PILOT :
Just another morning, woke up, took bath, got ready, had breakfast, ride to my recurring destiny i.e., OFFICE. I had developed this unusual habit of reaching office quite early in the recent days. I personally did not want to, but there are always forces beyond your control which makes you do certain things you'd never do on your own :P ;) . Sigh. Lets stick to the topic in hand.
"9:10 am" is what I read in my Casio watch as I found myself checking out my reflection on the glass door looking tired and sleepy whilst I punched in my thumb into the attendance-recording-machine-kinda-thingy. I'd always find "The Superman" Selvino in the corner diagonally towards my left when I see through the glass door and everyday wonder why this "super-human-ability" creature comes so early and what is so fascinating about photography? what is his whole purpose in life? what does he really want in life? These whispers of questions in my mind faded as I reached my desk at the next floor.
1. Water bottle to my right - Checked
2. Coffee mug to my left - Checked
3. Monitor in front of me - Checked
4. Keyboard and Mouse - Checked
5. Life sucks ? - Hell yea baby ! .. CHECKED !!!
A few hours through my work and self entertainment in the "War" room, I climbed down dragging my feet to Appstudio's floor. Filled in coffee and grabbed a few biscuits, strolled towards Selvino's desk smiling at every face which smiled at me. Honestly, Appstudio is full of nice people. It tends to happen when you have a manager from Coorg (Nice people, hot girls !). Those questions about Selvino which faded decreasing in volume a while ago, came up in my mind. But then, I decided to give him a lecture on the sanctity of life and other bull just to kill my boredom. He started telling me about his adventures in Ladhak and the landscapes and the bikes and etc.
Something came into my mind and I blabbered it out. I heard myself saying " How about we trek to Kumara Parvatha? I've heard its the toughest trail to trek on in Karnataka". Superman said, "Let's go, mountains and trekking and all. Bullsh*t stuff it is !" in his usual tone. Only Appstudio teammates can have a smirk at this line. "The Rolling Stone" Arun was having a chat with one of the QA team. I waved my hand and signaled him to reach Selvino's desk. This is an official record for the fastest approval ever. The conversation goes like this..
Me : Dude, we are planning for a trek to Kumara Parvatha and ..
Arun : (excited) Lets go !
That's it ! I don't know what's with this guy and the dense forest. He had a thing for dense forests. I did not try to investigate the tragedy behind this unusual liking towards denser things. Period.
We were a group already. Diwali was on Monday following the weekend. So we had a long weekend for this.
It was time to expand our small group, I looked around evaluating their physical abilities and interest. Rolling stone said, "Suhail might join". I walked to his desk and said the same words. "The Silent Tortoise" Suhail knodded and smiled at me in his usual way of avoiding to have to speak. I don't know why doesn't he speak more than 10 words a day. But then, easily the brilliant choice for the trek. We three got back into our discussions about tents, dates, transport etc. I glanced at "The Amazing Lungi" Sesha cursing the civil engineer who designed the building in such a way that Sesha is always found wearing a jacket and shivering even in the summers. The AC outlets were all around him. Poor QA. Even a Developer would feel sorry for the QA because the magnitude of the torture was such at his desk. I stood up and said "Sesha, coming weekend Kumara Parvathage hoganva ?" he replied, "Deepavali time-u, maneli swalpa kelsa irbohudhu, I'll let you know". The other two guys understood it even though they did not understand Kannada properly.
With a spark of the plan lit up in our minds, we went back to our desks. I started reading a few articles about the place and the difficulty of it. I wasn't very worried about the trail because I had already been to more than a few treks on an average of 20 km walking per trek through the Western Ghats. "Hungry" Safeer was right behind me asking me to join me for coffee. I could hardly say no to this depressed guy in those days. He was engaged recently. I invited him to this trek thinking it'd refresh him a bit before the reality hits him back again and he agreed without a doubt. All the confirmed Appstudio's finest five were set to go and I booked five bus tickets.
TRAVEL :
Bangalore - Kukke Subramanya (Kukkeshree travels) Nov 1st Saturday 2013
Kukke Subramanya - Bangalore (Rajahamsa KSRTC) Nov 4th Monday 2013
Note : If you are still reading this blog looking for info for your trek, GET OUT !
