Trek to VellariMala and VavulMala :: "Walking in the Clouds; Stars On the Trees"

Long weekend & trek plan to Vellarimala & Vavulmala was ON for quite some time. Good Friday's long weekend made the job of getting tickets tougher. No reservations available for buses heading towards Kozhikode. The enthu was high - JujuBee reservation cant stop us.

We reached the satellite busStand at about 2100 Hours - only to find hundreds of people like us, without reservation - struggling to find bus. Aaah - great start for an adventure !

After first round of roaming in the busStand - kuntS uttered -

"Le - we wont find any seats for sure. Lets try for cabin seat atleast"

What? Cabin seat?

I 'd prepared myself for last row seats - but Cabin seat was something which I wasn't prepared for. Even cabin seat was n't easy to find and after hopping couple of buses, we managed to find one.

All set to go. 90degree vertical seat, with no cushion for back - sound and heat of engine below our feet, and high beam light straight into our eyes. What more is required to say Goooood night?! :-)

Bus stopped for an hour on the highway - occassion: minor accident hurting one of the guy sitting window side. I managed to get some sleep in this break. After that - for next 8 hours, we tried all possible positions to find some sleep. In vain. Thanks to one of the passenger who got down at Sulthan Bathery, we could catch glimpses of sleep for last one hour.


Thamarassery @ 0600 Hours
From here, we 'd to catch bus to Muthappanpuzha - a village in the foothills of VellariMala, from where our expedition was supposed to begin. There was a direct bus at 0610 Hours and we managed to miss that by good margin. What were we doing? Learning how to pronounce "Muthappanpuzha".
What ever happens, happens for good. We found some good amount of time to do some initial preparation. We packed up some food for brkFst & lunch, 2 ltrs per head water bottles and enquired about next bus. There were no direct buses - we 'd to hop to Omyssery and then to Muthappanpuzha.





Muthappanpuzha @ 0900 Hours
Asusual - some raised eyebrows from the villagers when they learnt that we were heading to VellariMala without any guide or previous trek experience. They suggested not to move without guide. We were adamant to stick to our mantra "Guide kills half the thrill".

We asked trek route to start with. We both didn't even know minute traces of Malyalam. Amidst some difficulty - we managed to learn the route.

Quick brkFst, we wrapped up and started our venture. Morning josh, full energy - & the climate was just perfect for trekking. No sun - little humid. We raced ahead.
Part of path was flat, part steep. We pushed ourself - not taking any breaks and covered quite a good amount of distance. We walked for about 30 mins in good pace - but still not out of traces of civilization.

"Olichuchattam falls?", kuntS asked a villager pointing his hand in the direction that we were heading.

"No" - The villager's hand pointed in the opposite direction !

What? Wrong Trail?

We already hit a wrong trail?! Wow!

After a brief conversation - we learnt we 'd missed to take a left somewhere.
Right Around Turn - March ahead. We found a path to left going towards the mountain. We raced again. After a steady walk for 30+ minutes, we decided to take a break. No-sleep-hard-night-effect 'd started to show on our face. We were in the middle of some Aracnut plantation.

Devaition ahead. Typical Jai-Veeru-Sholay style, we decided to toss to make a decision as to which way to go. We still weren't sure if we 'd taken the right path since as per some of the blogs that we 'd read - we 'd to hit Banana plantations after few minutes of walk from Muthappanpuzha. No one around to query. Discarding Toss result, we decided to back-off, walk some distance back, find some one and make sure the route is correct.

That turned out to be a great decision. We learnt that the route that we had taken was completely wrong. Infact we 'd taken a dead wrong turn in the beginning of the trek itself. @ Muthappanpuzha.

Time to say, another What! What? Start trek from beginning again and all the effort till now gone waste? OMG!

Disappointing. Energy levels suddenly went down. It took another 30 minutes to get back to Muthappanpuzha and hit the proper trail. From now onwards - kuntS kept on asking each and every villager on the way if the road heads to Olichchattam falls.

