The Valley of Flowers- Third Time Unlucky?

 Frank Smythe was the man who identified a region that he named the "Valley of Flowers", now a protected park. He once said: “If everything we do in life is to be measured in terms of money, then life would be a very poor thing. The greater ambitions and desires of mankind are actuated by something deeper and finer than the desire to amass material wealth.”

This is so true of the Valley of Flowers.  This was the third time I went there, see my earlier blogs on the Valley of Flowers here and another here. So was I third time unlucky, read on to find out.

In the Valley of Flowers (VoF)

So I took a seat taxi from Rishikesh to Govindghat, and started walking up the nine kilometres from Pulna. I met a lot of interesting people along the way, a kathad sardar from Rohtak, we could hardly understand each other, a sardar railway employee from Indore and his two daughters, an IT professional from Delhi.

...my porter on the way up

There were a lot of Sikhs on the way, going up and down, because Hemkund Sahib at about 4000 metres, is one of the holiest Gurdwaras and many Sikhs do a pilgrimage here. There are young and old, boys and girls, many of them chanting aloud and many whispering a prayer in their hearts.

Clouds descend over Ghangariya helipad.

There is a helicopter service from Govindghat to about a kilometer short of Ghangariya. The flight takes about four minutes and there are 10-15 sorties in a day, depending on the weather. So a four or five hour trek is cut short to a few minutes if one were to take the helicopter. 

A board showing the main species of flowers put up at the forest chowkey at the entrance.  

Everyone gets a pass for three days at the VoF, but most people go up only once, (I went up twice).  At Ghangariya the path splits and one goes to Hemkund, a six kilometre vertical climb, and one goes to VoF, about four kilometres away.

Sunrise at the base of VoF

After crossing the forest chwkey, which opens for ticket sales at 7am, I walk along undulating terrain for about two kilometres.  It was here that I saw and photographed Pika last time, but this time there were probably too many people around.  I was walking along a valley and the rising sun played lovely light on the mountains around.

Gushing water in the Pushpawati River

Then I crossed a bridge across the Pushpawati River which had a lot of water due to the recent rains and snow melt. There was much more water in the river this time compared to the last two occasions I had to come here. The sound of the river is loud and the water moving fast.

The bottom of the gorge is in darkness as the sun illuminates the mountains higher up.

The contrast is wide, dark at the bottom of the gorge as the sun has yet to reach here and higher up the mountains are illuminated in sunlight. I have always been fascinated by this contrast and on every trip photograph the sunlit mountains through the dark valley.

Clouds drift across the mountain face 

The weather is totally unpredictable, bright sunshine one moment and cloudy the next. Though it was dry on the first day I went up. on the second day it was drizzling right through.

VoF, Tipra Khark and Mount Rataban in the distance.

This time there was an unusual phenomenon in that the clouds would descend up to a point on the mountain side and there they would remain. After the bridge and a steep climb of about a kilometer, one starts seeing VoF, and a sight to behold it is.

The colours in the valley change every week or so

The sight of  VoF is beautiful, it is a riot of colour, blues and purples and mauves dominate.

Pithoo at Shepherd's Rock

The sad thing is (selfish I know) that there are too many people now in the valley. The guard at the forest chowkey  told me that on an average 500-1500 people come to VoF each day. Compare this to the four or five I saw on my first visit here. I won't go into the reasons as they are controversial, selfies, pandemic, local income, tour companies all have a part to play.

Mist shrouds the mountainside outside my room.

On the second day it rained heavily the whole day, so I decided to stay in my room. I modified my plan and decided to go to the VoF after a day's break. I would go to Hemkund the day after subject to weather, but as it turned out it kept raining and I didn't go up to Hemkund Sahib having been there twice earlier. Please see my earlier blogs.

Pollen laden bee on Angelica flower

The flowers change every week or ten days, and with it the colours in the valley. I had earlier been up in June and the colours were very different.  This time the purples and mauves dominated with white and blue interspersed. 

Cyananthus Lobatus 

...and don't ask me the common name....

Morina Longifolia 

The flowers are beautiful and a rose by any name .....

Heracleum  with the mountains of VoF in the background

Geranium...

Ligularia  a common flower growing everywhere

Pedicularis Hoffmeisteri

Joan Margaret Legge's memorial

Joan Margaret Legge (Leggy as the locals call her), was a botanist who came to study the flowers of VoF.  She lost her life here and her sister set up this grave in the VoF. Having been to the Valley of Flowers for the first time in 2015 and again in 2018, I have been bitten by the bug, each time I think will my last, but I go there yet again.  Have I been unlucky? You decide....

To quote Frank Smythe again: “Nature is honest, there is no meanness in her composition, she has no time for fools, there is no place in her code for weaklings and degenerates. Out of her strength we gather our own strength. And it is good to be strong, to be able to endure, not as a brute beast, but as a thinking man imbued with the spirit of a great ideal."