The Grass was greener
The light was brighter
With friends surrounded
The nights of wonder -
PINK FLOYD
Lush
greenery, thick fog, clouds around, warmth of the early morning sun and that
infinite path we were walking in; a distinct view for every few steps we walked.
These spectacular things were seen and experienced at a height of around 1300m
from the sea level. It was around 6am. We were in Kallu Mantapa getting ready
for our second day journey.
With much chaos and hiccups, we started to Kukke
Subrahmanya on a Saturday evening. Every trekkers delight, one of the toughest
and the most beautiful trekking trail “KUMARA PARVATHA” was our destination. On
a very short notice, we managed to hire a tent and carry necessary food items. In
the early hours of Sunday we were in Kukke Subrahmanya. We freshened up and
went to the temple. The sanctity here is so refreshing which makes you feel
blessed. It was a perfect beginning for an exceptional day in our lives. After
having our breakfast, we sorted our luggage to carry only the essential stuff,
and left behind the excess in the temple’s cloak room.
We
took an auto to the starting point of our trek, which is around 1.3 km from the
temple. We were greeted by a small temple, an open well and a small iron gate
which as told by my friend resembled a haunted house entry gate. A small
board over there said, “Way to Kumara Parvatha” pointing towards the small
gate. This would take us into the arms of Gigantic Kumara Parvatha. It was 10 am
when we started our dream trek from this place.
Tall
trees all around, sunlight trying to penetrate between the branches and crackling
of the insects welcomed us. We could see a marked difference with just 1 km
into the trek. We have trekked Sakaleshpur green route, Kodachadri, Skandagiri
and many other places. We thought the initial few kilometres of the trek would
be very easy, which would be a warm up. But, it was not so. It was very steep and
tiring which left us dehydrated and forced us in taking frequent breaks. We
were lucky enough to find water streams all along the way and never really
struggled for water in the entire trek.
After
2 hours climb, it started raining and the time our umbrellas came out. With
reduced visibility and thick fog all around, we concluded to have covered a
considerable distance. Till now it was just tall trees all around. Now it was
the beautiful green pastures on both the sides of the trail. It was pleasant
and the path was no longer steep which made it much pleasant. It was Pushpagiri
wildlife sanctuary and true to its name, the mountain had beautiful flowers.
Yet, there was one irritating factor, leeches!! These were the uninvited guests
who were with us all along the way. We were forced to donate our blood often
for those anaemic leeches.
We
were heading towards Bhatru mane. It was around 1 pm when we reached. It was a
solid 3 hours climbing till there. We met many other trekkers there who gave us
directions and tips for our remaining journey. Some of them had come from the
peak and some of them were heading back to Kukke without going to the peak
because of the heavy showers. We realised that we were the only people trekking
to the peak that day. The most difficult stretch of our trek was to start after
Bhatru mane. We had planned to camp at the peak on the same day, which looked
quite difficult foreseeing the weather condition. Whatever be the case, we were
determined to proceed. After sumptuous lunch and packed dinner (thanks to
Bhatru), we were all set to embark on our risky climb to the peak.
After
a few minutes of walk from Bhatru mane we reached the forest office, where we
had to pay an entry fee of 200Rs each. Officers there were reluctant in letting
us move forward. They warned us of heavy showers and gave us their contacts in
case of any trouble. Occasionally there was good signal strength of Bsnl and Airtel.
Surrounded by a thick blanket of fog and absolute no sense of direction, we
started our arduous climb, determined to reach the Zenith before Sun down. Along
with the Fog blanket leeches were our only other faithful companions all through
the never ending climb. At times when the fog cleared, we could see huge
mountains on one side of the trail and killer depth on the other side of the
trail. One wrong step would land us hundreds of feet down. With lot of focus
and eyes glued on the trail we continued our journey.
It
was around 4 o’ Clock, when we could hazily see a huge rock peeping at us around
100 feet high, not sure what it was we continued our climb. Finally we were
there “Kallu Mantapa”!! Our halt for the night. According to the information we
had, on reaching kallu mantapa we had to head towards Shesha parvatha, descend
into the hungry jungles of the rain forest and then again start off with the
climb to reach our destination. With the clock ticking and the blanket of fog
growing thicker by every sec, we decided to pitch our tents on the rugged
flooring of the Kallu mantapa, surrounded by our loyal companions, Leeches. We
started pitching our tents by nailing the peg’s first and double checking that
the pegs were deep enough to withstand the gusty winds and the horrid rain. On
finishing the ritual of pitching and convinced it would not fly off, it was
time we snuggled into our only cozy, warm respite in middle of nowhere. We
gently swifted away into the world of dreams.
I
was jolted back to reality from my dream world by my friend who was frightened
by the sound of the night, which he claimed to be footsteps of people unseen
off!!!!! I cleared my throat to hear the
things properly. I was shocked and so wished I hadn’t done it. We could
actually hear footsteps and knockings on our only warm respite. We were even
more scared since we were very convinced that there could possible not be any
human hanging around there at that point of time, which literally freaked us
out. Clearing my thoughts and gathering my guts, I decided to unzip my tent and
check what exactly it was. To my delight all I could see was heavy downpour against
the thick fog. Thanking our stars for not seeing anything else and comforting ourselves
that they were only our imagination, I snuggled back into the tent. I was
shocked to see a traitor inside our tent, none other than the LEECH!! Irritated
we put on our torches, killed it with salt and we slept again.
