From the archive record
Ancient blue ice at the mouth of the Ganga's glacial source at Gaumukh, while the top of the glacier is covered in rock and morainic rubble. Pulling back from the snout of the glacier, our camera reveals the vast plain of rocks and sand, boulders and water channels that emanate from beneath the glacier, while a path ascends to one shoulder of the glacier, taking trekkers and climbers to the vast flats of Tapovan on one side below the peak of Shivling and Nandanvan on the true right bank of the glacier, below the Bhagirathi group of peaks. Our expedition ascended from nandanvan to the small glacial tarn of Vasuki Tal, below Vasuki peak, and headed up the valley to the Kalindi Khal pass. The Ganges flows brown and muddy with all the glacial silt and rubbed off soil debris that gets introdu