Four of them got into the bus at Majestic around 10:00 pm on Friday and I was picked at Navarang at 10:45 pm. The advantage of living in the heart of the city.
The bus was HORRIBLE ! We all had sleepers but then, I did not see any use as every hump the bus was driven on, we touched the roof with our noses. Somehow we managed to endure that for the trek. I was asleep for a few hours but then the rumbling and tumbling in the bus was more all of a sudden, I woke up and looked through the window.
"HOLY SH*T"
The driver was actually overtaking every other vehicle at a high speed in the curvy roads of torn Western Ghat roads. I clanged onto the iron grill of the window with my eyes wide open with fear and amusement at his mad driving skills. At 6:00 am we arrived at Kukke Subramanya bus stop. I got busy making calls and I was making the others wait for a while.
Enter : Amazing Lungi.
Yes, I knew it all along that he was on his way to Kukke. He was too excited not to miss this trek.
DAY - 1 : Bhattru Mane
The other guys were surprised and we made our move to a lodge to freshen up. I divided all the eatables into different bags and I saw some lungi floating here and there and turned to notice Sesha wearing his amazing lungi. Hence the name "The Amazing Lungi" Sesha.
All of us made it to a small hotel for breakfast and we started walking towards the entrance of the trek. It easy as nobody even broke into sweat.
Suhail, Arun, Deepak ("AWESOME"), Selvino, Safeer and Sesha (clicking the pic)
Did you notice the smiles on our faces? Keep looking. This was the last time we were really smiling with full energy and enthusiasm.
We entered the forest through that gate, a few meters walk, everyone started enjoying the change from concrete to canopy. I could hear
Arun : "Amazing place man, so dense !"
Selvino : "Forest and bullsh*t guys !"
Safeer : "Very nice man ! It's amazing"
Sesha : "Hello? Hello? I'm in KumaraParvatha, can't hear you properly" (on call)
Suhail : " :) "
I was focused on the trail. I made sure I was in the front enjoying the view and the feel of forest as far I'd like it. Suddenly we gained altitude, instead of walking, we had to start climbing. The words changed into -
Arun : "Oh sh*t man, so steep !"
Selvino : "Bullsh*t forest and tired guys !"
Safeer : "Very tough man ! It's tiring"
Sesha : "Ayappaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, phone ikkapa, aamele maadthini"
Suhail : " :'( "
Me : "I'm Awesome, Lets go !!! :'( "
It was a stretch of 6-7 kms and the trail was getting steeper and steeper. We met a few other trekkers from BMC grandpas and uncles resting on a rock. They took a U turn and went back eventually. An hour through the trek and we were already out of breathe and sweating a lot. Every other person who was climbing down was asked the same question. "How far is Bhattru mane?" Bhattru Mane was our pit-stop for food, water and rest. We kept climbing on the unreliable rocks, tree roots, cold breeze and bird chirps. After an hour of struggle, we managed to finish the steep trail and we kept moving towards Bhattru mane. Rolling stone and the Silent one looked quite tired, I advised the Silent one to maintain his pace of comfort and not to try and climb faster than his normal ability. Rolling stone's pace improved through the trek. Every time we would climb a little further sit on a rock and rest till the Silent one caught up with us. Hence the name "The Silent Tortoise". The funny part was, every time Suhail reached us, we start climbing again. He would just look at us with eyes of despair and continue anyway. Hungry was right behind me all the time till we reached Bhattru mane lost in his disappointed thoughts about his life, poor guy. But, he was hungry already.
I hate my life, this guy is always hungry and I'm the fat one ! DAMN you metabolism !
Superman was carrying a huge blue backpack, he did not look tired at all. I kept wondering why. We had stopped for a while to rest, the Silent one still climbing at a distance. We all had at least 5kg of weight in our bags with water bottles and food. I got up to lift Superman's just to get clarity. I couldn't.
It was so freaking HEAVY !!!
He had all his equipment, clothes, Camera, 3kg "Super" tent, etc. I couldn't believe that a human could carry so much weight in that steep trail and not even show signs of getting tired. Bloody Goans ! Hence the name "The Superman" Selvino.
