Quickies for trekkers:
For those who don't wish to take guide:
Route: From B'lore, take bus to Dharmastala. Get down at Kokkada (which is about 15kms before Dharmastala). Jeeps run from Kokkada to Shishila. Charges around 14/head. From Shishila, the Jeep frequency isn't good to Kombaru. You can hire Jeep from here. We paid 150/- for drop to Kombaru.
If starting from Dharmastala - bus to Shishila starts at 0730 and 0930 Hours. Jeep frequency is quite good though.
@ Kombaru, ask some one about start point to Amedi. From here - You are on your own till you hit Grassland. The wrong trails which you would encounter quite often end after small distance. This would make picking up the right trail pretty easy.
Once you hit grassland, the ascent is straight forward. You dont need trail anymore. Just head in the direction of Amedi.
@ base of huge rock - there are 2 forests. One at lower altitude and other at higher altitude. Take the lower altitude one. There are some names written in white paint at the beginning of this trail. This should help identify the forest path.
Camping spots: If its raining - God save you. Else, one can camp at the base of the huge rocks. The best "tailored made" camping spot is at the top.
Best Season - I would say November - January. Winter season. This would help you find plenty of water sources. And the climate wouldn't be too much punishing either.
If travelling in Summer -- 4 Litres of water is must.
raju.us@gmail.com
All the best !!
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" Where is your guide? "
" We don't have one "
" Has any of you ever been to the top before? "
" No "
" Do you have any 'naksha' with you showing the directions? "
" No. We dont have any specific hand sketche as such "
" I insist you go people go with a guide. The trail is very confusing. And only guide can help you to find water source. Its matter of only 200/- "
This was the conversation with the villager when we were about to start the trek from Kombaru. It wasn't matter of money for us. We were sticking to the basic rule - Guide kills half the thrill. Hence we were adamant, not to take a guide with us. We wanted to explore the path ourself and make it to the top. Inspite of repeated requests from the villager to take a guide, we convinced him that we would manage without one.
Villager was rather helpfull. He told, he would draw a sketch route for us. Typical SEs not carrying any pen! We managed to grab one from near by. Despite of his efforts, he ended up inserting a lot of confustion. He used to draw a line to towards left and ask us take right. The only thing for which he was of help was when he showed us from where to start the trek.
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Previous night:
Kalsi, myself & kuntS 'd a rather heavy meal at B'lore bus stand (this one is turning to be a default dinner place before our treks ) and started our journey towards Dharmastala. After long tiresome journey, we reached Dharmastala at about 4 in the morning. We finished our morning routine's in one of the lodge, took blessings of God Manjunatha after standing in Q for an hour or so, 'd our breakfast and started our journey towards our destination "Amedikallu".
It was already 0830 Hours. Next bus to Shishila was after an hour. We paid some extra bucks to the Jeep driver and took off from Dharmastala. The skills of the jeep driver is worth mentioning. He effortlessly managed to fit in 16 people ( excluding the driver ) into the Mahindra Jeep whose capacity is 5+1, with only his hands and legs in proper place, half of his body literally hanging outside!
We manager to reach Kombaru (Via Kokkada, Shishila) by 1030 Hours. And this is when we met above mentioned villager.
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Thanks to Google and to those n number of blogs providing a lot of information on any trek place - we were aware that there is only one water source on the way to the top ( unless you are accompanied by guide, who know couple of other hidden water sources in various places ). The decision to move without guide made us to carry 4 Ltrs of water along with us. On top of that 4kg water weight per head, add sleeping bag + food and other stuffs, effectively making us carry a solid 8 Kg weight on our back.
Climate: Peak of summer with hint of clouds here and there. Humidity at its peak.
With a chorus "Jai Shree Ram", we started our trek.
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Initial part of the trek is through sparse forest. But straight away ascent. No flat land. No proper trail in the beginning. We managed to find one pretty soon. Not much ambiguity in the beginning part of the trek. Because of ascent right from the start and hide and seek by Mr Sun, our breaks were relatively high in number. 10 minutes walk. 10 minutes break. This happened for first 1 1/2 hour.
"Abe - aise nahi hoga. Ab aadha ghante tak chalenge. Uske baad rukenge" --- Kalsi uttered.
That didn't sound soothing to my ears, but yes - we were lagging in pace and we 'd to pick it up. Thank fully - next half an hour part of the journey wasn't just ascent. Most part of it was through flat land, amidst dense jungle. We pushed ourself for close to one hour continiously.
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3 Down at 0100 Hours
The summer and relative intense Sun has started showing its effects. Not even one quarter of our journey and we are already 3 down (out of 12 Ltrs of water). We were on the verge of grassland. Till now, the dense jungle was preventing us from Sun - from now on, no more cover. Open terrain. After that relatively long continious trek, we decided to take a break. Asususal, I was the first to lay down and close my eyes. In no time, I was in deep sleep. I woke up after half an hour only to see (To my surprise, this time) - the other two were also in deep sleep. Aaaaha --- its such a nice feeling to know that you can sleep for some more time after you wake up! We all three took relatively long rest - close to an hour. Un knowingly, we 'd made a best decision to take rest for such a long time. We were completely relaxed - refreshed - charged up - and roaring to go - daring the sun and the terrain.
