Kuduremukh - 3rd time

Yes, for the third time I climbed the Kuduremukh peek on 20th Dec 2019 with a whole new gang. Umesh, Indiresh, Swamy & I drove from Bangalore to Balegal. The original plan was to reach Hornadu by night, stay in the temple lodge and next day morning drive to Balegal. But Rajappa, who is our contact in the Mullodi village (basecamp) suggested coming directly there. There is a limit of 50 members per day allowed to trek so he suggested he can arrange for permits the previous night itself. We started from Bangalore by 3:30pm on 19th Dec and reached Balegal by 10:30pm. The drive was good except at few places after Kottigehara where the road repair was in progress. Mr. Jinendra from Balegal owns several jeeps and runs between Mullodi (basecamp) & Balegal (base town). We took a drop to Rajappa's house and checked-in to our rooms. 

     It was very dark & chilling when we woke up at 5am in the morning. As usual, after multiple snoozes finally woke up at 6am and got refreshed. Idli, Sambar & Coconut chutney was served at 7:30am for breakfast. After filling our bellies with hot idlis & a cup of tea, we took the packed Puliyogare rice for lunch and started our trek around 8am. There is a new forest check-post built after a short climb-up from Rajappa's house. They check if you are carrying a plastic bag, alcohol and other non-degradable materials. You are not allowed to carry small chocolates wrapped in plastic. You have to remove everything and put it in one big plastic box. This will ensure that people don't throw that little plastic wrap after eating chocolate. After clearing the security check, we started walking up towards the peak. The initial part of the trek was good as you have to walk on a plain road. Trek gets ugly once you cross Lobo's house, and you have to climb up. I have been out of touch for few months now and was having difficulty to climb the final stretch. Umesh & Indiresh looked very fit and the claimed the peak first. Swamy joined as the third person, and I was the last person to reach the peak at 11:45am.

We spent an hour up there on the peak and finished our packed lunch at the stream just below the peak. We started descending around 1:30pm and reached Rajappa's house around 4:00pm.

After changing clothes, I & Swamy went to take bath in the Mullodi falls. It was chilling water but gave a very refreshing bath. We came back to Rajappa's house and started chit-chat with his kids. Suman & Seema were very friendly, and without any hesitation, they opened up for discussion with strangers. Seems in fact, started asking stories from Ramayan & Mahabharath and I & Indiresh shared whatever that we have learned. Rajappa served us the onion pakoras and we finished that in no time. After dinner, we came back to the room and settled for the night. 

     The next day, we woke up at 6am, and after taking bath we left Rajappa's house. We went to Horanadu temple, but due to the Sabarimala season, it was heavily crowded. We offered prayers from the outside and started our journey back to Bangalore. While having breakfast at Kalasa, we met one of the very good lyricists of the Kannada film industry, Mr. Jayant Kaykini. He was there for the Galipata-2 film shooting, and he obliged to take photographs with him. On the way back, we visited Indiresh's home at Hasan and had a glass of tasty buttermilk. Next, we stopped for lunch at Swathi Delicacy and reached Bangalore by 6pm. It was a nice drive and trek to Kuduremukh. There are a lot of treks in mind, but don't know how many can be attempted. 

     Keep traveling & keep blogging :-). Good night.

Ettina Bhuja Trek

Ettina Bhuja

This particular trek was on my mind ever since we saw it while returning from Ombattu gudda trek some 4 years back. We did lot of other treks, and Ombattu gudda once again but we could not make it to the Ettina Bhuja or fondly called "EB" peak.

     Nothing much to write about this trek, as it is a very small trek. Six of us: Laxmi, Prabin, Prabhat, Sibhasis, Nilesh and me climbed the "Ettina Bhuja" peak on 23rd July 2016. At first, we thought of leaving Bangalore after midnight, and reach the base camp (Bhyrapura) by early morning. But, I was not sure of any facilities at Bhyrapura so decided to leave by 9 pm and reach Mudigere by mid-night and take rest in a hotel. The Bangalore traffic screwed our plan, and we could leave only by 10:30 pm. It took almost an hour to reach Nelamangala cross at that time also. Our vehicle was a new Nissan Evalia which had place for just 6 people excluding driver. The driver, Deepak was driving very cautiously and we reached Mudigere by 4:30 am. After having tea & bun at a road side shop in-front of Mudigere bus stand, we checked in to Hotel Athithi (Contact: 9731448527/9901941333/08263-221515)(just few steps down from the Bus stand). We needed room for only few hours, till we get a hotel for breakfast. We had a good sleep for 3 hours, and woke up at 7:30. After all morning rituals, had breakfast at the restaurant below, and started journey towards Byrapura. 