Dragging ourselves in the last kilometer, we reached Bhattru Mane which was already crowded by sheep (Trekkers from BMC). We took a while to rest and we went inside the house looking for Buffet only to find rice, colored water (others called it sambar, I still don't agree) and Majjige (Buttermilk). We had no choice, we were hungry enough to eat an elephant if we had to. We took 3 hours to finish trekking 6-7 kms which is quite fast. We got packed food as dinner and we started towards our next pit-stop "Kallu Mantapa".
DAY - 1 : Kallu Mantapa
Kallu Mantapa is a shrine which is about 3 km from Bhattru mane as they say but its surely worth a few more in the record ! After getting info from another group which had climbed to the top from the other side (Easier side, Damn it ! ) about reaching the peak and Kallu Mantapa, we started with 1 kg extra per bag with packed foods and more water at 2 pm. We reached a sunset point near to Bhattru Mane. We immediately sat for more resting.
Each stretch from here on was very difficult as the trail became steeper and steeper. Hot sun was extracting all our strength and we were dehydrating badly. After two hours of toiling and climbing in the sun, we made it to Kallu Mantapa.
We did not have anymore strength to move on from that place. Legs were shivering with pain and minds were quite tired to move on. We were in a perfect place for camping for the night. We decided to rest till 5pm and then set up the tent. After setting up, we planned to have camp fire, watch the beautiful sunset and celebrate Diwali at the night after dinner.
NOTHING worked out.
There was no shade till 5pm, we set up our "Awesome" tents. We were all set to watch the sunset. A small cloud was just moving from our right towards the place we had camped. I went like "Oh, look ! a little cute cloud" and was so happy looking at it. It did not take much time for that bloody little cloud to grow into a big black cloud to block our view and just a few minutes later,
LIGHTENING ! :O
We were at such a high place, the strikes were witnessed right in front of us ! Everything was getting dark as fast as possible. We had a small man made water tap, one by one we took our turns to take bath in the open with a bottom half of the sliced 1 litre water bottle. From sunset to night, it was hardly 20 min. We had our sessions of fun. Torches were lit up for the night, I took out the ITEM. Diwali crackers. Struggled a lot to light up a camp fire but then, ended up bursting a few crackers just to give a different celebration this year. One of noticed that there were fireflies around us. We switched off our torches to witness the beauty of the dance of fireflies !
Our dinner was forced through our throats. We did not really expect it to be well and good after many hours of plastic packing. Sigh. around 8:00 pm, we decided to crawl into our tents for a good night sleep. By the way, the lightening and thunderstorms never stopped. We just got used to it.
DAY -2 : Bisuits + jam = yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Around 3am
I felt the tent rattling on my legs as I was in one of the sides. The high speed winds were so fierce that our pitches were getting dislodged from the holes and I woke up to notice that Safeer was still wide awake. AS usual ! Superman was out to rescue us. I was moved. He went out of the tent and had the pitches rammed into the ground correctly. There is always just one thing you can do when a superhero is trying to save your ass. LET HIM. Period. That is all I remember from that night. Woke up at around 7am to find that the 3 of our guys have left the tent towards the next peak. Pushpagiri. Legs weren't responding well enough, I saw Safeer sitting outside on a rock waiting for his TIME. Please use your imaginations.
We took turns to take a dump in the wide open nature early in the morning. When it was my turn, I climbed down the cliff for a private session. Suhail and Safeer came to the edge and were looking right at me when I was about to settle down for the best time of the day. One question. Can you take a dump when someone is looking right at you and saying "Do it fast !" If yes, you have my respect Bro ! Coz I CANNOT do it. I spent the next 5 minutes shooing off these immature creatures off my sight. Buggers.
When I came up to the tent, I noticed Suhail in the midway towards the next peak. Only me and Safeer were psychologically latched onto the tents. We took the responsibility to guard the tents till they came back. Safeer and I stayed in the tent as the Sun rose up and everything was getting heated up. Safeer started opening the packets of packed food we had. Chikki, jam, Good day biscuits, etc. I could not believe this guy. He was eating jam raw, then a few biscuits, then something else and jam again. After eating all of it, he says " I'm hungry man :-| " I was like " WTF ? still hungry ?" Hence the name, Mohammed "Hungry" Safeer.
Here are a few pics of the other peak.
