Valley of Flowers National Park

Valley of Flowers National Park is an Indian national park which was established in 1982. It is located in Chamoli in the state of Uttarakhand and is known for its meadows of endemic alpine flowers and the variety of flora. This richly diverse area is also home to rare and endangered animals, including the Asiatic black bear,[1] snow leopard,[1] musk deer,[1] brown bear, red fox[1] and blue sheep. Birds found in the park include Himalayan monal pheasant and other high altitude birds.[2]

At 3352 to 3658 meters above sea level, the gentle landscape of the Valley of Flowers National Park complements the rugged mountain wilderness of Nanda Devi National Park to the east.[3] Together, they encompass a unique transition zone between the mountain ranges of the Zanskar and Great Himalaya. The park stretches over an expanse of 87.50 km2 and it is about 8 km long and 2 km wide.[2] The park lies completely in the temperate alpine zone. Both parks are encompassed in the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (223,674 ha) which is further surrounded by a buffer zone (5,148.57 km2).[4] Nanda Devi National Park Reserve is in the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

The park is open only during summer from June to October and it is covered by heavy snow for the rest of the year.[1]

History

Joan Margaret Legge’s memorial grave.
Documented explorers

The place was little known to the outside world due to its inaccessibility. In 1931, Frank S. Smythe, Eric Shipton and R. L. Holdsworth, all British mountaineers, lost their way while returning from a successful expedition to Mt.Kamet and happened upon the valley, which was full of flowers. They were attracted to the beauty of the area and named it the “Valley of Flowers.” Frank Smythe later authored a book of the same name.[5]

In 1939, Joan Margaret Legge, (21 February 1885 – 4 July 1939) a botanist deputed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew,[2] arrived at the valley to study flowers and while traversing some rocky slopes to collect flowers, she slipped off and died.[6] Her sister later visited the valley and erected a memorial near the spot.[3]

Prof. Chandra Prakash Kala, a botanist deputed by the Wildlife Institute of India, carried out a research study on the floristics and conservation of the valley for a decade, beginning in 1993.[7] He made an inventory of 520 alpine plants exclusively growing in this national park and authored two important books – “The Valley of Flowers – Myth and Reality” and “Ecology and Conservation of the Valley of Flowers National Park, Garhwal Himalaya.[7][8]

Geography

The Valley of Flowers is nestled in the Pushpawati river valley which is in the upper expanses of Bhyundar Ganga river near Joshimath in Garhwal region. The lower reaches of Bhyundar Ganga near Gobindghat are known as Bhyundar Valley. The Valley of Flowers, which lies between 30° 41′ to 30° 48’N and 79° 33′ to 79° 46’E, in the Pushpawati valley is 20 km northwest of Nanda Devi National Park across the wide valley of the Bhyundar Ganga. It is one of two hanging valleys lying at the head of the Bhyundar valley,[1] the other being the shorter Hemkund valley which runs parallel to Valley of Flowers some 10 km south. Valley of Flowers runs east-west approximately 15 km in length with average width of 6 km. A small tributary of Pushpawati river originates from Tipra glacier from Gauri Parbat in the east and flows through the Valley of Flowers.

The area lies on the Zanskar range of the Himalayas with the highest point in the national park being Gauri parbat at 6,719 m above sea level.
Climate

A scene from Valley of Flowers, Impatiens sulcata, This flower paints the Valley of Flowers in pink in the first week of August.

Being an inner Himalayan valley, the Nanda Devi Basin has a distinctive micro-climate. Conditions are generally dry with low annual precipitation, but there is heavy monsoon rainfall from late June to early September. Prevailing mist and low cloud during the monsoon keeps the soil moist, hence the vegetation is lusher than is usual in the drier inner Himalayan valleys. From mid April to June temperatures are moderate to cool (19 °C maximum). The Valley of Flowers also has the micro-climate of an enclosed inner Himalayan valley, and is shielded from the full impact of the southwest summer monsoon by the Greater Himalaya range to its south. There is often dense fog and rain especially during the late summer monsoon. Both Basin and Valley are usually snow-bound for six to seven months between late October and late March, the snow accumulating deeper and at lower altitudes on the shadowed southern than on the northern side of the valleys.[13]