Crank's Ridge

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The pine-covered Kalimath, known as Crank’s Ridge or Hippie Hill, is located on the way to Kasar Devi temple near Almora, Uttarakhand, India, a quaint Kathmanduesque town and the ancient capital of Kumaon. It is considered a great spot for spending long hours in quiet solitude, as it has a magnificent view of the Himalayas. Kasar Devi is a temple near Almora where Swami Vivekananda once came to meditate in the late 19th century.

The ridge begame a haunt for bohemian artists, writers and spiritual seekers in the 1920s and 30s, including W. Y. Evans-Wentz, Lama Angarika Govinda (both notable western Tibetan Buddhists), Earl Brewster, an American artist, author John Blofeld and Danish mystic Alfred Sorensen. In the 1960s and 70s, luminaries of the counter-culture made pilgrimages to the ridge to visit these established inhabitants. Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and R. D. Laing visited Lama Govinda. And in the mid-seventies Alfred ‘Sunyata’ Sorensen was taken to San Francisco by the Alan Watts society.

A cult destination, it now has a small community of backpackers and ex-hippies settled there ever since the place gained the reputation of being a Power Centre during the hippie hey-days. This reputation is due to the alleged gap in the Van Allen Belt above the ridge, a perception arguably strengthened by the free and easy availability of hemp on the slopes.

Two biographies that center on two of its residents are: PILGRIM OF THE CLEAR LIGHT:THE BIOGRAPHY OF DR. WALTER EVANS-WENTZ and A THOUSAND JOURNEYS:A BIOGRAPHY OF LAMA ANAGARIKA GOVINDA. There is also a Buddhist meditation center on the ridge.