At 10 am, all the others were seen climbing down from Sesha Parvatha, the connecting mountain to Pushpagiri (The peak, around 3km from Kallu Mantapa). We both greeted them with all the foods in our hands. They could not resist, they started running downhill and finally snatched everything from our hands.
Butter biscuits+jam and Good day bisuits+jam and some Tango juice maker. Repeat.
I was awestruck looking at these guys going berserk at this mind blowing combination of jam and biscuits. I almost puked imaging the kind of impact it was making in their stomachs. Note: They're yet to take a dumpling. hehehe.. We packed our tents, bags were a little lighter and there is climbing up anymore! HURRAY ! We were on our way back to Bhattru Mane, I noticed something rolling from behind and just overtook me. Was it a stone? Was it an animal? No, it was "The Rolling Stone" Arun. I have no freaking idea of what bit this guy on his back, he started running down the trail while we were carefully climbing down. Even Milkha Singh wouldn't try that. It looked so dangerous even to look at him running down like that, but then, sometimes you just have to enjoy the show. Hence the name "The Rolling Stone" Arun.
Around 1pm we reached Bhattru Mane. Even climbing down was not that easy. It takes 66% of the time you took climbing up. We had plans to camp for that night too but Sesha had to catch a bus the same day. Somehow he wanted to home asap even in a getaway weekend. Arun and Suhail also decided to climb down that horrific trail. The 3 of em left after lunch. Me, Superman and Hungry freshened up and took out our packed foods whichever was remaining. I found,
CUP NOODLES ! :')
I was almost in tears. We requested Bhattru to give us some hot water at around 5pm before we make a move towards the sunset point near Bhattru mane for the night's camping. Likewise, we got our noodles and headed towards the sunset point. Winds were at high speeds, we managed to pitch our tent. But this time, we were careful enough to pitch from all sides and deep. We latched onto our Cup noodles with the Pickkoo maggi sauce I had, we sat on the benches enjoying the view. The evening grew darker and were up for another night's camping.
DAY -2 : The Stupidity
If you notice, we had tent pitched right in the open, surrounded by the mountains, out in the open. You know what that means? HIGH SPEED WINDS FROM ALL DIRECTIONS !
Around 7:00 pm
Hungry : I'm hungry man.
Superman : Lightening, speedy winds and tent will fly to the bus stop. Bullsh*t stuff. hahaha.
Me : We'll check for weather around 8 30 pm, if possible we shall reach his house for dinner.
7:30 pm : Rain and high speed winds
8:00 pm : Rain.
8:30 pm : High speed winds
9:00 pm : A moment of serenity.
We crawled out of the tent and grabbed a torch to walk towards the house. Lightening was all around us, it was pitch black. Surprisingly, the ground wasn't wet at all ! A few steps, wind was back again at Usain Bolt's speed. We trusted the pitching of the tent and we made it to the house, had dinner and back again to the tent. The tent survived.
DAY - 3 : A painful climb down.
It was 6:00 am, I woke up and came out of the tent just to find a beautiful la
yer of the fog which covered the mountain we were at the previous night. The view was stunning. I could see the far off city covered in fog and every angle looked amazing ! Superman came out of the tent with his 3kg camera. Hungry was still asleep, probably hungry too. While me and Superman were enjoying the view and clicking pics, Hungry woke up. We saw a deer running downhill. A nightmare to both of us. No more discussion on this topic.
We packed our tent, reached the house for freshen up and breakfast. We headed towards Kukke Subramanya.
As I said earlier, the climb down was not easy at all. Our legs were going off balance, our back pack was in full fledged weight again. Every step was our weight plus the luggage combined hitting our knees. Chatting along the way, we took 2 hours to make the climb down.
Beaten and broken, we reached the exit and started dragging our feet towards the lodge where Rolling Stone and the Silent one had stayed the previous night. Amazing Lungi had left to Bangalore, we took our time to rest for a while and we packed and we reached the bus stop after a light meal. At 3pm, we started. I'm normally get travel sickness. Superman had a solution, he gave me some tablet, I blacked out within a few minutes. These are the next few stops I remember waking up for a few seconds only.
Sakleshpura - Hassan - Nelmangala - Yeshwanthpur - Navrang (my stop)
I still use that drug during our travel.
