‘Utadhura Pass’ is situated near which one of the following glaciers of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Pindari glacier
- (b)Milam glacier
- (c)Kafni glacier
- (d)Sundardhunga glacier
Correct — B, Milam glacier.
The pass the paper spells ‘Utadhura’ is Unta Dhura (also written Untadhura), at the head of the Johar valley in Pithoragarh district. Milam, the northernmost village of that valley, stands a few kilometres below the snout of Milam glacier, and the old trade track to Tibet climbed out of Milam over Unta Dhura.
Johar traders crossed Unta Dhura, then Jayanti Dhura and Kingri Bingri, to reach the Tibetan marts. The pass therefore belongs with Milam and the Gori Ganga, not with the glaciers of the Pindar valley.
The idea to carry away: Unta Dhura is a Johar valley pass, and Johar means Milam glacier. Pindari, Kafni and Sundardhunga lie to the south-west in Bageshwar district, on the Pindar side of the Nanda Kot–Nanda Devi ridge.
- (a)Pindari glacier — Pindari lies in Bageshwar district, south of the Nanda Devi–Nanda Kot ridge, and gives rise to the Pindar, which meets the Alaknanda at Karnaprayag. Its trail runs through Khati, Dwali and Phurkia to Zero Point, and the pass at its head is Traill's Pass, not Unta Dhura.
Pindari is the right answer when a question asks for the glacier at the source of the Pindar, or for the glacier below Traill's Pass.
- (c)Kafni glacier — Kafni sits in Bageshwar district below the southern side of Nanda Kot. Its trail leaves the Pindari route at Dwali, and it is the source of the Kafni river, a tributary of the Pindar. It faces the Pindar valley, not the Tibet-facing passes of Johar.
Kafni is the right answer for the sister glacier of Pindari reached from Dwali, or for the river that joins the Pindar from the Nanda Kot side.
- (d)Sundardhunga glacier — Sundardhunga lies in its own valley west of the Pindar trail, again in Bageshwar district, beneath the peak Maiktoli. Its route leaves the Pindari track at Khati, and its stream drains to the Pindar. It has no part in the Johar route over Unta Dhura.
Sundardhunga is the right answer for the Bageshwar glacier beneath Maiktoli, in the valley that branches from Khati.
Uttarakhand's high passes are best learned by valley. Each major glacier feeds a river valley, and each valley has its own passes at its head. The Johar valley, drained by the Gori Ganga from Milam glacier, opens towards Tibet through Unta Dhura, Jayanti Dhura and Kingri Bingri.
The Pindar valley of Bageshwar holds Pindari, Kafni and Sundardhunga glaciers. Its head is walled by the Nanda Kot–Nanda Devi ridge, which the difficult mountaineering route of Traill's Pass crosses into Johar. A pass named in a question is placed by finding its valley first.
Unta Dhura matters because of the Shauka (Bhotiya) trade of the Johar valley, which carried salt, wool and borax over these passes until Indo-Tibetan trade across them ended after 1962. Milam, once a large trading village, is today reached by the Munsiyari–Bugdiar–Milam road.
Hold the pass, the glacier, the river and the district together as one set: Unta Dhura, Milam glacier, Gori Ganga, Pithoragarh. The Pindar set is Traill's Pass, Pindari glacier, Pindar river, Bageshwar.
- Unta Dhura (Untadhura) is a pass above 5,000 metres at the head of the Johar valley in Pithoragarh district, on the old trade route from Milam to Tibet.
- Milam glacier lies in Munsiyari tehsil of Pithoragarh district; Milam village stands a few kilometres below its snout.
- The Gori Ganga rises at Milam glacier, flows down the Johar valley past Munsiyari and joins the Kali at Jauljibi.
- Pindari glacier, in Bageshwar district, gives rise to the Pindar, which meets the Alaknanda at Karnaprayag.
- Kafni glacier, also in Bageshwar, feeds the Kafni river, a tributary of the Pindar; its trail branches from the Pindari route at Dwali.
- Sundardhunga glacier lies in the Sundardhunga valley of Bageshwar district beneath the peak Maiktoli, and its stream drains to the Pindar.
