2010 had a new surprise in the form of Valley of Flowers. I was lucky to go with Eastern Railway Trek Team officially in August' 2010. Due to landslides we got stuck up at a number of points enroute to Govind Ghat on two days. But I took this as an opportunity to capture Wild Flora & Fauna enroute. From Govindghat to Ghangharia, Valley of Flowers & Hemkund Sahib, it was a four day trek. I enjoyed the journey like never before- capturing all the beauty on the way in the form of landscapes, butterflies, birds & Plants. Most of the time it was raining- but that in no way hampered my spirits. I was lucky to have a good supporting team (who always took inspirations from me & learnt to appreciate wild Flora & Fauna) & a porter with me, which enabled me click the beauties even in the rainy weather (I think it was the normal weather). I moved slowly with my tripods & one SLR body on the shoulder & another in my neck. We started early & reached every destination only by evening time doing a 10 to 12 hours trek. By the end of the trip I had clicked around 5000 pictures of around 400 species. These will take more than a year even to process & post/ identify/ upload somewhere like Wikimedia Commons. Everything else seem mundane if you compare this trip. This is evident that from the fact for a number of identified pictures, you even don't find a single picture on net for that species. Sheer beauty is so encompassing that I am unable to choose any single picture from so many beautiful ones. However, I had attached one from The Valley of Flowers which shows it's mountains, valleys, rivers, flora, weather conditions etc.
Despite seeing so much of beauty everywhere, one awaits a great surprise on reaching the Vally of Flowers.
It is a sight which can hardly be recreated anywhere else in India. Thus the choice for the Flora picture of the year 2010 from my side.
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With regards,
J.M.Garg (
jmg...@gmail.com)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1'Creating awareness of Indian Flora & Fauna'
The whole world uses my Image Resource of more than a
thousand species & eight thousand images of Birds, Butterflies, Plants etc. (arranged alphabetically & place-wise):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:J.M.Garg. You can also use them for free
as per liberal licensing conditions attached with each image.
For identification, learning, discussion & documentation of Indian Flora, please visit/ join our Google e-group- Efloraofindia:
http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix (more than 1475 members & 57,000 messages on 16/12/10 & with a database of around 4400 species on 30/11/10)