Darma Valley

Darma Valley is a Himalayan valley in the Pithoragarh District of Uttarakhand, India, in the eastern Kumaon division, carved by the Darma River, also known as the Darma Yankti or Darma Ganga, and flanked by the Kuthi Yankti valley to the east and the Lassar Yankti valley to the west. Its lower reaches, known as Talla Darma, sit at 7,000 to 8,000 feet and once supported two crops a year, while the upper reaches, Malla Darma, climb to about 11,600 feet at Baun, where only one crop was possible after the snow melted. The valley holds the Panchchuli massif, whose peaks range from 6,334 to 6,904 metres, and Yungtangto at 5,945 metres, and about twelve villages of fewer than 1,000 people each, whose residents traditionally raised livestock and grew buckwheat and potatoes before migration in the 1970s reduced the cultivated land.