WAY TO SAILENT VALLEY PALAKKAD

THROUGH FOREST PASS WAY  TO 

SILENT VALLEY 

PALAKKAD

Mukkali, the entry point for Silent Valley National Park is on the Mannarkkad - Attappady route and is about 20 km from Mannarkad. 

The Silent Valley National Park is  one of the most GREEN gifts of nature to mankind, a unique treasure of tropical rain forests in all its  glory with a remarkable  ecological history

Silent Valley is enclosed on all four sides with green mountains, as a result the valley is preserved from the extremes of climate and  remained an ecological island with a special micro organisms. 

The river Kunthi flows from the Nilgiri Hills above an altitude of 2100 m through out these preserved forest.

Silent Valley National Park is located in the Nilgiri Hills, Palakkad District in Kerala, South India. The area in this national park was historically explored in 1847 by the botanist Robert Wight

The park is one of the last undisturbed tracts of South Western Ghats mountain rain forests and tropical moist evergreen forest in India. Contiguous with the proposed Karimpuzha National Park to the north and Mukurthi National Park to the north-east, it is the core of the Nilgiri International Biosphere Reserve and is part of The Western Ghats World Heritage Site, Nilgiri Sub-Cluster THUNDER consideration by UNESCO

Plans for a hydroelectric project that threatened the parks high diversity of wildlife stimulated an environmentalist Social Movement in the 1970s called Save Silent Valley which resulted in cancellation of the project and creation of the park in 1980. The visitors' centre for the park is at Sairandhri.

The Silent Valley Park, with an area of 90 sq km, is located in the northeastern corner of the district. It rises abruptly to the Nilgiri Plateau in the north and overlooks the plains of Mannarkkad. The park is the core of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. the valley is anything but silent with the clamour of cicadas and sounds of teeming wildlife. The inhabitants of this endangered virgin tropical forests include rare birds, deer and tiger.

Nowhere else does one find such a representative collection of peninsular mammals, 100 species of butterflies and 400 species of moths and other fauna like the Ceylon Frog Moth, Great Indian Hornbill, the Nilgiri Laughing Thrush and the Lion-tailed Macaque. The Kunthi river descends from the Nilgiri hills, an altitude of 2000 m, and traverses the entire length of the valley through the deep forest. The river never turns brown. It is always clear, perennial and wild. 

A unique preserve of tropical evergreen rain forests above the equator and the forest strip that causes the summer rains in Kerala.

Best Season IS September to May Located 40 kms away from Mannarkkad in Palakkad district Nearest Railway Station is Palakkad, about 80 kms away

Nearest Airport is Coimbatore, about 55 kms away from Palakkad

Silent Valley National Park It is one of the few bio hot spots in the world. And it is home to a rich biodiversity, sustained in an ecosystem, which is fragile and needs to be handled with care. The Silent Valley National Park located in Palakkad district of Kerala is unique in many ways.

Mukkali, the entry point for Silent Valley National Park is on the Mannarkkad - Attappady route and is about 20 km from Mannarkad. The office of the Kerala Forest department at Mukkali controls the access to the national park and permission for entering the national park can be obtained from the Wildlife Warden's office at Mannarkad or from the Assistant Wildlife Warden's office at Mukkali. Entry to the national park is from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m

isitors are permitted to go up to the forest station at Sairandhri, the entry point to the core area of the Silent Valley National Park. One can trek the 23 km from Mukkali to Sairandhri or go by jeep. One would be traveling through the buffer zone of the national park in the beginning, which would pass through farm lands, and plantations of coffee, eucalyptus and teak. On the way to Sairandhri itself one would come across quite a bit of birdlife and also animals like langurs, herds of spotted deer, sambar, elephants and the Malabar Giant Squirrel.

Before reaching the arched entrance, welcoming visitors to the Silent Valley National Park, one can proceed to the '23 Waterfall' by taking a deviation. It is a spectacular waterfall; but the approach route to the site of the waterfall is a bit difficult to negotiate on foot, and it is the only possible way to reach the waterfall. The motorable road ends with Sairandhri, which has a forest station.

Before reaching the arched entrance, welcoming visitors to the Silent Valley National Park, one can proceed to the '23 Waterfall' by taking a deviation. It is a spectacular waterfall; but the approach route to the site of the waterfall is a bit difficult to negotiate on foot, and it is the only possible way to reach the waterfall. The motorable road ends with Sairandhri, which has a forest station.

On reaching Sairandhri, the forest station, visitors can relax a bit and proceed to explore the nearby River Kunthi. It is a crystal clear river . On moist rocky surfaces of the river banks, one can sometimes see butterflies of a particular species, sitting in large numbers. The area is also a good location to spot the endangered Lion-Tailed Macaques.

CLICK TO SEE SILENT VALLEY DAM SITE AND KUNTHI PUZHA