#himalalya

[earthstory]

Original caption:

Experience the beauty of Mt. Everest at night in time-lapse. While most climbers slept, I attempted to capture some of the magic that the Himalayan skies have to offer while climbing to the top of the world.

These time lapse Images were captured as high as 6200m (camp 2) above sea level on Mt. Everest. We slept at 6000m for three consecutive nights on the summit of Mt. Lobuche East waiting for a glimpse of Everest from that vantage point. Around 11pm on the 2nd night, the skies opened up and the top of the world revealed herself in all of her glory.

No where else on the planet have I ever seen the Milky Way so clear, so vivid and so very much alive. It takes a great deal of discipline to stay up all night capturing the magic for the world to experience. Cameras freeze.Shutters freeze. Batteries freeze. Humans freeze. The high altitude environment is debilitating at best. Your body is taking a constant beating by the low levels of oxygen in the atmosphere. The higher you climb of course, the worse this becomes.

And yet... this is heaven on Earth for me. This is my comfort zone. This is where I feel alive. This is where the combination of my love for imagery, astrophotography, storytelling and connection with the mountains all intersect. I toss logic out the window on clear nights and run all of my cameras until all batteries are exhausted, CF cards are filled and the sun re-emerges for yet another beautiful day. It’s my oxygen. It fuels me. Energizes me. And keeps me in a flow state.

My tribute to Everest - In Time Lapse.

Enjoy!

Shot on Canada DSLR’s 1DC 2x 5D Mark 3’s Canon 5Dsr 24mm 1.4 16mm 2.8 x2 11-24mm f4 70-200mm 2.8 14mm 2.8

*Special thanks to Canon Canada for lending me some of the gear.

Edited in Lightroom Processed with LR Time-lapse Edited in Premiere All processing done in a tent on Mt. Everest at basecamp

Music: The Time To Run Dexter Britain Licensed through: Music Bed

Extra special thank you to my friend and camera assistant Pasang Kaji Sherpa. This is a reflection of your hard work and support as well. Thank you my friend. Thank you for your patience and never-ending support on the hill.

To license this video or individual images contact [email protected] Find me on Facebook at facebook.com/elia.saikaly.adventurer

For more inspiring imagery visit eliasaikaly.com or instagram.com/eliasaikaly/

[earthstory]

A tale of two rivers

Born high up in the Garwhal and Kumaon Himalaya at Gomukh, The Ganges flows out of a glacier at the southern end of the abode of snows, and grows from tributaries to become one of the great rivers of India. Less well known is the existence of its twin, separated by the mountains of their joint birthplace, who goes off on a long journey, but later reunites with Ganga many miles away, after they both go a wandering through widely different lands.

The line of the main boundary thrust, marking where India is grinding into Eurasia, is clearly visible as the line of snow capped peaks across the top of the image. Beyond that, the barren deserts of the Tibetan Plateau, caught behind the rain shadow of the mountains, is interspersed with occasional lakes. The green area to the south receives nearly all the monsoon rains, with the high white mountains squeezing most of the remaining juice out of the moist monsoon air.

The subtle change of colour halfway up Tibet marks the Yarlung Tsampo suture zone, the major fault that marks the original junction point between the continents. Ganga's sibling, the Yarlung Tsampo, runs along it, being faintly visible as a brown line where the terranes meet. The twin rivers are born close together on opposite sides of the main thrust, one fed from monsoon rains and the other from snowmelt. The Ganges flows south out of the mountains, while the Yarlung flows Eastwards towards the Pacific. The rocks here include a line of ophiolites (bits of oceanic crust pushed onto the continents during the collision) that mark the death of the Tethys Ocean.

Immediately to the south of the snowy peaks, a dark green zone marks the monsoon catching foothills, with their dark green rhododendron forests. Had this image been taken in spring, a reddish band following the tree's altitude range might be visible. The Ganges flows though these and out over the northern Indian plains, where it has fertilised Indian life since time immemorial. Indians have long viewed the river as a goddess, who falls on the mountains, and is tamed by Siva's dreadlocks (the foothills) into the myriad tributaries that follow parallel routes out of the peaks to swell her waters. Much of the river's journey across the plains is lost to sight behind a haze of pollution in this image, until the Assamese hills corral the fumes within the sub continent.

The Yarlung has a more adventurous journey, through the wilderness of Tibet, including the world's deepest (and still poorly explored) gorge. Other rivers born on the Plateau all flow into east Asia, the Yangtse into China, the Mekong into south east Asia, but the Yarlung met a highly resistant zone of metamorphic rock on its journey east, and turned back on itself, to eventually change its name as it leaves the mountains to flow southwards into Bangladesh, becoming the Brahmaputra. Here, the siblings are reunited, just south of the centre of the image (with the Ganges coming from the left), only to flow through the myriad channels of the ever shifting delta into the Bay of Bengal.

Here, small pieces of what were once sea bottom sediments in Tethys, that were thrust up and metamorphosed into the rocks forming the high peaks, and eroded by the monsoon rains and glaciers are dropped as the current slows into the Bay. The delta grows and shifts as each year's meltwater brings new sediments loads downstream, to emerge as brown plumes flowing into the bay's blue waters. Quite probably, they include particles of the same rocks, from either side of the great thrust, that have had very different journeys to the sea before meeting again.

Loz

Image credit: NASA

[ashutoshvashisht]

From: Himalayan Diaries