page_title: Sispara
section_title: Sispara peak
hierarchical_section_title: Sispara / Sispara peak
caption_attribution_description: Sispara peak with bungalow and trail.
context_page_description: Sispara, സിസ്പാര, a proper noun, is a combination of the Badaga language words si:su + pore; meaning: magnetite bearing rock + gorge. It may refer to:
  Sispara peak, a large hill in Kerala;
  Sispara bungalow, the shelter at the base of the peak;
  Sispara pass, the low gap between hills where the shelter is located; or
  Sispara ghat, the mountain trail that goes through the pass.
context_section_description: Sispara peak (സിസ്പാര മല), elevation 2,206 metres (7,238 ft) at 11°12′12″N 76°25′56″E, is in the northeast end of Silent Valley National Park, in Kerala state, in the core area of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, in the Western Ghats of South India. It is near the southwest end of Mukurthi National Park in Tamil Nadu state.
  One can approach this peak by passing northwest up behind the bungalow, and ascending the high bluff below the peak. Half an hour's walk leads to a vertical precipice of the escarpment facing the plains of Malabar. Numerous lofty trees growing at the foot of the precipice reach the brim of this point. A walk along the edge of this escarpment brings one to a huge peaking mass of rock, a few hundred yards from the foot of the highest Sispara summit, which stands like a battlement on a wall. In 1886, Henry Francis Blanford, geologist of the Geological Survey of India, described the view from this peak:
  
  The view from this point is really magnificent, particularly that of the gigantic amphitheatre to the right, the termination of the Koondahs on this side. It is very striking to look at this stupendous semicircular recess, formed by enormously lofty mountains, the summits of which rise vertically to thousands of feet, and whose abrupt sides are deeply corroded by ravines and chasms, down which small but romantic cascades precipitate themselves, adding to the magnificence of this stupendous scenery.
  Sispara peak is the abode of the Toda tribes people ancestral spirits. It is the second highest peak in the core area of Silent Valley, Anginda peak at 2,383 metres (7,818 ft), being the highest. The forests near Sisapara are exposed to the full force of the southwest monsoon and receive up to 250 inches (640 cm) per year of rain, but suffer from a long drought during the winter.
  Extending northeast from Sispara peak over 20 miles (32 km) in a magnificent amphitheatre of precipices and steep hills in the Nilambur South Forest Division to Mukurthi peak (2,554 m (8,379 ft), 11°23′29″N 76°31′38″E) is the great western escarpment of the Kundah Range.
  Henry Blanford described this area well:
  There is perhaps no scene in Southern India more grand and imposing than this gigantic escarpment. Rising abruptly from the low jungle covered plains of Malabar, to the lofty surface of the Koondah plateau, an elevation of nearly 8,000 feet (2,400 m), a precipitous hill face covered with dense jungle, furrowed but not broken up by innumerable hill torrents which course down its surface, and glisten like silver threads amid the dark green foliage of the forest. It would seem at first sight perfectly inaccessible from the plains below, and such it is throughout the greater portion of its extent.
  It is only at Sispara that, with considerable engineering skill, a road has been constructed, forming a communication between the hills and the low country of Malabar, and it is from this road that the finest view of the escarpment is obtainable.
caption: Sispara peak with bungalow and trail, <1857
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