Sunday, May 09, 2010

Mogala Betta [Virgin Trek]

Introduction:
From Mogala Betta [Virgin Trek Route]


Two Day Trek [2010-05-08 - 2010-05-09]

It had been quite sometime before a Virgin Trek was planned out. I decided it must happen over this weekend. About 10-15 showed interest and 6 showed up off which just 4 completed it. Among the people who made it - Purushottam, Gururaj,Srikanth and Rohit.
From My new avatar - Naxal

We reached Gundia 0700 hours, freshened up had Tea and started the trek. The forest isn't thick we could lock our compasses North-East and kept going. The humidity was pretty high and water consumption was high too. By the time we made it to open grasslands it was Noon. By now Sandeep and Ravi dropped out. Srikanth could not take it and ended up taking a very long nap.
From In the Jungle

Soon it was 1500 hours and started to pour down heavily. By now we were dangerously low on water; we ended up drinking rain water droplets, and it was pretty evident no water ahead as well. The rains gave no respite, the humidity was still very high we kept going.
From Bisle Ghat in the background

Only purushottam made it to the sumit. We were short by 300 meters! => I still have unfinished business will come back for it soon!!! However I did not want to re-trace the serpentine route we took to get here, we took another path which seemed more easier to reach the nearest water source. To do that we had to cut through a dense jungle starting 1900 hours with a pair of torches.
From View down Mogala Betta
The dense jungle had wild thorny shrubs and gigantic trees. We also found a dried up stream which we followed till 2100 hours and decided to spend the night beside it.
From Prominent Peaks from Left to Right -> Amedikallu,Yettina Bhuja,OG in front of it,Dipadkal Gudda, Jenkallu gudda(Mist covered)

Due to damp forest floor no dry wood was available for camp fire. We had some Diesel which we sprinkled around and slept. At 2300 hours it suddenly started to rain down heavy. The rains wouldn't stop, it poured down heavy till about 0300 hours. The umbrella we carried helped us protect our bags and our heads from drowning :)
From Mogala Betta after rains


After about 0100 hours I was out of my sense and had gone to deep deep sleep, I don't recollect how the umbrella got off my head. We woke up at 0600 hours and waited for sunlight to penetrate the thick forest. We started our trek at 0700 hours. We reached Gundia by 1030 hours.

Gururaj, Purushottam and Srikanth decided to visit Kukke temple I decided to head back to Bangalore. Reached back home at 1800 hours.

Finale:
1. Water ~> Most important on any trek
2. Make sure you have determined and brave people while attempting something like this.
3. Compass helped us a lot, I am now confident of compass reading
4. I will re-visit this place sometime soon......

From We Made it out alive! - Gururaj,Purushottam,Srikanth & Rohit.



More Pix here:
2010-05-08 - 2010-05-09 - Mogala Betta [Virgin Trek]

3 comments:

Srikanth Manjunath said...

I vow my life to Rohit, Guru, and Puru. With their encouraging words and blessed from rain gods..my exhausted body due to dehydration got a right fillup..during small stint of shower from rain gods..that gave me enough strength to continue the great adventurous trek i ever took :-)

Anonymous said...

Nice write up mate...
-shashi

Unknown said...

hi,
please giv ur email id or mobile number plz,i m Ananth from manipal,v also hav some plan to OG & jenkal betta.my cell No. is 9900144207 & 9844990462 & 7411163909 & my mail id is nageshi79@gmail.com