Yettina Bhuja to Ombattu Gudde ~ Virgin route

Route – Bhirapura -> Yettina Bhuja -> Lakshmi Estate [halt] -> OG -> Devara Holla [halt] -> Gundia Check Post.

From Yettina Bhuja - View near Bhirapura Temple

Introduction:

From Bhirapura – Raghavendra,Rohit,Srikanth,Jaya,Murali,Girish,Gururaj,Purushottam

The troupe consisted of a long list, a record number of 8 joined in, the initial count was about 12 unfortunately 4 did not show up. Tickets were however booked for 8 in advance. The trek troupe consisted of Gururaj, Purushottam, Raghavendra, Jaya, Girish, Srikanth, Murali and Rohit.

Day 1 :
We had booked an overnight bus from Bangalore to Mudigiere the nearest town to Bhirapura. We reached Bhirapura at 0430 hours.

From Bhirapura - Temple

Freshened up and had breakfast at the bus stand and boarded an auto to drop us off at Bhirapura Temple. The initial climb had a prominent trail, the trail soon died down but our destination was well within sight and we managed to summit by 1000 hours as per my planning.

From Yettina Bhuja - Along the Ridge

Here we had Breakfast round - II; Here I took out our navigation equipment and for the last time decided the path we would trace to get to OG[Ombattu Gudde] ridge, our equipment was one of the most primitive ones, a compass & maps from Map Survey of India. It was decided we head South-West to get to OG.

From Yettina Bhuja - Along the Ridge

The only catch was to find an animal trail, human path or an entry point through the thick bushes. I had to lead the way with a sickle clearing the thick spiny forest cover.

From Jenkallu + Dipadkallu + Peak 1259 - As viewed from Yettina Bhuja

We were quite fortunate to find a wide path that would help us summit the first huddle. On reaching there, we could see our jeep trail in the distant far in the South West direction. This was the fist sign of our success. We continued to stay high and walk along the ridge that would connect us to the OG-Jeep track.

From Ridge to OG - I see a Jeep track

From OG - Jeep Track Finally!

We reached close to OG by 1600 hours, we were dangerously low on water, we had to get to the nearby Lakshmi Estate and decide our next move.

From Yetina Bhuja ~ OG – Cliff en Route

On reaching there it was decided most people wanted to sleep in and around the estate. We had a campfire, prepared Noodles, Sweet Potato – Roast, Alu – Roast along with MTR ready to eat and some home made chapattis. Murli and Myself stayed up late, the rest slept by 2100 hours. We were up till 0000 hours and we slept in the open beside the camp fire. By 0300 hours strong winds in our direction woke us up and drove us inside the estate.

From OG Track - scorching sun

From Dipadkallu - Jenkallu - Peak 1259

Day 2

From OG Peak - Dry Shola Grass

Next morning we had breakfast and headed off to OG at a snails pace. We stared at 0800 hours hit the peak at around 1000 hours, we identified all prominent peaks nearby,

From Jenkallu Gudda View

we had earlier scaled Dipadkal gudda, Jenkallu Gudda, Peak 1252, Amedikallu and Yettina Bhuja as well. While on the OG peak we missed the actual trail that would safely lead us back to Gundia.

From OG – We Descended here

Looking back at the map we re-aligned and decided to take a steep decent down to the Devara Hola and look for the route back. But the decent proved quite costly. We stated at aroud 1030 hours, by the time we hit the stream below it was 1200 hours. As per the 48P9N/W it was just a displacement of 1 km!
By now the group split into 2, Gururaj, Purushottam and Raghavendra decided to leave the rest behind and tightened pace. The group moved slowly I had to find alternate routes and get the group kicking up pace. I got hysterical at times and yelled at the slow ones. We [group with 5] took a few breaks, including a lunch break and continued the descent along the river banks and at times through the forest.

Reunion:
Meanwhile the other 3 had no navigation equipment and had to wait for us with no option to back out. The 3 alos did not have any food left to camp for the night. The 3 had identified a suitable campsite right beside a bamboo groove and had started a fire. The 3 had collected enough fire wood for the night. By the time we regrouped it was 1730 hours. Later we realized the 3 had reached just 30 minutes earlier having kept a brisk pace with minimum breaks and having missed lunch break. For the record we had trekked just 4 kms from the OG peak which had taken 1000 - 1700 = 7 hours!!

From Devara Hola - View from our Campsite

Srikanth had got enough food for all we prepared Ragi Malt off ‘Uri Ittu’ and chapattis for dinner. We slept early and decided to start the day on fist ray of light.

Day 3
We started 0700 hours next day. Just after walking a 100 meters we ended up hitting thick Bamboo shoots; we crossed over to the other side and soon had to cross back over as we hit a dead end.