Our first trek from office was to the toughest trail in Karnataka. Call us crazy but, we did have a weekend to be remembered for a lifetime !
Cheers.
Just another morning, woke up, took bath, got ready, had breakfast, ride to my recurring destiny i.e., OFFICE. I had developed this unusual habit of reaching office quite early in the recent days. I personally did not want to, but there are always forces beyond your control which makes you do certain things you'd never do on your own :P ;) . Sigh. Lets stick to the topic in hand.
"9:10 am" is what I read in my Casio watch as I found myself checking out my reflection on the glass door looking tired and sleepy whilst I punched in my thumb into the attendance-recording-machine-kinda-thingy. I'd always find "The Superman" Selvino in the corner diagonally towards my left when I see through the glass door and everyday wonder why this "super-human-ability" creature comes so early and what is so fascinating about photography? what is his whole purpose in life? what does he really want in life? These whispers of questions in my mind faded as I reached my desk at the next floor.
1. Water bottle to my right - Checked
2. Coffee mug to my left - Checked
3. Monitor in front of me - Checked
4. Keyboard and Mouse - Checked
5. Life sucks ? - Hell yea baby ! .. CHECKED !!!
A few hours through my work and self entertainment in the "War" room, I climbed down dragging my feet to Appstudio's floor. Filled in coffee and grabbed a few biscuits, strolled towards Selvino's desk smiling at every face which smiled at me. Honestly, Appstudio is full of nice people. It tends to happen when you have a manager from Coorg (Nice people, hot girls !). Those questions about Selvino which faded decreasing in volume a while ago, came up in my mind. But then, I decided to give him a lecture on the sanctity of life and other bull just to kill my boredom. He started telling me about his adventures in Ladhak and the landscapes and the bikes and etc.
Something came into my mind and I blabbered it out. I heard myself saying " How about we trek to Kumara Parvatha? I've heard its the toughest trail to trek on in Karnataka". Superman said, "Let's go, mountains and trekking and all. Bullsh*t stuff it is !" in his usual tone. Only Appstudio teammates can have a smirk at this line. "The Rolling Stone" Arun was having a chat with one of the QA team. I waved my hand and signaled him to reach Selvino's desk. This is an official record for the fastest approval ever. The conversation goes like this..
Me : Dude, we are planning for a trek to Kumara Parvatha and ..
Arun : (excited) Lets go !
That's it ! I don't know what's with this guy and the dense forest. He had a thing for dense forests. I did not try to investigate the tragedy behind this unusual liking towards denser things. Period.
We were a group already. Diwali was on Monday following the weekend. So we had a long weekend for this.
It was time to expand our small group, I looked around evaluating their physical abilities and interest. Rolling stone said, "Suhail might join". I walked to his desk and said the same words. "The Silent Tortoise" Suhail knodded and smiled at me in his usual way of avoiding to have to speak. I don't know why doesn't he speak more than 10 words a day. But then, easily the brilliant choice for the trek. We three got back into our discussions about tents, dates, transport etc. I glanced at "The Amazing Lungi" Sesha cursing the civil engineer who designed the building in such a way that Sesha is always found wearing a jacket and shivering even in the summers. The AC outlets were all around him. Poor QA. Even a Developer would feel sorry for the QA because the magnitude of the torture was such at his desk. I stood up and said "Sesha, coming weekend Kumara Parvathage hoganva ?" he replied, "Deepavali time-u, maneli swalpa kelsa irbohudhu, I'll let you know". The other two guys understood it even though they did not understand Kannada properly.
With a spark of the plan lit up in our minds, we went back to our desks. I started reading a few articles about the place and the difficulty of it. I wasn't very worried about the trail because I had already been to more than a few treks on an average of 20 km walking per trek through the Western Ghats. "Hungry" Safeer was right behind me asking me to join me for coffee. I could hardly say no to this depressed guy in those days. He was engaged recently. I invited him to this trek thinking it'd refresh him a bit before the reality hits him back again and he agreed without a doubt. All the confirmed Appstudio's finest five were set to go and I booked five bus tickets.