   

View of the Ettina Bhuja

 It is another hour drive from Mudigere to Byrapura (for about 25 kms). You have good road till Bhyraveshwara temple. The view while going up towards the temple is good but it was very cloudy so could not get any photo. We were at the temple by 10:30 am. I did not had bath, so didn't enter the temple. The peak is visible from the temple complex, and the temple priest told its only 2 kms and we could do in just 30-40 minutes. It was drizzling, and I was fully prepared for the rain by wearing waterproof pants, coat & gum boots.  I had experienced heavy rain during Ombattu gudda trek, when I was not prepared for rain at all. I expected medium rain this time. As Murphy's law says - "You can't expect the unexpected, otherwise there is no need for word unexpected". Rain gods were very kind this time and it didn't rain even once :(. The peak was not visible at all due to heavy clouds surrounding it. It was very rejuvenating, cool weather, and I was taking deep breaths to take in more oxygen from Nature's laboratory. The final part of the climb requires a flexible body, and if you make it to the top you will be in heaven. When we reached the top, it was around 11:30 am, and it was white clouds all around. We waited there to get a view of the valley below. After an hour or so, the clouds cleared and the view is simply breathtaking. At 1 pm we started coming down, and it took only 20 minutes to come back to the temple. After changing clothes, we finished lunch and started driving back to Bangalore. We visited Belur-Halebidu temples on the way back, and reached Bangalore by 10:30 pm.

     From Byrapura side, this trek is very short and ideal for beginners.

1. You will not get any food/drinks close to the temple, so you have to carry everything you need. Remember to bring back all the plastic covers,packs and non-degradable things.
2. The public transport is available from Mudigere, but won't go till the temple. So, its better to make your own arrangement. 
3. There is no water source on the way up. If its sunny day, carry sufficient water bottles.
4. Remember the direction of peak, and choose the proper trial. Aim to reach the grassland first which then leads to the top of peak. The Jeep trail, might lead to Shishila or Ombattu gudda but I'm not sure now.

      I thank Dr Sampath kumar, for giving me necessary information for this trek. Hope to revisit the place again after this rainy season with you :).

Kudremukh - Once again !!

     My last trek with "Crazy Hikers" was to Kuduremukh peek on 7th December last year. Many friends who could not join then were requesting for a trek to Kuduremukh again. Last year, we did trek every month and had different experiences in wilderness. Some friends got married, some left the company and various other commitments damaged our group's reputation as "Crazy Hikers" :).  Every time we met each other at office, we used to discuss about our next trek but it was not getting materialized. 

     Finally, Laxmi took a bold step and declared that we are going on 17th October no matter who comes are not. We then started choosing the place to go, and "Bandaje" came out. I've gone to "Bandaje" two times already but still would love to go again. I had my daughter's first term exam results & grand father's ceremony on Saturday (18th Oct) due to which I wasn't able to join this trek. But, I wanted others to continue as per the plan, otherwise people loose interest. Every time one or the other person has reasons to drop out, and we can't satisfy everyone. I was lucky this time, as few others also dropped out, Laxmi postponed "Bandaje" trek to a future date. Few people were still interested for a trek during that weekend, and I suggested "Kuduremukh" & I could join the trek if we start on Saturday night. As usual, we started roping in people & formed a team of sixteen people. 

     Trekking in a large group has both advantages & dis-advantages. The advantage is that you have many friends to share experiences and enjoy. The dis-advantage is that coordinating with every member will be difficult. As they say - "A team can perform as fast as its slowest member of the team", the team's pace will be decided by the slowest walking person. We prefer "fun" over "pace", so in most of the treks we will be more than 10 people. 