It
was 7.30pm when we woke up again, but this time by hunger. We had our packed
dinner which had rice, butter milk, pickles and chutney pudi which tasted just
heavenly. We stepped out of the tent to clean our hands and to see how the
world looked like. We were pleasantly surprised at what we saw. We could see brightly
lit Kukke subrahmanya town, which was of much relief since we never imagined we
could see anything. With rest assured we got back into our tent and not to miss
our uninvited guests’ leeches. Sleeping on uneven rough surface, nail biting
coldness, anxiety of the next day’s trek and many more thoughts running in my
mind it was easily one of the horrible nights in my life. There has never been any
other day in my life when I was so happy to be able to hear my phone alarm shouting
at 5.30am. After spending a good 12 hours inside the tent,
it was finally time for us to pack our bags, roll our tents and set off on our
mission again. With unwavering determination and lot of enthusiasm, we started
our climb. We were accustomed to the environment by now; there were no cramps,
no tiredness and no fear of facing the unknown and we were determined to make
it.
When we were close to Shesha Parvatha, we could see the sunrise behind the Mountains. The warmth and the beauty of it, has to be experienced.
Shesha
Parvatha, true to its name, the hill top resembles a snake hood. Which we only
realized after Bhatru told about it.
The
best and the most thrilling path throughout the trek is the one which we
encountered after Shesha Parvatha. We entered into a place with thick
vegetation, slippery ground, huge trees which formed canopies and zillions of
leeches.
We
were in the rainforest!! With our adrenaline pumping, we entered the valley and paced. And not to forget, this is the place we had maximum leech bites.
After about a good 30 min walk, we were faced by our next big challenge, to cross a waterfall to reach the peak. All the waterfalls at this region are rain fed, which means the rocks were to be very slippery and difficult to climb. So we decided to take a roundabout route or I can say we bypassed the waterfall.
Finally succeeding in bypassing the waterfall, we found ourselves in midst of thick bushes. We felt we had missed our way and considered getting back to the place where we started bypassing the waterfall. Suddenly something struck my mind. One of the fellow trekkers, whom we met in Bhatru mane, was speaking about a trail somewhere amongst the bushes which led them to the actual trail. We set out in the search of the same. In no time we spotted a narrow opening in the bushes through which the sunlight was penetrating. For our relief it was the correct path. We were doubly confirmed when we could see the same waterfall below us!!! We had to mark this point somehow, so we placed an empty Slice bottle and called it the “Slice point”.
Even with reduced visibility and thick fog everywhere, we noticed another trail intersecting with ours. This was the trail originating from the Somwarpet side. There were a number of stones arranged in pyramid shape all around the place. One particular pyramid was important to us simply because we had to take a left turn here while returning and we didn’t want to miss it on our way back. So we named it the “Pyramid point”.
From this place onwards there is no defined trail as such. It is all lush green. But we were not satisfied for a simple reason that, we were aware of the fact that there was a temple on top of the peak and now we were on mission temple. We decided to drop our bags and tent at a place and set off in search of the temple. After sometime we realized that we were actually descending the hill on the other side. We had already crossed the peak. We headed back to the place where we had dropped off our bags. By then the fog was clearing and the visibility was much better, just then we saw a wall of stones. Out of curiosity we went on to the place and to our surprise, it was the TEMPLE!!! It was a too true to believe kind of feeling, which just cannot be expressed in words. Inside the temple was idol of lord Shiva.
The time we spent over there is invaluable. Such a heavenly atmosphere it was. After offering our prayers and seeking for blessings we set out on our journey back to the base, kukke. It was 10am and the visibility steadily increasing, we started walking down. We first reached the pyramid point, then slice point which we were glad to find. The path was very slippery. Thank god, we didn’t end up in cramps or injuries, even though we slipped many times.
The weather was good compared to the previous day. It was bright and the clouds seemed to have moved down. This made the walk a lot easier and enjoyable. We rested in the same Kallu Mantapa for some time and recollected the previous night’s experience. Ours were the only two human souls to be present in the entire Kumara Parvatha that day.
After an hour’s walk from Kallu Mantapa, we were confused looking at the path. We were sure that, we hadn’t climbed to Kallu Mantapa in the trail which we were walking now. Everything seemed very different and even though the path was going downwards, we couldn’t anticipate what was there on the other side of the hill. We feared imagining climbing back to Kallu mantapa again and finding the right path. After a few minutes of walk with that anxiety, we could see the mobile network tower present near the forest office, which I had seen the previous day. We breathed a sigh of relief and the path lead us to the man made view point near forest office. We are not sure if there are two trails from Kallu mantapa to Bhatru Mane.
We reached Bhatru mane around 1.00pm, feasted on the lovely home cooked veg food and resumed our downhill climb at 2.00pm.
We decided to walk at a steady slow pace without stopping until we reached the base kukke. The walk through the forest was more enjoyable and easy because there was no rain and fog. Even the blood thirsty leeches failed to bother us. We were damn sure we had donated more than a unit of blood.
Finally we reached the base at 5pm, pulled out every single tiny monster leech out and then proceeded towards the town. On reaching, we hired a room, had a refreshing hot water bath and relaxed for some time. We visited the temple again and started back to Bangalore in KSRTC Airavat. We reached Bangalore at 4am next day. It was an overwhelming and one of a kind experience which was worth every leech bite!!
First Day:
Started trek at 10am.
Reached Bhatru Mane at 1pm.
Kallu Mantapa at 4.30pm (Camp)
Second Day:
Started from Kallu Mantapa at 6.30am.
Reached the peak at 9.30am.
Bhatru Mane at 1pm.
Kukke Subrahmanya at 5pm.
Total time to reach the peak: 9 hours
Downhill Climb: 6 hours
Aerial View of Kumara Parvatha(Google Map)
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