TRAVEL :
Bangalore - Kukke Subramanya (Kukkeshree travels) Nov 1st Saturday 2013
Kukke Subramanya - Bangalore (Rajahamsa KSRTC) Nov 4th Monday 2013
Note : If you are still reading this blog looking for info for your trek, GET OUT !
Four of them got into the bus at Majestic around 10:00 pm on Friday and I was picked at Navarang at 10:45 pm. The advantage of living in the heart of the city.
The bus was HORRIBLE ! We all had sleepers but then, I did not see any use as every hump the bus was driven on, we touched the roof with our noses. Somehow we managed to endure that for the trek. I was asleep for a few hours but then the rumbling and tumbling in the bus was more all of a sudden, I woke up and looked through the window.
"HOLY SH*T"
The driver was actually overtaking every other vehicle at a high speed in the curvy roads of torn Western Ghat roads. I clanged onto the iron grill of the window with my eyes wide open with fear and amusement at his mad driving skills. At 6:00 am we arrived at Kukke Subramanya bus stop. I got busy making calls and I was making the others wait for a while.
Enter : Amazing Lungi.
Yes, I knew it all along that he was on his way to Kukke. He was too excited not to miss this trek.
DAY - 1 : Bhattru Mane
The other guys were surprised and we made our move to a lodge to freshen up. I divided all the eatables into different bags and I saw some lungi floating here and there and turned to notice Sesha wearing his amazing lungi. Hence the name "The Amazing Lungi" Sesha.
All of us made it to a small hotel for breakfast and we started walking towards the entrance of the trek. It easy as nobody even broke into sweat.
Suhail, Arun, Deepak ("AWESOME"), Selvino, Safeer and Sesha (clicking the pic)
Did you notice the smiles on our faces? Keep looking. This was the last time we were really smiling with full energy and enthusiasm.
We entered the forest through that gate, a few meters walk, everyone started enjoying the change from concrete to canopy. I could hear
Arun : "Amazing place man, so dense !"
Selvino : "Forest and bullsh*t guys !"
Safeer : "Very nice man ! It's amazing"
Sesha : "Hello? Hello? I'm in KumaraParvatha, can't hear you properly" (on call)
Suhail : " :) "
I was focused on the trail. I made sure I was in the front enjoying the view and the feel of forest as far I'd like it. Suddenly we gained altitude, instead of walking, we had to start climbing. The words changed into -
Arun : "Oh sh*t man, so steep !"
Selvino : "Bullsh*t forest and tired guys !"
Safeer : "Very tough man ! It's tiring"
Sesha : "Ayappaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, phone ikkapa, aamele maadthini"
Suhail : " :'( "
Me : "I'm Awesome, Lets go !!! :'( "
It was a stretch of 6-7 kms and the trail was getting steeper and steeper. We met a few other trekkers from BMC grandpas and uncles resting on a rock. They took a U turn and went back eventually. An hour through the trek and we were already out of breathe and sweating a lot. Every other person who was climbing down was asked the same question. "How far is Bhattru mane?" Bhattru Mane was our pit-stop for food, water and rest. We kept climbing on the unreliable rocks, tree roots, cold breeze and bird chirps. After an hour of struggle, we managed to finish the steep trail and we kept moving towards Bhattru mane. Rolling stone and the Silent one looked quite tired, I advised the Silent one to maintain his pace of comfort and not to try and climb faster than his normal ability. Rolling stone's pace improved through the trek. Every time we would climb a little further sit on a rock and rest till the Silent one caught up with us. Hence the name "The Silent Tortoise". The funny part was, every time Suhail reached us, we start climbing again. He would just look at us with eyes of despair and continue anyway. Hungry was right behind me all the time till we reached Bhattru mane lost in his disappointed thoughts about his life, poor guy. But, he was hungry already.
I hate my life, this guy is always hungry and I'm the fat one ! DAMN you metabolism !
Superman was carrying a huge blue backpack, he did not look tired at all. I kept wondering why. We had stopped for a while to rest, the Silent one still climbing at a distance. We all had at least 5kg of weight in our bags with water bottles and food. I got up to lift Superman's just to get clarity. I couldn't.
It was so freaking HEAVY !!!
He had all his equipment, clothes, Camera, 3kg "Super" tent, etc. I couldn't believe that a human could carry so much weight in that steep trail and not even show signs of getting tired. Bloody Goans ! Hence the name "The Superman" Selvino.