     We divided the trip logistics among ourselves. Prakash booked a 20 seater "Swaraj Mazda" at 20 Rs/Km rate, Laxmi & Prabin co-ordinated with all the members and ensured that everyone boards the bus at the right time. I called up Rajappa (Raje gowda) at Mullodi, and requested to send two Jeeps to Balegallu around 5:30am on Sunday. I also requested him to prepare only "white rice" for the lunch. Last time, the "Lemon rice" he had prepared was extra-rich in oil, and we could not eat properly. So this time, thought of taking "Puliyogare mix" (a paste made out of Tamarind & Jaggery) with us and mix it with "white rice" ourselves. The plan was to start at 10:30pm from Bangalore, go via Hassan > Mudigere > Kottigehara > Kalasa and reach Balegallu by 5:30am on Sunday. The first pickup point was Jayadeva hospital at 9:30pm. Prabin, Anusha, Debashish, Raghu, Ankit, Sangeetha & Ravi boarded the bus at Jayadeva, Prakash, Laxmi, Kavitha, Satish ponnusamy joined at Delmia circle. Me, Deepa, Roopa & Sangita (Roopa's sister) joined them at Devegowda petrol bunk. Last person Karthik joined us at Goragunte palya on the way. 

     Everything was going as per the plan except that the bus we were travelling wasn't comfortable. It was going fast and road was good, but the seats weren't designed for long journey. Laxmi had brought a sleeping mat and we shared the mat & slept on the aisle between the seats. At 3:18am I woke up to check out where we were, and google map showed another 1.5 hrs to Kalasa. We were near Kottigehara by 3:30am, and we stopped the bus to have a cup of coffee/tea at "Indian Cafe". It was still dark, so I told Lohith (driver) to go little slow. The road between Kottigehara & Kalasa had lot of curves and I felt like vomiting but somehow controlled. We reached Balegallu just 2 minutes early to the expected 5:30am. It wasn't a surprise to see 4-5 vechicles parked already which indicated the number of trekkers present there. After morning rituals we were transported to Rajappa's house in two jeeps. Rajappa welcomed us with a big smile and I reminded him about our visit last year. We were given a room to change the dress & keep our baggage. Since no one is allowed to camp at the top, there is no point in carrying anything except food & water.

     After having Idli's for the breakfast, we prepared "puliyogare rice" for the lunch there itself and distributed the packets to all & started our trek around 8:15am. Some say the trek distance is 9  kms one way, and some say 11 kms. Google's "My tracks" app clocked around 8 kms !!. A small team would cover this distance in around 3.5 to 4 hrs, with a large group it will take an hour extra. We paid 275.00 Rs per head forest entry fee to Rajappa. He said, he will pay 8,000/- Rs every month to local forest department guys, otherwise he will be tortured for unnecessary reasons. Well, without knowing the other side story, I can't conclude anything in this case, but the forest department doesn't provide any assistance to trekkers after taking 275.00 Rs. In Kumara parvatha trail, there are sign boards and mile stones but nothing here except at the top. Ravi & Prakash, who were coming in the last, lost their trail twice but luckily could find the proper trail.

     

     This trek was special to me, as I was accompanied by my wife. It was her second trek but still I was concerned whether she can do it or not. There were few other first timers & I was mentally prepared to come back from the point where they feel they can't proceed. But, all of them were very brave & strong and completed entire trek without any complaints. The last year's trek was still fresh in my mind, and I could recall what we did at every turn & forest patch. After some 25 minutes of walking, we reached "Bodhi vriksh" (A temple tree where Buddha was enlightened) & then reached a stream. Ravi & Prakash were behind, trying to shoot some Scarlet Minivets & Rose ringed parakeets, and we waited for them. Raghu & Satish went back in search of them, when they didn't turn up after 10 minutes also. While we were waiting for them, I shot this slow-shutter image of the stream. 

When Ravi & Prakash joined us, all others continued the trek and I stayed with them trying some more shots of the stream. A frog suddenly appeared on a rock & posed comfortably. There was no light, so had to bump up the ISO to get a good shot. Ravi & PK continued their shooting, and I started walking. After this stream, there is a steep climb and then trails splits into two. One trail goes down towards the stream, and this is where Ravi & PK had lost their way. 

