the lower 2 peaks, the main peak in under the shadow of the cloud.

6. Sunrise-2 The sun is further up and peaks are lighting up.

7- Sunrise-3 Shot in another year and look at the cloud !!! Amazing!!

8. Sunrise-4 Same place but differnt year 

9. Sunrise-5  Sunrise shot in 1998, ( see the sunset above for 1998)

See the lighting condition during morning and evening,  it is just amazing. 


View from Sitla ( Shot during Dec 20090
Now we will move to another place to see the same Trishul. Just imagine you have gone further east, ie to the right from Kausani. As you are moving right ( to the east), how will the peak look like?
Lets take a look at Trishul from a village called SItla.  Here Trishul looks bit different as we have moved further towards south east. 


10 Sunrise-1 from SItla, the 1st ray of sun has just hit the peak and the cloud

. 11 Sunrise-2  Sun is little up, peak to the right is Maikitoli 

12 Sunrise -3 , Sun is up now and see the shape of Trishul from here, looks different from Kausani. 

13 Sunrise -4 Great Trishul in the morning

14. It is now well into the morning. If we go more to the right , Trishul will appear like a bearded Sadhu, looking up to the sky. ( Dont have the snaps now) 

View from other places 

15 Trishul , on the way to Baijnath

16. View of the range as we are driving away from Kausani to east. Try to guess which one is Trishul, extreme right is Maiki toli. Small wild oaks are in front.

17. The mighty Trishul often looks like Lord Ganesha to me, from few places

18. Another view , some other year

19. View from Binsar at 8500 feet. Unlike other photos, this was taken during March , when there is more snow on the range and the Rhododendrons are in full bloom.

These are the few Photos I could post. Photos are very deceptive as telephoto lenses are used. Again you enjoy the photos as much as what you see with your naked eyes. 

Now Rhododendron flowers for my friends 

I hope to post more photos of other peaks in the range and then I will shift to few travelogues, mainly on how to reach these places,
These photographs are deliberately kept at low resolution , if you want to print , let me know. I will send higher res one for printing 

CLOUDS OF CHAUKORI, HIMALAYAS

Cloud watching was of great interest when I was a kid. Father used to show us various shapes in clouds, a pouncing Lion, an elephant trunk and head, profile of a bearded man etc etc. I used to be amazed. Slowly that habit vanished as I grew older.

But when I go th the mountains, far from the madding crowd, things are very different, watch sunrise and sunset, ( God willing and weather permitting), keep on looking at the dazzling peaks far away, spot all known stars at night, study plants and try to recognize them from books, look at birds etc.

If it is cloudy, specially if cloud is forming , try to find out various shapes and see them changing and vanishing.

Here are some photos of clouds, taken during sunrise. The peaks were covered with cloud  and could not be seen. So we looked the other way after a bed rum. These photos were captured by my nephew Arnab and my younger brother Ujan.

The last photo is my prized collection. It was shot randomly..but later when I looked at it, I suddenly realized as if Goddess Nanda Devi has streched her hand to bless us...Amazing feeling 

Goddess Nanda Devi  streching her hand to bless us.

NANDA KOT

I have been planning to upload some photos of great peaks in Nanda Devi range. I had mentioned names of some of the peaks in my Blog on Nanda Devi.

Here is another beautiful peak Nanda Kot. You cant miss it while travelling in Kumaon. The chisel edged flat face peak is so prominent from all places!! Unlike Nanda Devi, which is very difficult to see from most places, Nanda Kot is always visible form all the places.

Before proceeding further let me introduce the peaks around Nanda Devi. When you travel in the Hills, no one including locals can tell you the names, simply because they never  bothered to know.

The picture below shows the peaks and the names. Click to enlarge

The picture below is taken from Choukari and you see this view from the tourist lodge all day. Note the chisel edge characterstics of Nanda Kot 

SUNRISE

The pictures are arranged as the sun moves up from the horizon.

1. Before sunrise, the sun is still below the horizon, the tourist lodge lights are on. Nanda Devi twin peaks are to the left and Chisel edged Nanda Kot to the right.

2. the first rays on the peak.

3. Sun spreads

4. Now the lesser mountains have received sun, the lonely Oak tree is also glowing in early morning sun.

5. A  zoomed up shot

AS THE DAY ADVANCES

6, 7, 8

SUNSET

9. photo was taken a day earlier, when there was no bright sunshine

10. Evening is setting in

11. The crimson color is developing

12. This photo was taken some times in 2005 , when cloud started building up.

OTHER LOOKS OF NANDA KOT

The peak looks different as you travel away from Choukari towards west. But it maintains its chisel edge. These are few samples, shot far away from Choukari.

This photo was shot from Kausani, quite far away and with 500 mm zoom. The peak came out of the cloud for seconds only.The peak infront of Nanda Kot is Nanda Bhanar ( to be confirmed from authentic source)

CLOSE UPS

As explained under Nanda devi, close ups are quite deceptive, they look good in photo, or through telescope. You wont see this without optical support.

SUNRISE

LATE MORNING

SUNSET