Karnataka Chronicles - Kumara Parvatha Conquered!!!!!!

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.  ~John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist and preservationist”

The above quote by John Muir aptly sums up our entire trek to Kumara Parvatha. Post our Vellingiri trip, we decided to hibernate for a few months as summers aren’t an ideal time to go trekking, but it seems the trekking bug had some other ideas and it soon bit us and our cravings for the next trek became too hard to ignore. It all started off with a casual mail from Palani about an unheard peak called Kumara Parvatha in the Western Ghats. Since this was a totally uncharted territory, we were quite apprehensive if we could make it during the summer of 2013. After googling more about this place, we realized that this was supposed to be the toughest trek in Karnataka which set us a bit on the back foot.

Kukke Subrahmanya Temple

I called up my Manager  Santhosh in Mysore and enquired about this place and to our pleasant surprise he had scaled this peak 6 times already (Star trekker, isn’t he?). Initially he was a bit doubtful about the dates (25-26 May), so we asked him for suggestions on how to go to this place and stuff. Eventually to our delight he confirmed that he would be joining us and that later proved to be a blessing for us. Having set aside our worries on how to scale this peak, we started making our travel arrangements to this place. Venkat, Surya, Senthil from Chennai confirmed their availability and our Trekking guru Palani was to join from Coimbatore. I worked for a day from Mysore office with Santhosh, Deepak and Manjunath who also decided to join us for the trek.

Our daily rigmarole of work kept us away from physical activity of any kind and that wasn’t an ideal preparation for the trek (Toughest trek and no exercise, are u kidding me?!). We decided to give it a shot anyways which was definitely going to stretch our bodies to the limit. Since we were going to spend a night on the mountain, we had to do arrangements for food and stay. Santhosh, Deepak and Manju arranged for 2 tents for the Eight of us. We rented out 3 rucksacks too to carry all the stuff.

The Team prepared to Conquer the Peak

We finished our work and left office by 6 pm and went shopping. We went and bought all the regular stuff for a trek like medicines, Bakery items, dry fruits, glucose etc. Santhosh went a step further and bought rice and utensils to make tea and food (This was something new to us, since we always ate packed items and not freshly prepared food!!). I was wondering if we could carry all that stuff up the mountain. Picked up Manjunath and Deepak from their homes, dumped all the stuff into Santhosh’s car and four of us departed from Mysore at 9 pm and set out on a 210 km drive to Kukke Subramanya.

Manju did tell me about the driving skills of Santhosh and boy oh boy, we were in for a fast drive. With his Schumacheresque driving skills on display, we were gobbling miles by the minute. Took our first break before Kushal Nagar for coffee, post which I took my turn behind the wheel. With Aashiqui 2 songs being played, we drove towards Madikeri (I am sure my slow speed heckled Santhosh :P). At the next pit stop, our Schumacher (Sorry, Santhosh) had enough of my sedate driving and took up his second stint behind the wheel. To pep up his mood, we changed to Eagles/Akon/Bob Marley and the speedometer stayed constantly at triple digits!! The curves of Madikeri Ghats were dispatched with aplomb and we were swaying inside the car literally from one side to another. We reached Sullya at 12:50 am and checked into a lodge as we had to pick up Palani who was to arrive from Coimbatore by bus at 2:30 am. Sleep got the better of us and we woke up only by 3:50 am and found missed calls from Palani. Called him frantically and enquired his location and to our surprise he found a cab and reached Kukke Subramanya. With our purpose of stay at Sullya defeated and cursing ourselves for oversleeping, we left Sullya by 4 am and reached Kukke in an hour.

Unlike Sullya, which was a sleepy town, Kukke Subrahmanya was bustling with activity as it was a famous pilgirim town. We picked up Palani from the temple and checked into a hotel and waited for the other three from Chennai to join us.

Altimeter reading at Start of the Trail

With Senthil, Surya and Venkat joining us, our group and ready and raring to go. Santhosh ran a final checklist of the things needed for the trek. Had our breakfast and uttered few prayers to Lord Subrahmanya and proceeded towards the Kumara Parvatha Trail. We had to walk for about a km to reach the trail, on the way we could see the lush greenery of western Ghats and were excited about trekking in a dense forest.