     The trail is very clear, most of the times in open land and 4-5 times goes through forest. At another stream ahead, the trail splits into two, and we had to choose left one. We placed rocks one above another to make a pyramid, to indicate the direction for late comers. After crossing the stream, we hit an open land and from there the Kuduremukh peek was clearly seen. It is when we spotted, 4-5 people on a different mountain. I thought they must have gone there by mistake, but later came to know that, that is another peek called "Thirumalaguppe", which is just 5 kms from Rajappa's house. After walking few more minutes, we saw a damaged home (?!), perhaps someone lived there long long ago. Ravi & Prakash were still behind, and all others have gone ahead. I was walking alone, when I met two birders from Mangalore. They were pointing at a distant bird & were trying to photograph with a Canon 100-400mm lens. I greeted them and moved on. Just after I came out of this forest patch, there is a steep climb for some 1 hour, which is to me, is the first exam. After climbing this part, I could clearly see people on the ridge walking towards the peek. I checked "My Tracks" app, and it showed around 4.2 kms and the time was 10:50am. Raghu was carrying my bag with food & water and he was very much ahead.

Deepa was resting under a lonely tree and the view from there was awesome. All the pain of climbing in hot sun was taken away instantaneously. Roopa & Sangeetha joined us & she kindly shared an Orange, which gave some energy to trek further. Deepa & I continued the trek, while Roopa & Sangeeta took rest. It was a steep climb again from here and after crossing a forest patch, we reached a water source. Raghu was taking rest with others, and I happily searched my bag he was carrying for two Oranges I'd kept. Where are the Oranges !?, he had eaten both. I had no reason to be angry on him, as he was helping me by carrying my bag. Its really difficult to manage the trekking & photography at the same time. It was difficult for me manage my camera with all the graduated neutral density filters while carrying backpack with food & water. Raghu was walking empty handed, so handed over my bag to him. Sangeetha (Ravi's wife) arrived right in time and gave couple of Oranges. We ate one and saved another in the Camera bag for future use. After filling the water bottles, I and Deepa continued our journey, while others waited. Deepa wanted to walk continuously until the destination is reached. But, when beautiful landscape & cloud clad mountains are in front of me, how can I continue without taking a photo ?. The lighting changes, clouds formation changes every minute and gives spectacular show. I cursed myself for not carrying a tripod. We reached the top around 2:15pm, and there is a water source just before the final climb to the peek. We started our "Puliyogare" lunch, with Curds & raw onions. Laxmi & others joined us after five minutes. Some chose to eat near the water stream, while some went up to the peek & had lunch.

 There were lot of people on the peek, most of them from the "Bangalore Ascenders" group. After lunch some people took some power nap, while I tried my hands at time-lapse photography. It was very windy & the clouds were moving very quickly. None of us for a moment thought that it may rain. It was 3:15pm, when Deepa & Laxmi reminded about the time. Last time, we took around 2.5 hours to go down without stopping anywhere. So, with that data in mind, I was confident that we can go back before it gets dark. But the Nature had something different to offer. It started drizzling, so after a quick group photo, we hurried back. Just as we walked for 5 minutes, it started raining. We neither had any shelter nor time, so we continued walking. Rain stopped after 5 minutes, but had done all the damage it could do. It was very slippery, and we had to walk carefully & slowly. Despite all the care, some of us had great fall :). I thought the rain god showed mercy on us, and it won't rain again. I was proved wrong after 30 minutes of walk, when the downpour started. It rained for almost 45 minutes, and we had no option but to walk. We came down to that damaged house by around 5:45pm, and it was still a long way to go. The chances of reaching Rajappa's house before dark looked dim. We just walked, walked until we reached the "Bodhi vriksha". It was completely dark, and we didn't have proper torches except the mobile torch app. Somehow, we managed to walk in the darkness, and reached Rajappa's house by night 7:15pm. Onion pakodas & Coffee was ready for us. After getting refreshed, we were transported back to Balegallu. By 8:30pm we started our journey back to Bangalore. Everybody except few were exhausted, and they slept as soon as they got into the bus. We stopped at "Indian cafe", Kottigehara for dinner and resumed our journey back. We reached Bangalore around 4:30am, and dispersed after settlement with the Bus driver.

     Here are some snapshots from "My Tracks" app for this trek.

 

Happy trekking !! Happy Deepavali !! Good Night !!

     

Kudremukh peak trek

    

View from the Peak

On 7^th day of December 2013, we climbed the Kudremukh peak at 3:30PM. After a long gap of many months and multiple postponements we five – Lakshminarayan, Satyadev, Sagar, Kavitha & I decided to go to Kudremukh peak. We missed our usual champions Roopa & Ravi this time as they were committed to other plans. Usually, we go in a sleeper bus to the nearest trekking point, but this time we had booked “Innova” car. We left Bangalore at around 10:45 PM on 6^th December night & plan was to reach Horanadu by morning 5:00 AM.