Dragging ourselves in the last kilometer, we reached Bhattru Mane which was already crowded by sheep (Trekkers from BMC). We took a while to rest and we went inside the house looking for Buffet only to find rice, colored water (others called it sambar, I still don't agree) and Majjige (Buttermilk). We had no choice, we were hungry enough to eat an elephant if we had to. We took 3 hours to finish trekking 6-7 kms which is quite fast. We got packed food as dinner and we started towards our next pit-stop "Kallu Mantapa".
DAY - 1 : Kallu Mantapa
Kallu Mantapa is a shrine which is about 3 km from Bhattru mane as they say but its surely worth a few more in the record ! After getting info from another group which had climbed to the top from the other side (Easier side, Damn it ! ) about reaching the peak and Kallu Mantapa, we started with 1 kg extra per bag with packed foods and more water at 2 pm. We reached a sunset point near to Bhattru Mane. We immediately sat for more resting.
Each stretch from here on was very difficult as the trail became steeper and steeper. Hot sun was extracting all our strength and we were dehydrating badly. After two hours of toiling and climbing in the sun, we made it to Kallu Mantapa.
We did not have anymore strength to move on from that place. Legs were shivering with pain and minds were quite tired to move on. We were in a perfect place for camping for the night. We decided to rest till 5pm and then set up the tent. After setting up, we planned to have camp fire, watch the beautiful sunset and celebrate Diwali at the night after dinner.
NOTHING worked out.
There was no shade till 5pm, we set up our "Awesome" tents. We were all set to watch the sunset. A small cloud was just moving from our right towards the place we had camped. I went like "Oh, look ! a little cute cloud" and was so happy looking at it. It did not take much time for that bloody little cloud to grow into a big black cloud to block our view and just a few minutes later,
LIGHTENING ! :O
We were at such a high place, the strikes were witnessed right in front of us ! Everything was getting dark as fast as possible. We had a small man made water tap, one by one we took our turns to take bath in the open with a bottom half of the sliced 1 litre water bottle. From sunset to night, it was hardly 20 min. We had our sessions of fun. Torches were lit up for the night, I took out the ITEM. Diwali crackers. Struggled a lot to light up a camp fire but then, ended up bursting a few crackers just to give a different celebration this year. One of noticed that there were fireflies around us. We switched off our torches to witness the beauty of the dance of fireflies !
Our dinner was forced through our throats. We did not really expect it to be well and good after many hours of plastic packing. Sigh. around 8:00 pm, we decided to crawl into our tents for a good night sleep. By the way, the lightening and thunderstorms never stopped. We just got used to it.
DAY -2 : Bisuits + jam = yewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
Around 3am
I felt the tent rattling on my legs as I was in one of the sides. The high speed winds were so fierce that our pitches were getting dislodged from the holes and I woke up to notice that Safeer was still wide awake. AS usual ! Superman was out to rescue us. I was moved. He went out of the tent and had the pitches rammed into the ground correctly. There is always just one thing you can do when a superhero is trying to save your ass. LET HIM. Period. That is all I remember from that night. Woke up at around 7am to find that the 3 of our guys have left the tent towards the next peak. Pushpagiri. Legs weren't responding well enough, I saw Safeer sitting outside on a rock waiting for his TIME. Please use your imaginations.
We took turns to take a dump in the wide open nature early in the morning. When it was my turn, I climbed down the cliff for a private session. Suhail and Safeer came to the edge and were looking right at me when I was about to settle down for the best time of the day. One question. Can you take a dump when someone is looking right at you and saying "Do it fast !" If yes, you have my respect Bro ! Coz I CANNOT do it. I spent the next 5 minutes shooing off these immature creatures off my sight. Buggers.
When I came up to the tent, I noticed Suhail in the midway towards the next peak. Only me and Safeer were psychologically latched onto the tents. We took the responsibility to guard the tents till they came back. Safeer and I stayed in the tent as the Sun rose up and everything was getting heated up. Safeer started opening the packets of packed food we had. Chikki, jam, Good day biscuits, etc. I could not believe this guy. He was eating jam raw, then a few biscuits, then something else and jam again. After eating all of it, he says " I'm hungry man :-| " I was like " WTF ? still hungry ?" Hence the name, Mohammed "Hungry" Safeer.