- Traill's Pass, between Nanda Devi and Nanda Kot, links the Pindari valley with the Johar (Milam) valley and is named after G.W. Traill, an early British Commissioner of Kumaon.
- Other Pithoragarh passes towards Tibet include Lipulekh in the Byans valley and Kingri Bingri and Jayanti Dhura in Johar; Mana and Niti passes are in Chamoli district.
Unta Dhura belongs to the Johar valley and Milam glacier; the other three glaciers sit on the Pindar side, in Bageshwar district.
- The paper's spelling ‘Utadhura’ hides the familiar name Unta Dhura; read it as a Johar valley pass before looking at the options.
- Three of the four options are Pindar-valley glaciers of Bageshwar, so picking the best-known of them (Pindari) lands in the wrong district.
- Traill's Pass also touches Pindari, but it links the Pindar valley with Johar; Unta Dhura is the Tibet-facing pass beyond Milam, not the one at Pindari's head.
- Milam glacier and Milam village are in Pithoragarh, not Bageshwar; placing Milam in the Pindar group breaks the whole chain.
The device is a Uttarakhand feature paired with an anchor of a different kind: a pass located by a glacier, a shrine by a district, a landslide zone by two towns. The question tests whether you can move from one feature to the valley that contains it.
The same set can be turned around: which river rises at Milam, which pass joins the Pindar valley to Johar, which of these glaciers lies outside Bageshwar.
UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1142024Same paper, same device: a named Uttarakhand place to be anchored to a larger unit. Q114 anchors the Purnagiri shrine to a district (Champawat); this question anchors a pass to a glacier and its valley. Each rewards district-by-district knowledge of Kumaon, but one is pilgrimage geography and the other physical geography.
UKPSC_2016_PRE_PaperI_Q242016Also asks where in Uttarakhand a named physical feature sits, with options given as pairs of towns rather than glaciers. That question concerns a landslide zone on a Garhwal highway; this one a trade pass in Kumaon. The shared skill is placing a feature inside the valley or road stretch that contains it.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Traill's Pass, at the head of the Pindari glacier, gives a route into which valley of Uttarakhand?
- (a)Johar (Milam) valley
- (b)Darma valley
- (c)Byans valley
- (d)Niti valley
Answera — Traill's Pass crosses the Nanda Devi–Nanda Kot ridge from the Pindar valley into the Johar (Milam) valley, the Pindar's neighbour across the ridge to the north-east.Darma and Byans are the eastern valleys of Pithoragarh reached from Dharchula, on the eastern Dhauli Ganga and the Kali; Niti is a Chamoli valley on the western Dhauli Ganga. Each lies well away from the Pindari head.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following rivers has its source at the Milam glacier?
- (a)Pindar
- (b)Gori Ganga
- (c)Kali
- (d)Dhauli Ganga (East)
Answerb — The Gori Ganga rises below Milam glacier and flows through the Johar valley to Munsiyari before joining the Kali at Jauljibi.The Pindar rises at Pindari glacier in Bageshwar; the Kali drains the Byans valley on the Nepal border; the eastern Dhauli Ganga drains the Darma valley.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following glaciers of Uttarakhand is NOT located in Bageshwar district?
- (a)Pindari glacier
- (b)Kafni glacier
- (c)Sundardhunga glacier
- (d)Milam glacier
Answerd — Milam glacier lies in Munsiyari tehsil of Pithoragarh district, in the Johar valley of the Gori Ganga.Pindari, Kafni and Sundardhunga are the three glaciers of the Pindar system in Bageshwar district, reached from Khati and Dwali on the Pindari trail.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The old trade route from Milam village to Tibet crossed which one of the following passes?
- (a)Mana pass
- (b)Niti pass
- (c)Unta Dhura
- (d)Lipulekh
Answerc — Johar traders left Milam over Unta Dhura, then Jayanti Dhura and Kingri Bingri, into Tibet.Mana and Niti are Chamoli passes at the heads of the Saraswati and western Dhauli Ganga valleys; Lipulekh stands at the head of the Byans (Kali) valley of Pithoragarh, on the Kailash–Mansarovar route, far east of Johar.