THE MOUNTAIN SHADOW PHENOMENON IN SRI PADA

Have you ever been to the summit in Sri Pada?? Or have you ever seen the sun rise in the eastern horizon?

Sri Pada, one of the best destinations in Sri Lanka where locals’ pilgrim to worship religious foot print and tourists come to see the sun rise through horizon. Lucky for me I have two times experienced the summit. But this is not about how my journey end up with, but this is about the mountain shadow phenomenon in Sri Pada which is more famous among foreigners though I was recently known about. Let’s get to the story.

We started climbing mountain at 10.30 p.m. night from Nallathanniya and reached to the summit by 2.30 a.m. dawn and we waited there until morning to see the sun rise. The sun rises momentarily came around 6.22 a.m. in the morning and we all waited with pressure due to lack of space in the temple. Sooner seeing the sun rays I moved back letting others to see it and fortunately I saw the triangular shadow of Sri Pada in the western sky and it was a curious to me. Since I didn’t know about this phenomenon I took several photos until sun rise to the sky and it could be seen that consequently triangular shadow came closer to the base of the mountain. Once I getting know about this phenomenon I decided to analyze this and present you some interesting factors causing the triangular shadow in Sri Pada.

First, I am going to show you some photographs taken by me sooner I see the mountain shadow and see how red and oranges colors in the western horizon changes with time and the triangular shape of the shadow.

Once I search literature I could understand this is because of a visual illusion from linear perspective from crepuscular rays. Crepuscular rays are parallel rays which can be seen in the dawn at sun rise with red and yellow color rays which are converging to a point somewhere in the sky. The opposite of this rays is anti-crepuscular rays where you could see in the evening and this rays converge to the sun. As I said it is a visual illusion because it is similar to  two parallel railway lines which seems like they meet at the infinity. So we can conclude that the shadow of a mountain converge in the horizon in crepuscular rays giving a shape of triangle for its shadow regardless of actual shape the mountain. But generally the number of mountains which can be seen this phenomenon in the world is very much low because this can be seen in huge mountains where summit is too higher from sea level.

But in my point of view the deviation  rises when the shadow remains as a triangle when sun rises to the sky. This is a photograph taken by me when we are climbing down through ‘’Kuruwita Road”.

By analyzing further, I could understand that though Sri Pada is not triangular shaped it’s perpendicular geographical situation to the rays in the western side of the mountain causes its triangular shape. The following is a photograph taken from Google Maps which characterized to demonstrate that phenomenon.

Though Sri Pada is parabolic shaped in 3D plane the outmost edges in the plane causes to the boundary of the shadow. As you see in the above terrain view the blood red sketched lines are the outmost edges thus a triangular shaped shadow can be obtained in the western side of the mountain.  

So, if you find interested in what I am saying and any corrections to be added please comment here and if you ever find interesting in what you are seeing in mother nature or get some curious, make yourself to analyze and see the beauty of mother nature.

WE WARMLY WELCOME YOU TO MOTHER LANKA TO SEE THE INFINITY.

--Ishara