Abbott Mount Tour

Abbott Mount is Holiday tourist pleaces in Uttranchal, India. Atop a hill in the Kali Kumaon region of eastern Uttaranchal in Champawat District, 9 km from Lohaghat, 36km from Nepal and 437 Km north east of delhi.

The breathtaking vistas of the forested drive over the Dhanachuli Bend into Champawat District can prepare you for the beauty that greets you in Abbott Mount. It takes a lot of wayfaring to reach this unspoiled corner of Uttranchal known as Kali Kumaon the realm of the Kali River near the Nepal border.

After never ending stretches of mosscovered deodar forests, you finally reach Lohaghat on the banks of the Lohawati River. Leave Lohaghat’s crowded bazzar behind and 6 km ahead at Marorakhan, a road climbs dramatically up through the clouds over 3 km this is Abbott Mount.

Pull into the driveway of Snow View Cottage, unchanged since the time one Abbott first built it. Deodars, pear tress and a solitary walnut tree grace the grounds. Step out of your care and there they are a chain of peaks in pure white coats that are the highest mountains on Earth the Himalaya stretched across the horizon. It was for this special view that Abbott chose this particular amount that towers above the neighbouring hills. Fear not for yor sanity if you need to pinch yourself to check whether you are dreaming. After all how often do you sit in a garden and watch clouds float.

The most striking view any of us had even witnessed. Kalyanji the caretaker at Snow view pointed out the peaks. There are Trishul, Maiktoli, Nandakot, Nandaghunti the majestic Nanda Devi. The Pindari Glacier but the clouds rose too fast.

This panorama will dominate your time in Abbott Mount, simply because you are on top of the highest hill in the neighbourhod. And throughout the daylight hours, there they are. Even after the sun set and it was pitch dark, sat facing the mountains, clustered around a bonfire under the walnut tree. The fireflies turned the deodars into Christmas trees, the brandy traveled all the way down to our toes. And all the while Kalyanji’s muh-boli behn told us tall tales of leopards and ghosts of the surrounding hills.

The Mount

There is little to distract you from your contemplation of the purity of Nanda Devi’s white coat, save for the occasional woood pecker. When you have leched at the peaks enough, visit Abbott Mount’s is reputed to be the second highest cricket pitches on earth, after Chail. At one end of the pitch is a tiny Church, where the eponymous Britisher lies buried, forever facing his beloved mountains? The view of the peaks from the pitch is even better than from the cottage. Between ou and Nanda Devi are the bowl in the Kumaon hills in which Pithoragarh sits, the snaking road that leads to it, terraced hills, of paddy and again those astounding clouds below your feet.

For more active moments any number of trails led down the mount from the garden itself. Follow these and come across the wildflowers of Kumaon and fat muchrooms that you should not even dream about eating. We went further down one of these trails than we had planned and looked back up to find that we could barely see the crest of the mount or the cottage. We were just perhaps a little lost. But it was really very simple to just continue in the direction we had set off in on a round mountain, where can you get back to but the place you started at.

Khadi Gramodyog Bhavan which is a must visit for its wonderfully warm razais of a thickness you will only find in the hills, smart Nehru jacket, sweaters, gloves and even some tasty amla and mango pickle.

Invasion of Nepal

A 36 k bumpy drive via Lohaghat brings you to the confluence of the Sarda and Kali rivers at Pancheshwar, where India and Nepal meet. This had no restraining effect on some in our party who got out of the care and proceeded to trespass on foot into Nepa. The rest of us followed timidly.

Walked down a forested hillside trail running parallel to the Kali. Suddenly, we espied a man glaring up at us from a cabin on the riverside below. Some of us were ready to flee when he broke into a broad grin and invited all of us ladies down for a cup of tea. What joy we felt to receive this kind greeting to our trespass. Imagine our mortification when we made our way down to find he was an employee of the Central Water Authority of Bharat Sarkar.

Route NH24 to Rampur via Moradabad, NH87 to Ranibagh via Kathgodam state highway to Lohaghat via Bhimtal, Khutani Bend, Chanfi, Padampuri, Dhanachuli Bend, Seharphatak and Devidhura, state road to Abbott Mount via Marorakhan.