Here are a few pics of the other peak.
At 10 am, all the others were seen climbing down from Sesha Parvatha, the connecting mountain to Pushpagiri (The peak, around 3km from Kallu Mantapa). We both greeted them with all the foods in our hands. They could not resist, they started running downhill and finally snatched everything from our hands.
Butter biscuits+jam and Good day bisuits+jam and some Tango juice maker. Repeat.
I was awestruck looking at these guys going berserk at this mind blowing combination of jam and biscuits. I almost puked imaging the kind of impact it was making in their stomachs. Note: They're yet to take a dumpling. hehehe.. We packed our tents, bags were a little lighter and there is climbing up anymore! HURRAY ! We were on our way back to Bhattru Mane, I noticed something rolling from behind and just overtook me. Was it a stone? Was it an animal? No, it was "The Rolling Stone" Arun. I have no freaking idea of what bit this guy on his back, he started running down the trail while we were carefully climbing down. Even Milkha Singh wouldn't try that. It looked so dangerous even to look at him running down like that, but then, sometimes you just have to enjoy the show. Hence the name "The Rolling Stone" Arun.
Around 1pm we reached Bhattru Mane. Even climbing down was not that easy. It takes 66% of the time you took climbing up. We had plans to camp for that night too but Sesha had to catch a bus the same day. Somehow he wanted to home asap even in a getaway weekend. Arun and Suhail also decided to climb down that horrific trail. The 3 of em left after lunch. Me, Superman and Hungry freshened up and took out our packed foods whichever was remaining. I found,
CUP NOODLES ! :')
I was almost in tears. We requested Bhattru to give us some hot water at around 5pm before we make a move towards the sunset point near Bhattru mane for the night's camping. Likewise, we got our noodles and headed towards the sunset point. Winds were at high speeds, we managed to pitch our tent. But this time, we were careful enough to pitch from all sides and deep. We latched onto our Cup noodles with the Pickkoo maggi sauce I had, we sat on the benches enjoying the view. The evening grew darker and were up for another night's camping.
DAY -2 : The Stupidity
If you notice, we had tent pitched right in the open, surrounded by the mountains, out in the open. You know what that means? HIGH SPEED WINDS FROM ALL DIRECTIONS !
Around 7:00 pm
Hungry : I'm hungry man.
Superman : Lightening, speedy winds and tent will fly to the bus stop. Bullsh*t stuff. hahaha.
Me : We'll check for weather around 8 30 pm, if possible we shall reach his house for dinner.
7:30 pm : Rain and high speed winds
8:00 pm : Rain.
8:30 pm : High speed winds
9:00 pm : A moment of serenity.
We crawled out of the tent and grabbed a torch to walk towards the house. Lightening was all around us, it was pitch black. Surprisingly, the ground wasn't wet at all ! A few steps, wind was back again at Usain Bolt's speed. We trusted the pitching of the tent and we made it to the house, had dinner and back again to the tent. The tent survived.
DAY - 3 : A painful climb down.
It was 6:00 am, I woke up and came out of the tent just to find a beautiful la
We packed our tent, reached the house for freshen up and breakfast. We headed towards Kukke Subramanya.
As I said earlier, the climb down was not easy at all. Our legs were going off balance, our back pack was in full fledged weight again. Every step was our weight plus the luggage combined hitting our knees. Chatting along the way, we took 2 hours to make the climb down.
Beaten and broken, we reached the exit and started dragging our feet towards the lodge where Rolling Stone and the Silent one had stayed the previous night. Amazing Lungi had left to Bangalore, we took our time to rest for a while and we packed and we reached the bus stop after a light meal. At 3pm, we started. I'm normally get travel sickness. Superman had a solution, he gave me some tablet, I blacked out within a few minutes. These are the next few stops I remember waking up for a few seconds only.
Sakleshpura - Hassan - Nelmangala - Yeshwanthpur - Navrang (my stop)
I still use that drug during our travel.
Our first trek from office was to the toughest trail in Karnataka. Call us crazy but, we did have a weekend to be remembered for a lifetime !
Cheers.
