Silent Valley National Park (Malayalam: (സൈലന്റ് വാലീ നാഷണല് പാര്ക്ക്), 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 and is associated with Hindu legend.
The park is one of the last undisturbed tracts of South Western Ghats montane 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 under consideration by UNESCO.
The visitors' centre for the park is at Sairandhri.
The area is locally known as "Sairandhrivanam" literally, in Malayalam: Sairandhri's Forest. In local Hindu legend, Sairandhri is Draupadi, the polyandrous wife of the five Pandavas, who disguised herself as Sairandhri, queen Sudeshna's assistant, while they were in exile.The Pandavas, deprived of their kingdom, set out on a 14-year exile. They wandered south, into what is now Kerala, until one day they came upon a magical valley where rolling grasslands met wooded ravines, a deep green river bubbled its course through impenetrable forest, where at dawn and twilight the tiger and elephant would drink together at the water's edge, where all was harmonious and man unknown. Beside that river, in a cave on a hill slope, the Pandavas halted.
Silent Valley is home to the largest population of Lion-tailed Macaque, an endangered species of Primate. It has many rare type of birds,mammals,trees,insects etc..
The Kuntipuzha River drains the entire 15 km length of the park from north to south into the Bharathapuzha River. Kuntipuzha River divides the park into a narrow eastern sector of width 2 kilometers and a wide western sector of 5 kilometers. The river is characterized by its crystal clear and perennial nature. The main tributaries of the river, kunthancholapuzha, Karingathodu, Madrimaranthodu, Valiaparathodu and Kummaathanthodu originate on the upper slopes of the eastern side of the valley. The river is uniformly shallow, with no flood plains or meanders. Its bed falls from 1,861 m to 900 m over a distance of 12 km, the last 8 km being particularly level with a fall of only 60 m. Kuntipuzha is one of the less torrential rivers of the Western Ghats, with a pesticide-free catchment area.
The nearest Rail head is Palakkad Junction (Olavacode) which is nearly 60 Kms away from the base camp of the National Park, Mukkali .
Shornur junction , another railhead is about 75 Km from the base camp of the National Park, Mukkali.
Coimbatore Junction in Tamil Nadu is also 45 km away from Mukkali, the base camp.
Nearest Air Ports are Cochin (135KM), Coimbatore (55 KM) and Calicut (80KM).
By road
From East: Palakkad (60 KM) and Coimbatore (45 KM)
From South : Thrissur (115KM) and Shornur (75 KM)
From North : Calicut (120KM)
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