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Our destination - Amedikallu, became clearly visible from this point. Oh man- Its Huge! Ettina bhuja was also visible towards our right.
Next half an hour trek was through flat grass land. Not much steep. No sign of shadow either. Directly exposed. Sun playing hide and seek with the clouds. The trail here wasn't quite clear. But since our destination was clearly visible, we used to push ourself in that direction - with what ever evidence that looked like a trail.
Steep ascent follows the flat grass land. Its really steap. Again - the breaks started increasing. But all were of short duration. Sit, wet your tounge and throat - move on. Our next major pit stop was at one of the huge rocks. There was a hint of shadow on one of its side.
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5 down at 1530 hours:
We had our lunch here. MTR ready to eat. The food just vroomed in, into the stomach in matter of seconds. Since we had n't bothered to hit proper trail after grassland, we took some time to decide which way to move from this point. To our right was narrow jungle. KuntS had a closer look at it. He told - the path wasn't good for trek. To our left was grassland. Kalsi had a look and approved this path. I just followed what the elder's said. Till then, I 'd a short and sweet nap! Every second is precious you know!
The next 2 hours journey was physically harassing. It was continious steep. We reduced the number of breaks and crawled ahead. The rate of consumption of H2O didn't reduce much though. Entire body was sweating. Body was demading for more and more water. We did consume some amount of Glucon-D for instant energy. But that instant energy used to vanish in couple of minutes.
Just when our energy level was dropping down drastically - we saw something which we 'd never seen before in any of our previous treks. A bunch of wild Indian Sambar ( kind of deer ) - slowly moving ahead. Dream come true. I 'd always dreamt of seeing some wild animal in our treks - but 'd managed to see couple of snakes and lots of elephant shit. Nothing else. If you thinking how did I came to know that It was elephants --- its just by its sheer size. Nothing more of zoology involved. :-)
The sight of Sambar's was real energy booster. We stopped for a while and marched ahead with that boosted energy. Searching for more wild animals - but could just find some more shit. Nothing else.
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7 down at 1730 hours:
We were at the base of the huge plain rock. Really huge. The time was running down and we decided to call "Stumps" for the day. Next important task was to find some flat land to camp. Left our bags here. Kalsi to gaurd the bags, I moved to left side and kuntS to the right in search of a proper camping spot. Finally kuntS 'd found a relatively flat rock where we could spend our night.
It was sun set time. Spent some time in cherishing the beauty of the sun-set. Amazing view. Some snacks and it was fire time!
We quickly moved our legs -- collected some good amount of logs, good enough for couple of hours of good fire. Fire specialist kuntS took charge from here and managed to put a great camp fire.
Did some calcualtions - 2 ltrs to reach to the top tomorrow and come back to the camping point. 2 ltrs for descent. 1 more litre additional water. Why waste? We can go for the booz party. Hurryayyy !!!
Clear dark sky - twinkling stars - light breeze - and camp fire. Add 2 pegs of Mc Rum + Zidddi Rahaman songs !!! Perfect night. We talked about everything - from just finished ascent to politics to obvious topic - recession! Kalsi shared his hilarious college days ragging experience -- and we quickly browsed through our good old college days - laughing, singing, dancing and again laughing... laughing loud. We 'd great amazing unforgettable night. After quick dinner - it was sleeping time.
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Except for those in between few minutes of 'Ants in the pants' - rest of the sleep was good. The sun rise was n't clearly visible from the place where we were. Kalsi moved few meter's down hill to capture the beauty on camera. Myself & kuntS, lazy to walk down - just enjoyed the morning weather from our camping site.
Time to move on. We decided to carry only camera and 2 ltrs of water for the remaining part of ascent. But which way to go? I 'd read in one of the blogs that one needs to take a route through Jungle, which goes around the huge Amedikallu rock and reach to the top from other side of the rock. From the point where we were - there were 2 such paths visible. One Jungle, going in between two rocks. The other around those 2 rocks.
We chose the wrong path. Realized that it wasn't trekkable after few mins of struggle. Back off - and we went towards the other jungle which goes around the huge rocks. [Some names are written in white paint on the rock at the beginning of this forest - this should help those trekkers who dare to go without guide]. Initial part - make your own way. But after few mins of walk - the trail becomes clearly visible. Morning weather - good sleep overnight - and dense jungle. All these factors helped us to race to the top in one hour. Amazing Jungle - equally amazing journey. With little high steep climbing in the latter part of this hour journey - we reached the top!
On Top of the world !!
Asusual - photo time. We found a perfect 'Tailor made' camping site here. Spent some time here relaxing and enjoying the scenic beauty. Couple of prominent trekking spots are visible clearly from here. Ettina bhuja, Ombattu Gudde, Jenkal, Deepadkal to name a few.