ReStart @ 1100 Hours
Our pace had gone down a lot for 2 reasons - the wrong trail had sucked all our early morning energy and enthu, and brain was desperately seeking the whole system to be shut down immediately for some time. @ our first pit-stop (Still within Thenpara village limits), unknowingly we closed our eyes & obliged the brains shutdown command. When we woke up (a old lady broke our sleep) - it was already close to 1200 Hours.

After that - we headed towards Olichuchattam with a good pace. Through the banana plantation - beside forest fencings and into the thick green virgin jungle.

Olichuchattam @ 1330 Hours
Good clean crisp water. This wasn't exactly the falls, it was somewhere at little higher point from here. A thick trail was clearly visible on the other side of the river. We quickly wrapped up our lunch, re-filled our water bottles, crossed the river and pushed ahead. Quick break - Quick lunch - Quick smoke - we wanted to cover up the losses incurred due to wrong trail in the morning.

The thick trail, after short walk for about 10 minutes split into several thin trails. Several. Couple of them didn't even look like trails. Which one to take? Good & right question, but both of us didnt know the answer. Exploring time. We started to explore one by one - all the trails used to either vanish after a quick walk or split into couple more thin branches or hit DeadEND. This struggle phase continued for next 1 hour or so, and in the mean while - heard a loud aero-plane-flying sound from the top.

" Thunders - did you hear that? " kuntS asked with raised eyebrows. Well - with clouds wandering around, that shock was expected.

" Some aero plane passing by le - definitely not a thunder" - I causally answered.

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Back to Olichuchattam @ 1600 Hours

Unable to find the trail - we came back to Olichuchattam. Opened the blog copies that we had. usandeep's blog read -

"From Olichuchattam falls, trail goes to the right of the stream".

Now the Big confusion started. We were trekking against the flow-direction of the stream. When he said "to the right of the stream" - was he referring to the right of our trek direction, or to the right of stream flow direction?

By the time, we started to work on that confusion - we started to hear load aero-plane-flying-like sound more often. Now I realized, it was no aeroplane., & kuntS was correct.

Time for Yet another What!

What? Thunder?!!! 

There were no camping points around. We are amidst thickest of the jungles, with no tent, carrying only sleeping bags. Cant afford to stay at the current point. Dont know the trail either to continue further and we dont know where the next camping spot might be even if we manage to hit correct trail.

Not willing to risk any further -

" Lets go back " - I told. Any other day, I would have suggested to try some route, but not today. It was very hard just to keep eyes open & on top of it - nothing is going right from morning.

" Go back? Where? "

" Muthappanpuzha. If it starts raining, we are gone. No place to hide around and the place isnt safe to spend the night either" - I tried to convince kuntS. The place was definitely not safe. Lots of fresh elephant shit around - & wild animals would definitely visit river for water.

" Will it be possible to get back before it starts raining? " - Thunders were getting louder and this was obvious doubt. But I was atleast happy that my half job was done. kuntS was ready to get back.

" We haven't come a long way. We can manage if we move our feets quickly. Its only downhill" - I told and kuntS agreed, but added a clause.

" If we get some camping worth place on the way - we 'll halt there ".

I was sure there were no camping spots on the way. I just wanted to get back to village - get back some good sleep and head back towards B'lore. I was already thinking of spending next day in Kozhikode beach. Cant afford to trek amidst rain anymore. & rain in Kerala - I 'd witnessed during my last trip here. If it starts raining - it just rains.

We started our back track journey. Just few meters away from stream, we found a clear trail heading towards VellariMala. The Lost Trail. Sandeep's blog was referring to the direction of trek. :-) But it was pretty late now to start ascent again. We raced and covered the distance pretty quickly. We were back to Thenpara village jeep track by 1730. Thunders calmed down by now & it didn't rain at all. No rain. Not even a single drop. Now that was even more disappointing.

False Thunder - No Rain!

Jeep track @ 1730
We finished the chocos that we 'd bought. I dont know what that 5-Star chocolate made to kuntS. 

" Lets halt tonight in this village and start agian tomorrow " - he told slowly.

