Monday, October 06, 2008

Khudremukh Trek

Introduction:
This trek & tour was an accident...
The original destination was one of
#1 Silent Valley [4 day trek] or
#2 Ombattu gudde from Deepadakallu gudde or
#3 Biking in Khudremukh forest ranges
When Preetham The man who lives horrific Dreams ditched us last minute I had no options but to start marketting & plan a trek cum tour.
There were just too many people who joined in and out on various days so I wont name them all.. Here are the ones i remember - ..............someone fill this up

Khudremukh Getting there [1st October 2008]
To begin with, the bad girls occupied the most comfortable front seats [3 Nos. Mamtha(M), Rashmi(M) & Soumya(S) (not sure of her real name, she had many nicks);M=>Married!].
View from Kalasha just before Sun Rise


Sun Rise view from Kalasha again ...

Gangatikal Peak [2nd October 2008]We were late and left with no other choice and had to trek gagatikal peak [4km from Bhagavathi Guest house]. The trek starts from the state highway connecting khudremukh - karkala route.
Gangatikal Trek Mid way
One needs to take permission from Karkala Forest Range officer before attempting this trek (It was a costly affair, better be students you get 50% off, carry college id cards etc to claim this benefit).
Ladies First
The trek was over in no time at all, it ended with light showers. The best part of this trek was - from the peak we got to see great panoromic view of the entire Khudremukh Forest Range. We missed Nagappa all along this trek. This is not very popular among trekkers but i must say its better than Khudremukh Peak....
Panorama from Gangatial Peak - 4 photos conjoined


Hanumangundi & Lakya Dam
Since it was a small trek we had time to cover 2 more places Hanumangundi and Lakya dam. We had a lot of tax-free entertainment at Hanumangundi falls. We just went on a brief walk over Lakya dam and head back to the dorm.
We spent the night at Bhadra Dormitory with Onion Free Lunch and played poker - Mamtha seemed to be an addict now and we hit the bed when she Won!

Kurinjal Peak [3rd October 2008]
Day 2 Nagappa, Gururaj and Harish (guru's cousin) joined in.
Vivek Mari River Crossing
Well as always Nagappa had an intersting overnight journey.
Back View of Nagappa.....
This time Nagappa sat with an aunty and ajji, the aunty & ajji found Nagappa pretty interesting offered him Chocolates and put him to sleep... :). Nagappa also bought an intersting monkey cap which looked more like an undy. My breakfast was affected due to too much laughing.. however the trek began at 9:30 am from the Bhagavati Guest house Gate.
The trek was a good one, we had to first cross a stream. The terrain was beautiful but leach infested.. Dettol seemed to work wonders, we soaked our socks and shoes with dettol and kept going. Just below the peak was an abandonded guest house in ruins, further up we hit the peak where the terrain suddenly changed from elephant grass to short shrubs with strange insects. It was a 7Km * 2 trek overall. At one point nearing the peak we had to take the route cutting across and leading us Uphill..this was the only point of confusion, the rest seemed pretty staright forward. On our way back we took a slightly differnt route and accidently hit a bridge that lead us to the main road and we had to walk slightly more to get back to the guest house but saved effort removing shoes.
ಮಾಂಸ ಪರ್ವಥ Harish, Kulla [Vinay] & Venkat[from CISCO] decided to head back to Bangalore, I guess they had enough... We did not get accomodation in Bhagavti guest house and we left early to Karkala. We halted at a lodge beside the bus stop, it was my day at poker.

Karkala - Udupi - Malpe - St. Mary's Island - Kaapu [4th October 2008]:
We visited the nearby Karkala Gomateshwara, spent a couple of hours before leaving to Upupi Krishna Temple and checked out "Outlook Dosa" -> Well the dosa is just a media hype as the hotel server himself admits, it tastes no extra-ordinary but one good thing is that all food items served don't have onion n Garlic in them... Meanwhile Ashwin [Prosperous Architect] & Sameer [Pakka Hindu] escaped...
Three Blind Sailors..

Not much has changed in and around Malpe and St. Mary's Island except that the tickets cost more 70 Bucks per head.
Ravi Posing
The island has not changed much except that beer cans and plastics have increased. Kaapu beach had a good crowd and tax free entertainment. The lighhouse and view atop was too good.. We left after sunset and halted at Udupi.

Stay at Udupi:
The lodge was too good and we got every bit of 1.5K we paid for it. The room was called "Honeymoon Special with AC". It had 2 big rooms, 2 double cots with attached bath, a royal swing, 2 plush sofa sets, a fridge and a Bathtub! However the swinging event stopped soon after Harish and me in a joint operation brought it down:D, everyone waited eagerly to swim around in the bath tub. I was lucky to go 2 rounds! The AC was over used and started getting on Jatin's sleep, he sleep walked and put it off.. the room got stuffy, vivek woke up and turn on fan.. Someone else woke up and swithed the AC on again... I wasn't aware of these happenings I slept away from both the Fan & AC blast. However Nagappa slept peacefully inbetween both Jatin and Vivek sharing the same bed and had no complaints...

Koodalteertha - Augumbe - Sringeri [5th October 2008]:
One needs to take a right-diversion while going towards Augumbe from Hebri to Koodalteertha water falls. Its a 13km drive and a 5 km * 2 trek in thick forests infested with leeches. The trek's a good one. We started early to reach early hence we were to first set of people to make it.
Awesome Water Fall - 2 photos joined
One doesn't need to take permission to trek around in this Someshwara wildlife reserve. The waterfall is amazing with a very different terrain around it. The water falls staright down without being cut down by any projecting rocks all along. The impact is pretty hard with literally no boulders around, you find only fine powdered rocks all around the fall. However the lazy ladies decided to terminate the trek pre-maturely for reasons unknown, I suspect lack of will and moral support from guys as well, but they missed the very best part of the trek! While crossing a stream Nagappa got excited and lost once of his slippers,
before he got to it, the currents washed it away, he was lucky I was around, I managed to throw a few rocks and twigs and slow it down and Nagappa managed to get a hold back of his slippers.
Ravi Strips..

Augumbe was cloudy and we could not see the sun set, however a pretty gal in pink and black kept us waiting and we soon left to Sringeri.
Sringeri was crowded on account of Navarathi celebrations. After a brief visit we had dinner and head straight to Bangalore via Balehonur ->Chickmagalur.
The drive was bumpy with everyone having puking sensation.
We reached home by 5:00 hours. The total expenses worked out to be around 2k.

Finale:
#1 No Nagappa No entertainment, Know Nagappa know entertainment...
#2 After effects -> Nagappa on his way to office on the 6th morning dozed off in a Volvo bus facing him was a pretty lady, the driver accidently braked suddenly... Guess what happened next [:D], well it didn't end here, same day while heading back home, he again dozed off and got off 3 stops later :D...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Rohit....

The photographs are very good. i think we had an amazing time at kudremukh n udupi. good fun..

P.s : We didnt walk all the way to the falls coz we weren't interested. not bcoz we were "Lazy" :)