Though Pushpagiri or Kumara Parvatha is the 23rd tallest peak of the Western Ghats at 1712 m (5661 ft), the relative distance a trekker has to ascend is among the top five. The Altimeter showed a mere 97 m (320 ft) at the base of the trail, which translates to 5341 ft of vertical displacement which is definitely tough and long by any standards. With the mathematical calculations inspiring a bit of awe, we slowly started our ascent. The forest being a part of the South Western Ghats montane rain forests, was quite dense and the sun could barely peep into the forest floor even at 9 am in the morning. Delighted at the prospect of being shielded from the sun, we were enjoying the lush greenery all around. With the sounds of various insects echoing through the forest, we made steady progress when we were suddenly stopped in our tracks by Santhosh. He quickly pointed out to a viper slithering across our trail. The poor reptile was equally scared and disappeared quickly into the thick vegetation. After trekking for an hour or so, we stopped beside a large rock and quickly gulped down the fresh lemon juice prepared by Santhosh. Having refreshed ourselves, we proceeded towards the next major milestone, the Bhatta's House at Girigadde at an altitude of 2560 ft. We had planned to reach there for lunch, but we surprised ourselves by reaching there at 11:30 am, 30 mins ahead of schedule.

A Viper Snake slithering into the Bush

The Bhatta's are a self sustaining family who feed trekkers like us with sumptuous lunch for 80 bucks. Getting fresh hot homemade food on any trek is welcome, so we weren't complaining. Bhatta's house was located beside a beautiful hillock of areca nut plantation. As lunch was being readied, we relaxed in the cool shade beside his hut.  Santhosh told us a few facts about Bhatta's place and the hill and we were ardently listening to his earlier trekking escapades here and the various climatic conditions on the peak. After lunch, we took rest for 30 minutes and started towards the peak. The Forest cover had given way to Motane grassy meadows with a clear trail. Just after Bhatta's house was the forest office at Girigadde  where we had to pay 200 bucks per person and report for the trek. Santhosh told us that this is where the trek actually begins (This was a cruel joke as I had already considered the trek half done!) We refilled our bottles with fresh water, plucked some tasty guavas from the forest officer's orchard and kept munching them along the way.

The weather was quite sunny now at 2:00 pm and we were directly at the mercy of the hot sun. I was wondering if we could last another 2hrs as there seemed to be only grassy meadows all along. Little did I know what lay ahead and this was just an aberration of the things to come! We could see a couple of peaks in the distance and enquired with Santhosh if that was the Kumara Parvatha. A more cruel joke was cracked and he revealed that the actual peak is hidden and there are 2 more peaks behind the one I could see. (Hot sun and Santhosh definitely drove me nuts!!).

The Forest Trail

The only way being up, we trundled along till we came to a view point and a platform with benches. We were surprised to see the skull of a bison/cow along with bones strewn all over the place. I initially did think it was a cow slaughter by some poachers, but then how wrong I was! This was a carcass of a cow that went for grazing from Bhatta's house and was killed by a tiger on Jan 29, 2013 as per the forest officer. This really did send a shiver down my spine in the hot sun as I wasn't very comfortable seeing the carcass. But to put up a brave face, we clicked photographs and tried to show our funny side with the skull of the cow. Another 30 mins into the trek, it started getting cloudy which was a welcome relief (I realized later, I spoke too soon!). Soon we were covered with clouds and mist and the temperature did dip to a comfortable 25 degree celsius by 3:00 PM. We encountered some breathtaking vistas and views of Kukke Subramanya below. The mountain now covered with clouds in beautiful shapes made us wonder if we were in heaven. We soon reached Mantapa which was at 3520 ft by 4:00 pm. We were actually making good progress and reached this place sooner than expected. Filled our bottles from a fresh water spring close by. As per our plan, we were to spend the night here and trek to the peak the next morning. Since we had 2.5 hrs to nightfall, we decided that we will go close to the peak and camp there for the night (How wrong we were, and a risky adventure awaits us!). The wind was picking up by now and the breeze soon turned to gusts of wind and the clouds grew darker. Soon it started to drizzle and we packed our essential stuff into plastic covers to avoid them from getting wet. Santhosh's advice of getting a wet jacket proved to be a right thing after all ( I was wondering earlier if it would really rain in May!!).

Bhatta's Place

Since it became quite cold with the mist, I could barely see a thing with my glasses getting fogged and blinding my vision. I had to keep cleaning them every 10 meters and continued catching up with the rest of the group. We reached the 2nd false peak before the actual peak and saw a group of trekkers who had ascended from the more easier Somwarpet route. They warned us of the inclement weather and the dreaded 'Leech territory' ahead. The Grassy meadows now gave way to a dense forest and with the mist so thick in the air, it seem straight out of a fairytale. However, we could not admire the scenery for long due to the leech menace.

