The Tons (टौंस नदी) is the largest tributary of the Yamuna and flows through Garhwal region in Uttarakhand, touching Himachal Pradesh. The Tons thrust is named after this river. River Tons is formed at Naitwar, where the Supin coming from Har Ki Dun meets the Rupin, coming from the eastern slopes of hill chains bordering Himachal Preadesh.
the main source is Ruinsara snout , located below Dhum Dhar kandi ridge which leads to Kalanag and Banderpoonch and is one of the most major perennial Indian Himalayan rivers. In fact, it carries more water than the Yamuna itself, which it meets below Kalsi near Dehradun, Uttarakhand.
Tons Valley
Tons Valley lies in Jaunsar Bawar region, as it emerges from the Himalayas.The cantonment town of Chakrata is situated between, the Tons and Yamuna rivers.
[[File:A view of Tons river from near Kalsi,.JPG|thumb|The bridge in the picture joins the Jaunsar Bawar region with Dun Valley.
Tributaries
The Pabbar River is a tributary of the Tons River connecting to it from the west. The Pabbar River is the westernmost river that drains east to the Ganges. The Sutlej River is the next watershed over and is the easternmost river that drains west into the Indus. River is having siltation problem.
Identification with ancient Saraswati river
Research points to the possibility of the ancient Saraswati river having had a source in the glacial waters of the Himalayas. The theory states that the Tons river became a tributary of the Yamuna a few thousand years ago following a tectonic event in the Shiwalik range near Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh. If this is true, the Tons once ran an independent course somewhat parallel to the Yamuna, running south-west into Haryana where the Yamuna merged into it, and lower down the course into Punjab, where the Sutlej merged into it. This river was then the Saraswati mentioned in the Vedic texts as the greatest of all Indian rivers. However, this is just a theory and is yet to be universally accepted.
Geology
The top of the Tons river is in the Himalayan Crystalline complex. It then flows through Tethan Himalaya rocks before connecting to the Pabbar River in the Lesser Himalayan Sequence. The Tons flows into the Yamuna River after crossing into the Sub-Himalaya Sequence.
In Literature
An engraved plate of a rope bridge crossing in Fisher’s Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1839, inspired the poem Crossing the River Tonse by a Jhoola by Letitia Elizabeth Landon in which the three strands of the rope are echoed by the three-lined verses.
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Wikisource has original text related to this article:
‘Crossing the River Tonse by a Jhoola’,
a poem by L. E. L. |
Adventure sports
Along with Ganges, it has now become a major destination for water-based adventure sports like white-water rafting in Uttarakhand. You can stay at Jaunsar Bawar region on the banks of the Tons river and enjoy the grade 4 rafting. Typical season for rafting in Tons is till July.