" Trek again? No." - I was totally reluctant to start the trek again. I 'd made up my mind to go back to B'lore and give vavul a shot some other time. Nothing was going right for us. Right from the start @ B'lore.

Well - kuntS delievered some deadly dialogues - distrubed my mind - provoked by using the keyword "COWARDS". Had it rained - we could have convinced ourself that it was a good decision to back off. But no rain did make me feel as if I was coward, trying to run away. I had no option but to accept to what kuntS 'd to say.

We decided to halt @ Thenpara village itself. After asking couple of villagers, we learnt about a Resort close by. Few mins walk & we hit the resort before dusk. Quick must needed bath, and I let the spirit take over. The night would remain unforgettable for ever for one special thing - "Stars on the trees".

Night show - "Stars on the Trees"

Star performers - Light emitting insects. (Jugnu/Minchina Hula). Jugnu's just lit the entire forest in no time. There were several 100's of those, uniformally spread across all the parts of the trees. And amazingly following some peculiar sequence of light emission. It seemed as if it was perfectly choreographed. Yes - it was choreographed. Choreographed by Nature.

Delicious chicken & Ghee rice for dinner. We ended our long, not much productive day with a rather good note.

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Resort (Range house) @ 0800 Hours

We reduced our luggage. Left couple of un-necessary stuff over there at the resort and gave a push on the same track. We raced to Olichuchattam falls in hardly one hour. No pit-stop in between. This time we didnt go to the stream. Instead we took "Lost Trail", the trail (that we 'd discovered during backtrack) to the right of the stream - which starts few meters before the actual stream. The trail goes away from the stream for a while and comes back to the stream again. The path started getting steeper & steeper. Small pitstop here & we pushed again. This time, the trail goes to the right for a while and comes back to the stream. The blog now read - One needs to cross the stream and find the path to the left of the stream. We took a small break here. We were now on top of the falls.

KuntS, after few minutes found the trail which was going to the left of the stream. Didnt wanted to waste time - we moved ahead. This process continued for a while. We used to move away from the stream for some time, and get back again to the stream. We now followed relatively good documented instructions in usandeep's blog. Making sure we were on the right path. Every time we used to come back to the stream, we used to encounter serveral confusing trails. This was major set back for our racing ascent. Some times we needed to explore here and there to find the proper trail.

We 'd breakfast at second river crossing. It was around 1030. Quick smoke and we started again.

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After third river crossing - the steep increased. Trail was relatively thick and we managed to push with relatively less number of breaks. We blindly followed the trail. After an hours trek, we reached another water source. As per the blog, next water source was "Damodar Kolly". We assumed this to be Damodar Kolly. Who knew how it looked? We crossed the river. From here - again the same problem. Multiple thick trails and we don't know which one's to follow. We used to explore a bit, and decide on one of the trails to move ahead. Usually we used to choose the one which was relatively thicker and moving up. We did this for next one hour, several times back tracking when we hit dead end.

At one of the pitstops, we were hungry and 'd just started eating dates - heard a loud Elephant roar to our right. 

What? Elephant?

Pin drop silence. Ears and eyes on full alert. Heart pumps became clearly audible. Brain automatically issued command to legs: "Be ready to run in emergency case". That loud roar competly shook us. With the intensity of the sound, we realized we weren't much far from that elephant. KuntS - standing on his toes to jump into the forest and start running. We maintained silence for few minutes. Every small noise used to increase the heart beats. What to do next?

Our trail was heading in the direction, from where we 'd heard the sound. Fortune favours the brave. We decided to continue with the trek. We started crawling slowly - not making much noise. Thankfully we didnt encounter any elephant - but we did encounter the dead end. The trail vanished pretty soon. No more trail further and this is when we realized - we were on the wrong trail again and might be totally on the wrong mountain.

Time for bigger What!

WTF? We are on the wrong mountain?