 This was my first experience with so many leeches around and they slithered quite easily past our shoes and into our legs. This so called beautiful yet deadly leech territory was about a km long and all we had to do to escape being sucked was to walk fast ( Easier said

The remains of a Cow after Tiger attack

than done, eh?) People did suggest that putting salt would get rid of these blood suckers, but the moment you see them sucking blood, you become crazy and just feel like getting rid of these things somehow. To my horror, I had two leeches happily sucking blood from my calf and I struggled to remove them. I pulled the first one with great difficulty and in vain, it stuck onto my palm and started sucking blood. Luckily Santhosh came to my help and pulled both of them in one go. We finally came out of the Leech territory and none of us came out unscathed. Each of us had a minimum of 3 leeches sucking blood. By this time, the rain became heavier and it became quite dark at 5:00 pm itself. As per our calculations, it would take another half an hour of trek to reach the peak, but with the gusty winds winds and ever increasing rain, each step was becoming tough. To compound things, we had a huge rock face to be ascended on the way up. It was quite slippery with water flowing down it and we had a tough time negotiating it (We almost did a moon walk ala Michael Jackson on a vertical surface :P). 

The Max reading recorded by Altimeter

We were drenched by the incessant rain and reached the peak at 5.45 pm. We were dripping wet and had to quickly assemble the tents in this stormy weather. Gusty cold winds made life difficult for us and the mercury plummeted to 18 degrees. With hands numb from the cold weather and teeth chattering faster than a typewriter, we finally assembled both the tents. But the adventure was far from over. We still had a few leeches on our body and couldn't enter the tent and spend the night with them. Santhosh ordered each of us one-by-one to strip down to the underpants to scan for leeches. Cold rainy weather , standing almost naked at the mercy of nature, things couldn't worsen than the situation we were in, eh? Finally, we left our leech infested bags and went into our tents by 6:15 pm. All our plan of cooking food and carrying utensils were in vain as it was still pouring outside and we were better off huddled in our tents. The tents were still flapping wildly due to the howling wind, but it was atleast a warmer 23 degrees inside the tent.

Darkness had now fully set in and the rain finally relented. We had dry fruits, biscuits and bread to keep us from starving till the next morning. We distributed them amongst ourselves and completed our dinner. It was too cold outside by now and all we could do was stay huddled. We  were famished and dozed off till we were rudely waken up by a storm at around 8:30 pm. With Gusty winds, we struggled to keep the tent in shape and had to prop it up with our hands to prevent it from collapsing. By now, the floor was wet and roof of the tent was leaking. It was definitely the adventurous night I had ever spent and we all prayed to god to help us survive through the night. I don't even recollect when the rain stopped and was shivering through the night in drenched clothes and finally dozed off.

Our Tents - after being ravaged by the overnight Storm

It was really cold the next morning and Santhosh definitely had courage and conviction to start a fire to keep us warm in the cold weather. I could barely step outside the tent as it was still freezing. We prayed for the sun to come out, but it was playing hide and seek with the clouds (The same sun, which I was cursing in Chennai a few days back. Funny how things can change!!).  Santhosh somehow managed to start a fire and we finally got some much needed warmth to our cold and tired bodies. We visited the makeshift Shiva temple at the peak and offered our prayers and started our descent by 9 am.

Making through the Leech territory again was a nightmare as the overnight rain seem to have multiplied them in numbers and they had a field day sucking out the myriad of Blood groups all 8 of us had to offer with a special liking to mine. We finally reached the 2nd lower peak and cleared our blood stained legs. Things were much better now as the sun finally showed itself and we descended slowly and reached Bhatta's place by 1 pm for lunch.

The Shiva temple at the Peak

After drying our drenched bags for some time, we started from Bhatta's house at 2:15 pm and descended towards Kukke.  As if the earlier adventure wasn't enough, nature decided to spice up things and opened the heavens to a strong downpour. We were drenched again and somehow made it back to the hotel by 6 pm with great difficulty.

Looking back one might wonder, why should we undergo such a risk instead of spending our weekends in the cozy comforts of our home. Anyone who has undergone a tough trek must have experienced the adrenaline rush, the strong sense of excitement, the desire to do it against all odds and a recognition of the will to conquer the peaks ahead. There is more to trekking than scrambling rocks and hills. It gives you a new found sense of freedom and feeling of being Independent and being one with Nature!