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Beginning of "The Descent" !
Close to 60 - 70 degree slope. This is what we had in the beginning of our descent. Ascent was quite smooth - coz we never looked down while climbing. Now - We 've to. Scary. Really scary. We slowly crawled through this steep, slipping and holding balance again. After couple of conufsions about the trail that we need to follow - managed to hit the proper one. And then vroom in the forest. We were back to camping site by 1000 Hours.
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10 Down at 1000 Hours!
2 litres of water remaining. Initial thinking - this water should be good enough since descent shouldn't be much tiresome. We 'd no other option since we were without guide. Only next available water source is when you get back to Civilization. Without wasting much time, we packed all our stuffs and pushed ahead. To increase our woes - No hint of cloud anywhere. And Sun was in full swing. Sitting directly on top of our head. Ironing. Literally. The descent through the initial grassland was exhaustive. After about one hour - we stopped when we encountered a bunch of trees. In one shot - one litre water was gone! Only One more Litre of water remaining and we hadn't even finished quarter of descent.
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11 Down at 1100 Hours!
After some good amount of break - we continued our descent. Now - we realized the amount of altitude that we had gained. We are going down - down and down, but not reaching the forest yet. Still on grassland. Kalsi leading from the front, after quite some exhausting time -- we finally hit the forest. Aaah - Such a relief. 10 minutes of walk in the forest, we realized that we were on the wrong path. This definitely wasn't the trail which we had used the previous day!
Back off time. No one was in mood to stand up. Exhausted. Mainly because of Sun's torture and humidity. Can't use water either. Its scarce. Instead of every one wasting their energy -- we decided that one would go up, back to the grassland and find the correct trail. I went up - but not much success. Just then - we remembered seeing remainings of a camp-fire at a distance of just few meters. The same campfire - we had encountered yesterday. We moved back to that particular point and started our descent again. It wasn't easy finding that camp fire as well cause of tons of trails. Cautiously. Slowly. Slowly we crawled in those confusing trails - and just managed to hit the proper trail. We are in jungle now. We decided - more breaks = more water. So, we would try and move continiously without much stops. We tried that for next half hour - but it was too much exhaustive. We had to stop.
Still in the beginning of the jungle. We took about 15 minutes break. Consumed little amount of water. We 'd to - the throat was begging for water. Only half litre remaining now!
11 1/2 Down!
Everyone's shirt fully soaked in sweat. We pushed ourself. If we dont hit wrong trail - the descent is still a minimum of two hours. We decided to reduce the pace - thought this would relax our bodies a bit and hence the begging for water wouldn't increase rapidly. Good stratergy. We covered quite some distance without touching water. Lips dried up. Next Tounge. Next throat. No saliva either. Energy level was very very less. Half baked - Half dead bodies. If this wasn't enough - we missed our trail. Again. We took one sip each and the remaining water is also gone! All lying down -- like dead bodies.
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I gave up. Forget walking - it was getting harder to stand. It was flash back time ---
- Had we not boozed, we would have saved 600ml of additional water.
- Had we not washed our hand yesterday (with little water ofcourse), we would have saved another 200+ ml of water.
- Had we not dared to enter this jungle without guide, we would have got sufficient amount of water!
Well - it was n't time to think of Had we not's -- It was time to act. KuntS took the initiative. He decided to go back a bit and find the actual trail. Myself and kalsi just laid back and closed our eyes. One hour back - the statement would have been "Hoping to see the civilization soon", now its "Hoping to see the civilization".
After some search - kuntS came back. He had found the trail. Believe me - this news didn't sound great either. I was reluctant to get up and walk again. Was praying for some miracle to happen and we hit some water source.
We had walked down a bit in the wrong path and hence we had to gain altitude again. Every step was heavy. We started crawling through the trail again. KuntS decided to take the lead and he stepped up the gas. We just followed - slowly taking up the pace.
By now, we were literally dragging our legs - completely fried and dried.
After about 30-40 minutes of journey -- I heard something great!
Something which I 'd heard a million times before but never felt so much soothing to my ears.
Something which I wanted to hear again and again.. Give me more of those ----
That something soothing was Truck Horn. Wooooooooow -- we were close to the road. It was even more exciting the moment I saw the road. For many - that might be just another road. For me - It was OMG! THE ROAD!
There was an house just next to the road. Tap at the gate. The feeling of water touching the lips - running through the throat - into the stomach, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah - you can imagine.
Got some nice scoldings from the owner of the house for trying this venture without guide. But if guide was there - we would 've never got such an experience. Guide kills half the thrill !!
Spend some time in the small water canal in his farm. Drinking water at our will! Great!
Farm owner arranged for the Jeep - And we said adieu to Amedi.
We hit a river in between - took some much required deep relax in water. Couldn't imagine our situation just 2 hours back. We decided - Our next venture would definitely in some place where we would get abundant water!
- USiRa
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