256 Peaks and a Whispering Mountain: A Soulful Journey to Surkanda Devi

Hello hive people. I present my today and make myself a part of the winter challenge issued by the #worldmappin community. #winterchallenge

The trip to Surkanda Devi temple was wonderful, the reason for this is the onset of winter, the first snow of the season falling on the distant mountains, the company of my special friend, amidst nature from where the 360 ​​degree view is visible as if someone has turned on the television for us while sitting at home. What else can I say about this place and nature, I am mesmerized after coming here. The rich history of the temple, the immense faith of Hindus in the goddess and the cold wind coming from the snowy mountains which is repeatedly saying that "You all are welcome to Surkut mountain".

In the first blog you read that we two people reached Surkanda temple 60 km from Dehradun that too on a scooter, to reach here we crossed famous hill stations like Mussoorie and Dhanaulti and felt our fingers getting numb due to the morning cold. Stopping on the way, we witnessed the sight of the high Himalayan mountains. In the second post we started the trekking, although this trekking is only 1.5 km but we enjoyed it so much that we cannot count it.

Instead of the ropeway, we entered the temple premises on foot, had darshan of the goddess installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple and roamed around the temple premises and received the blessings of the mountains, goddess, gods and nature. Today I will tell you why this mountain, famous by the name Surkut, is so famous. Firstly, it is a very holy place among Hindus, devotees come here every day to worship it in large numbers.

The second point which is the most important is that 256 mountain peaks are visible from here, yes, 256 peaks of the Indian Himalayas are clearly visible from here. We decided to come here in the winter season after the monsoons because in the month of November there is no haze on the horizon due to which the mountains standing far away are not visible, but we got ourselves a wonderful view by seeing 256 peaks clearly.

The highest peak of India is Kanchenjunga whose height is 8586 meters and the second highest peak of India is “Nanda Devi” whose height is 7816 meters. Kanchenjunga is very far from here and it cannot be seen from here but the rare sight of Nanda Devi, the most sacred mountain of India, left us stunned. This mountain is my favorite and I have trekked to many different places to see it.

3:30 hours on the scooty, then 45 minutes of hike, such a view takes away all the tiredness, stress and thoughts. I always feel like I am losing myself after seeing these mountains. I have a lot of problems within me which the mountains have always helped me solve. As always, my eyes are getting moist seeing this priceless view, I am not able to think much, I am just looking and remembering my mistakes.

The mountain does this to me every time, whenever I stand in front of it, it points out my mistakes one by one and every time it says, "You are not the mistakes, you are this which is standing in front of me right now, so now I have to move forward and focus on myself". I don't know whether the mountain really wants to say this or it is just a figment of my mind. There are so many mountains in front of me that I cannot understand which one to see and which one not to see.

The online platform www.peakfinder.com helped me in identifying many mountains, I have put screenshots from this website in this post. And I have also imported the data of the peaks visible from here into Excel from this website and put it in this blog. The temple still stands amidst the sun and mountains, the ropeway is still running down and down. Down in the valley, the terraced farms of the locals are making their presence felt.

I don't want to say anything more, I just want you guys to look at these 256 snowy peaks and get lost in their beauty. Some of the main peaks which are very famous in India and mountaineers are; Nanda Devi, Bandarpunch, Chaukhamba, Trishul Peak, Jorkanden, Leo Purgyal, Rangrik Kang, Kala Nag, Jaoli, Gangotri, Mount Meru, Shivling, Satapath, Kamet, Kedar Dome, Hathi Parbat, Dunagiri, Nanda Ghunti and Panchachuli.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from Sony a7iii and Canon 77D (55-250m) and edited in deskstop software adobe lightroom. Thumbnail created in dekstop adobe photoshop.