A group of 8 trekkers battled against all odds and conquered the Kumara parvatha on the weekend of 25 - 26 May, 2013. Nature did throw a challenge and we came out of it unscathed and together.  Special Thanks to Santhosh for guiding us without whom, we might have definitely faltered. Thanks to all my fellow trekkers, Palani (Trekking guru and mentor), Venkat & Surya ( The usual suspects and my partners in crime), Deepak ( Ever smiling and ready to click), Senthil ( My Cycling partner) and Manjunath (Youngest member of our expedition)

Some more random clicks: (Photos: Deepak, Sriram)

 

Bhatta's House

Peaks covered by Clouds - View from Bhatta's Place

The Trekking Route Map at Forest office

Cold and Windy!!

Removing and Surveying the blood sucked out by Leeches

Santhosh KB - The Leader of the Pack

A Rejuvenating trek to Vellingiri!!

Hello All,

It’s been ages since my previous post, missed writing travelogues of a few treks in between including the once-in-a-lifetime Himalayan trek done during Sep' 12. Finally decided to put my keyboard to good use for a change instead of the daily rigmarole of sending e-mails, reports and all the mundane stuff at office.

A part of the group that scaled the mountain

My last trek was to witness the Karthigai deepam atop Tiruvannamalai Hill on Dec 1, 2012 along with Palani and friends. Though Tiruvannamalai holds a special place in our hearts, we were on the lookout for a different trek experience and after weeks of discussion, we finalized our next trek to Vellingiri Hills near Coimbatore. Thanks to Palani’ s initiative, a group of 24 people (the usual suspects - Surya, Venkat included) from various IT MNCs decided to do it on the week ending Apr 6, 2013. Making arrangements for all of them is definitely no mean task and a big clap to PHIRABBU for booking the tickets (grappling with IRCTC to book a single ticket can be painful as we all know!) and organizing the journey. 

Tasty Padhaneer served on Palm leaves

So on the 5^th of April, the group of 22 people boarded the Mangalore express to Coimbatore. Though this train takes a circuitous route to Coimbatore (via Trichy, Karur) it gave us ample time to sleep and recharge ourselves for the arduous trek ahead. (Though, I must admit the fag end of the journey became a bit boring due to the slow trundle of our train). We reached Coimbatore at 11:00 AM and met Palani who joined us from the railway station. After a few purchases for the trek, we left the station for Isha Yoga center at 11:30 AM. I quickly jumped into the front seat of Palani’s Car to enjoy the A/c, which was a welcome relief from the heat outside (Yes, Coimbatore equally hot as Chennai in April itself, talk about Global warming and its effects!!!). With the help of Google maps and me as a navigator, Palani skillfully negotiated the narrow by lanes of the busy Coimbatore market without putting a scratch on his car. At a point it became so narrow, that we were wondering if we were going the right way (Surya, was constantly reminding me of my earlier fiasco with Google maps and how it went horribly wrong!). Thankfully no such surprises and we joined the Perur main road.

On the way to Isha Yoga center, we stopped beside an Asian Palmyra palm farm (rhyming, eh!?) to have a taste of Padhaneer. To put it in layman terms, Palm shoot is cut and the juice is traditionally collected in a hanging earthen pot. The juice so collected before morning is called Padhaneer. This along with Nungu (Palm sprouts) was served to us in a vessel made out of Palm leaves. Boy, oh boy, I was initially apprehensive about drinking it, but after the initial gulp, I was asking for more. It was refreshing and delicious and I haven’t tasted anything like this before! At Rs 20, it was quite cheap too. With some help from our wiki friends, I found out that it has nutritional value too.  After a healthy and worthwhile dose of Padhaneer, we reached Isha yoga center by 2:00 PM. 

At the base of Vellingiri Hills

We headed straight for the shower room and then went for a dip in the Theerthakund. The water was really cold and it literally sent a shiver down my spine. Theerthakund has 3 mercury lingas which are supposed to create a tremendous sense of spiritual receptivity in a person.  We were really tired and  after a bath in the cold water and a dip, I definitely felt refreshed, whether spiritually or not, it did relax our nerves! Had a quick bite at the canteen and reached Poondi, the village at the foothills of Vellingiri by 5:00 PM. After dumping our entire luggage in Palani’s car, and packing only the essential stuff, we worshipped Arulmigu Velliangiri Andavar and started our trek by 5:45 PM. There were some stories of Wild Pachyderms and bear attacking the trekkers, but thankfully the locals assured that since this was a regular season time, we wouldn’t have to be worried about getting injured by animals. (As if doing the trek alone wasn’t enough, we needed these thrills too, eh?!)