            We took Hassan, Belur, Chickmagalur route but the bad roads after Chickmagalur spoiled all our plan and we reached Horanadu by 6:30 AM. We took two rooms in the lodge adjacent to the temple and took bath quickly before visiting the temple. It was around 10:00 AM when we came out of temple after having breakfast at temple. After checking out of the lodge, we started our travel towards Kudremukh & on the way we again filled our stomach with nice Idli & Poori at “Nagagiri comforts” on the banks of Bhadra river.

            Balegal, is the place where we were told to come by our guide Mr. Raje gowda. It is around 16 KMS from Horanadu via Kalasa. From there we were picked up by Raje gowda’s person in a 4x4 drive Jeep to another place called Mullodi. It’s around 10 KMS journey to Mullodi and the drive in an open Jeep was horrible. Going by walk was an option, but we did not want to try that as we were already late by 3 hours. We had thought of starting the trek by 8:00AM, but it was 11:30AM when we reached Raje gowda’s house at Mullodi. After collecting our packed “Lemon rice” for the lunch & paying the Forest entry fee of 275.00 INR per head, we started our trek towards peek. Each trek group must be accompanied by a guide, but we were lucky to have none and we followed another group of 10 people. Most of the other group members were not serious about trek, but were there for only fun.

            Initial path of the trek looked most like Tadiyandamol. But we were proved wrong very quickly. After walking for an hour or so, we reached a point where we saw a lone tree with a circular cement platform around it. It looked like Buddha meditated under that tree & we named it “Bodhi Vriksha” J.     After 1.5 Hours of walking also, there was no clue of the peak. We saw so many peaks around and thought the trail will lead to one of these peaks but it was just going around the peaks and no sign of climbing up. Lakshmi pointed at a very distant peak and said that is the Kudremukh peak. Oh! God! It looked like we are not going to reach that peak today. The worst part is we have to come back all the way before it is dark. I started thinking: Are we on the right track!? A young man by name Nagaraj at the age of 70 came to our rescue. He pointed at the peak and showed few groups climbing up towards the peak. Hmm, we did not have any choice but to walk silently towards our destination. After few more minutes of walking, we hit a hill and started climbing it. We could clearly see the gigantic peak from here and those trekkers looked like small Ants on top of a Jaggery cube. We had walked almost 5 kilometers and another stretch of same distance had to be covered. Lakshmi had bought Oranges, and that was a very big life saver for me. Lack of sleep on the previous day & scorching sun above the head has made the trek uncomfortable. Since we had to go back on the same day, we did not carry any backpack except Sagar (he was carrying the packed lunch for all) and that was a great relief. We rested under the shade of a tree till Sathya & Kavitha joined us. The other group which started with us reached there after some 15 minutes. They were also so tired and decided to go back from there.

            We resumed our trekking, entered the forest patch and as soon as we came out of it, saw the trail going upwards towards the peak. Finally at 3:30pm we reached the peak. It was like a trekker’s conference on top of that hill. There was a huge gathering of around 25-30 people from various places. We soon finished our packed “Lemon rice”, took some photo shots and rest. By that time all the people started going back and we had to walk back very quickly to reach the base before it gets dark. Walking downhill is bit more difficult than climbing up. You have to be very careful about your knee & ankle. Sagar & I were the first to come back to base camp. Others joined after 30 minutes. Nice onion pakodas & coffee helped to gain the lost energy.

            We had to wait for two hours before our Jeep arrived to drop us at Balegal. To save time, we finished dinner at Raje gowda’s house and started journey back to Bangalore at around 10PM. This time, instead of Chickmagalur route, driver took the Kottigehara, Mudigere bypass & Belur directly and he said the route is very good and that saved almost 3 hours of our journey time. By morning 3 AM we were in Bangalore and after dropping each one at their door step, I reached home at 4:30 AM.

            Approximate cost of the trek was 2,500/- INR per head (10,000/- Innova + 500/- Breakfast + 1250/- Forest fee + 500/- Lunch & Dinner (100/- head) ).

Dudh sagar trek