We back tracked till the last water source - the so called Damodal Kolly. Time showed 1600 Hours. We 'd wasted 3 hours of trek time, following the wrong trail. The worst wasn't over yet. It started drizzling. This time - no thunder warning as yesterday. It just suddenly started drizzling. We saw a cave like structure close by - with quite good amount of evidence for human inhabitancy before. We decided to halt over there till drizzling stops and then take further call on to what to do next.

The drizzling turned into good amount of rain in no time. We are stuck in thick jungle. With no other option - but to halt here in the cave.






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Just imagine this: Stream flowing right underneath the caves. Hence put that soothing water sound in the back ground. Two huge mountains in V shape, with thick green forest cover all over, right in front of your eyes. Add not so dense clouds hitting these mountains and bouncing back. Little drizzle to this entire picture. Picture perfect place. Heaven - Right? Yes. It was heaven.

Now - take off the sun light from this Picture perfect place! Hell!

We were enjoying the beauty of nature and soon we relized - need to collect logs for night out. Else - Its Hell down under :-)

We were literally inside the clouds. This made the obvious job very difficult. KuntS struggled for more than an hour to lit the log. He used paper, rum, dry grass & leaves & what not? In vain. Soon - it was pitch dark, with soothing water sound turning scary. Possibality of animals visiting the circumferent water resource started creeping in our brains. All the collected logs, we placed them as obstacles to enter the cave. The rum that we 'd - spilled all around the vicinity of the cave. Theory - bad smell may prevent animals from entering the vicinity.








Well - we knew it was pretty hard to escape from animal - if it does come. But no other option as we can't find a better shelter amidst this quitly, continiously drizzling rain.

Pulled our sleeping bags & pushed our body within that. Just when we were about to close our eyes - another Elephant roar. 

What? Not Again!

Aaaah! Heart popped up into the mouth. Although the sound was from quite some distance - but the problem - why the hell isn't elephant sleeping yet? We couldn't 've done much then to calm ourself and try to find some sleep.

The night went good, except for few sounds waking and scaring us in between. Next morning - happy to see ourself still in one piece.

Now what? We 'd bought couple of Maggi's - assuming we would manage to lit logs. The log backfire left us with no food. Except for one Upama MTR packet. KuntS hated upama & that was blessing in disguise. I finished it in no time. We started off. Back track to civilization.

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5 minutes of back track - we found the correct trail - "Lost Trail again" (yet again while back tracking) heading towards VellariMala and a clear arrow marking on one of the trees pointing towards correct trail. I dont know how that BIG arrow mark and BIG trail managed to escape from 4 active eyes yesterday! Sight of proper trail - the josh came back. Shall we give it a shot to VellariMala atleast? Yes ofcourse. :-)

We started our ascent again. After about 5 minutes ascent - we stopped. Couple of questions suddenly popped up -
a) What we if we get lost again?
b) No more food available.
c) We don't know exact distance & time to the top. & definitely cant afford to spend another night in Jungle.
d) Its still drizzling and can turn into heavy rain anytime.

Wise decision came off. Lets not be too crazy. Lets call an end to ascent. & get back.

We started our descent. And literally raced down. Now we knew all the possible wrong trails - so no point of loosing trail. Raced down to the top of the falls in no time. Spent an hour in this beautiful clear crisp stream, amidst the clouds. 

We were walking in the clouds. Kerala - You beauty!

While I was enjoying nature, couple of leaches were enjoying my blood.

After that refreshing break - again continued to race down, back to civilization by 1200 Hours.

Lime juice + couple of biscuits went in. Quick wrap up & we were back to life!

Learnt couple of Malayalam words - "Malayalam Ariyadu" was the most useful among all. & learnt to pronounce all those tounge twister names - Muthappanpuzha, Olichuchattam, Tamarassery et al.

With a promise to visit (& finish the trek) Vellari again -- We bid adieu to an unforgettable adventure.

Trekkers willing to scale Vavul/Vellari can find good amount of Info here
http://usandeep.com/trekking/vavulmala.html
http://oceanwindz.blogspot.com/2009/05/vavulmala-n-vellarimala-trek-baap-of.html

& Some snaps to End













-USiRa