”Himalayas” meaning ”abode of snow” is a mountain system and various collections of the world’s highest peaks and the world’s highest mountain. Standing 8,850 meters (The Highest point being Mt. Everest) above sea level,  it is something that human eyes can only dream to see. When we do fly over the Himalayan range, a small glimpse of the range itself can be spectacular. Some of the world’s major river systems arise from the Himalayas and the drainage basin system supports over 3 billion people (nearly half of the Earth’s population). The Himalayas is commonly know as ”The Roof of the World”.

While flying from the north eastern Indian state of (Assam, Guwahati) to the capital city of New Delhi we approach a view that is breathtaking. Its the sight of the Himalayan range, one hour on the flight either ways on air. The flight journey is a mere 2 hours 15 minutes.

The Himalayan range comprises of over 100 mountain peaks which are over 7,200 meters in height above sea level. The importance of these ranges are they have a profound effect on the climate for the Indian sub continent and the Tibetan Plateau. They block the ridged dry Arctic winds that blow south into the sub-continent, which keeps south asia much warmer then temperatures in other parts of the world. The other biggest benefit of having these ranges are they form a barrier for the monsoon winds, keeping them from travelling northwards, causing heavy rainfall on the Terai regions of the lower Himalayas and benefiting most of the Indian rivers, the forests and their species for the new season.

I have travelled this sector by flight many a times and seen these amazing views. Next time when you do travel between the two cities, do have a look out and keep the images as memories of such a great and important natural creation.

These pictures add to a very good collection of  our ‘Wild Wednesday’.

Pictures were taken by Mr. Arun K Kaul by his digital camera and I further edited them on photoshop.