The mountain chain was born about 40 million years ago when two plates of the earth’s crust collided, thrusting up the intervening seabed of soft limestone. It is believed that much of this action has occurred within the last two million years, causing an unprecedented geological growth of 10,000 feet which continues even today, as the India Plate continuously moving north at the rate of about 2 cm per year. The Himalayas are still geologically active and structurally unstable.

A Himalayan sunrise!

Snow Capped!!! Not really!

Top of the World!

Melting Rocks!!

The Himalayas extend from west to east for about 2,500 km in a curve, from the Pamit Knot in the northwest to the valley of the Brahmaputra River in the east. And with a width of 100 – 400 km. The Himalayas range covering an area of 612,021 sq. km.

It passes through Nepal, India (5 States: Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim), China (Tibet), Bhutan and Pakistan.

Himaaalaya

Winding roads!!

Dusk!!

The word Himalaya has a Sanskrit origin in hima, meaning snow, and alaya, meaning home.

In 1852 the highest mountain in the world was named after Sir George Everest as Mount Everest. Some facts about the Himalayas expeditions are: As Nepal opened its frontiers in 1949 to the outside world people explored ten of the fourteen 8000m peaks. Some of the major among them are:

Annapurna (8091m) was the first peak to be climbed in 1950,and then in 1953 it was Mount Everest (8848m) and Nanga Parbat (8125m).From that time onwards many expeditions have been made and by 1964 all the Himalayan peaks had been climbed.