Altimeter reading at the start of ascent of 1st Hill

Vellingiri, or Then Kailyam (South Kailash) is a series of 7 hills representing the seven chakras (energy centres) in the human body. From a geographical point of view, Vellingiri Hill is on a ridge overlooking the Manjampatti valley. The 7^th hill is at an altitude of 6000 ft. I cross checked my watch reading at the base of the first hill and found it to be 1860 ft!! Doing the math, my heart sank a bit as we had to ascend a relative vertical displacement of 4140 ft. (Numbers can sometimes scare you a lot!!) The entire trail to the top was around 7 kms as per the stats, so we had a quite a bit of walking to do. 

 

A few feet up the steps of the first hill, I was breathing heavily and realized how much I had to catch up on my physical fitness. Slowly I pulled myself up the hill leaving the group behind to soak in a bit of the natural surroundings. The never ending flight of steps finally led up to the end of first hill at the shrine of Velli Vinayagar. I quickly had a sip of water and after catching my breath, started my ascent up the second hill. 

The Never ending steps on the 2nd Hill

The second hill had steps which were equally steep but the forest was getting dense. With twilight setting in, the shrill sounds of various insects, the odd screech of an owl and a few rustling leaves were enough to give me the jitters. I realized going alone wasn’t a bright idea and saw an elderly man in late 50s up ahead. I quickly caught up to him and started a casual chat to get rid of the creepiness I had going alone in the forest. I am sure he welcomed it too. He was panting and sweating quite heavily and I enquired him as to why he was undergoing such physical strain at this age. He dismissed it with an air of nonchalance and put me in my place saying that he had already trekked 10 times earlier on this hill and that his faith in the Lord pulls him through every time on the annual affair. Having been humbled by this chat, I wondered if I could do the same thing at his age and admired at his courage of doing this alone. We reached the end of 2^nd hill and filled our bottles with water from the natural spring (Pambatti sunai). 

Darkness had set in by now and I realized going alone would be foolish and waited for a few of my friends from the group to catch up. The elderly man bid me goodbye and went ahead. After 15 mins of waiting beside a rock, Surya and Narasimhan from our group caught up with me. We turned on our torches and slowly made our way up the 3^rd hill. Darkness, I realized can be our ally sometimes as it narrows down your vision to the steps ahead and you don’t realize the sheer scale of the task ahead as the silhouettes of the peaks merge into the black sky. Treading slowly and carefully, we reached Kai thatti sunai (As per the locals, clapping your hands, makes the water flow faster, though I realized it wasn’t a wise idea to disturb the creatures around by clapping!) and quietly slipped past.

Sunrise as seen from the Peak

The 4th and 5th hills were a bit easy with the sandy terrain and gentle slope. We stopped by a shop and had few snacks and some fresh lime juice at the end of 5th hill. We were told by the shopkeeper that at the end of 5th hill, there is an oval shaped rock which is known as Bheema's Kali urundai. However, in the pitch darkness, all the rocks seem to be oval shaped (pun intended!) and I couldn't really make out!  Not to dampen the shopkeeper's enthusiasm, I nodded at having identified the rock :)

Mist covering Vellingiri Hills

At the ascent of the 6th Hill, my altimeter reading in the watch showed 4800 ft, which provided a sense of comfort since we had to do only 1200 ft more, (False sense of security!), but after a point we realized we had to again go downhill which added to our misery. Luckily we reached the Aandi sunai and refreshed ourselves before the final ascent of 7th Hill.

Climbing the last leg was really tiring as we were already sapped of our energy and our legs being trained to the gentler slopes of 4th, 5th and 6th hills, refused to budge.  We had to take a break every 100 ft and catch our breaths and start again. Dragging our legs and straining every bit of muscle in the lower half (sometimes we had to walk on all fours!!), we reached the top at 10:20 PM. 

We worshipped the Syawambhu Lingam and thanked the lord profusely for keeping us safe and prayed for an equally uneventful descent. At 6000 ft, it was quite cold and windy and finding a place to sleep was challenge at 18 degree celsius. We finally came upon a precariously perched boulder with a small gap beneath it which was enough to catch some sleep. 

The 7th Hill

Lying down and watching the star studded sky with the odd meteor streaking along and with some fireflies for company, it was a truly memorable night to savour. Past midnight the rest of our gang caught up. I woke up and realized that there were too many people on the peak and the crowd started building up. However,  fatigue got the better of me and I went back to sleep and woke up by 6 am.

The peak was a stark contrast to the previous night and there were more than 500 people now at sunrise waiting to catch a glimpse of the lord. We offered our prayers and started our descent and reached the base at 10:00 AM. On the way back, we were treated to some stunning vistas of the early morning mist covering the hills which was truly breathtaking. 

Had a rejuvenating dip again at the Theerthakund and started our return journey to Chennai by Raptisagar express and signaled the end of a truly satisfying and memorable trip.