Ray of hope:

From Addahole - While Crossing the Stream

We got lucky as we found a trail that was pretty wide beside the Devara Holla. We moved along the path at a brisk pace and saw writings in Fresh chalk with arrows, after a while we saw ‘Gundia’ followed by an arrow pointing in the direction we were heading. Within an hour we hit Addahola. After a short photo session we continued our sprint to Gundia. All the while we were hoping for Mobile network connectivity to inform our dear ones on our whereabouts, but in vain. We hit NH 48 at 1330 hours. Here we found a small coin booth soon after crossing the overbridge, made calls back home. The group again split here, 3 guys decided to head back to Bangalore the rest continued to visit Kukke Subramanya temple and then back to Bangalore.

From Bisle Ghat - Amma Temple

At Kukke we visited both temples and then to a local – Amma’s Temple en route to Bisle view point. We had to drop Bisle view point 28kms from Kukke due to bad road condition and huge demands by local Jeep men. We boarded an overnight bus from Kukke ~ Bangalore at 0930 hours and touched down at Majestic at 0800 hours, the return journey was smooth until we hit a road block on Tumkur Road, the bus driver was smart enough to wait an hour and cut into Maagadi Road to drop us off at Majestic Bus stand.

From Yettina Bhuja ~ OG - The path we took

Finale:
1.OG rocks as always, a memorable hark back after a 3 month break due to a broken left arm and low back injury.
2.Over all Trek expense INR 731 per head includes bus + misc. expenses incurred during and after the trek.
3.I had parasitic ticks around my ankle, have now turned itchy.
4.All Eight have bruised hands and legs after grabbing thorny shrubs along the trek.

Amedikallu – All New Trek Route

Introduction:
Amedikallu is believed to be one of the tougher treks in the Western Ghats. Satyaveer Singh tobe Professor from IISc Bangalore did extensive research and worked out what looked like a perfect cake walk to Amedikallu and adjacent Ridge. The trek was being planned for quite sometime but happened only on 12th June 2009.
The group consisted of 4 including myself off which 2 were amateurs Raghuveer(small Startup), Anand(Cisco), Satya(IISc) and Rohit(TCS).

Amedikallu Amedikallu in the backdrop

Day 1 - Amedikallu Ridge
We reached Kokkada (en route to Dharmasthala), from here hired a jeep to Sheshila (INR 250). From the driver we understood it has been 2 days since we had rains. We began trekking at 0900 hours at a slow pace; we had trouble finding trails leading us to the peak all through.

Amedikallu Large Wood Spider found during the ascent

The monsoon had covered all trails we had to trust our instincts and keep going; leaches too had grown bigger and the blood sucking monsters did what they do best.

Amedikallu Nice looking Parasite on a broken tree trunk

While on the Amedikallu ridge at 16:00 hours dark clouds came crashing and with no place to take shelter we just stood still among the dark monsoon clouds;

Amedikallu First glimpse of Shola grass

with strong winds and limited visibility we just stood still for 2 hours. When the rains subsided we kept looking around hoping to find a suitable campsite as reaching the peak was ruled out.

Amedikallu First signs of Monsoon clouds

We found a boulder which was positioned such that it would cut off strong winds under which we camped for the night.

Amedikallu Time to pack my camera safe inside

Day 2 - New Trail
Next morning we got the most beautiful sight ever imaginable.

Amedikallu First light

The air was pure, clear skies, fluorescent green cover all over with thick fog cover over low lying areas it was just awesome & unforgettable….

Amedikallu A close-up of early morning mist

Without wasting much time we started our ascent to reach the peak. On the way we found a few rare Rock Orchids.

Amedikallu Rock Orchid

The 360degree view peak was truly mind boggling.. We could spot -> KP, Khudremukh Range, Yettina Bhuja Ridge and few other Ranges..

Amedikallu View from Peak over the entire Amedikallu Range

Intermittently the clouds cleared to give even better views and patterns. Yettina Bhuja looked like Saturn with the clouds around it like a ring. We spent close to an hour on the peak. We trekked along the ridge hoping to find a shorter trek route on a different exit.

Amedikallu Yettina Bhuja to the Left & entire Amedikallu Ridge

Here we found 3 fully grown huge Sambars, by then I had packed my camera and was in no position to shoot ‘em. We next entered a thick forested region heading North East only to realise after 30 minutes it was impenetrable and we had to revisit our exit route.

Plan Change
What we decided next was either too stupid or simply the best trek route way back to civilization. This was something we had done no homework at all, we had no navigation equipment like a simple compass.

Amedikallu Our Destination as seen from Amedikallu Peak

We just knew one thing – A river flows heading to the West along the southern side of Amedikallu Valley [river flows in the valley b/w Amedikallu & Yettina Bhuja]. Our gut feel was if we hit this river and stick to the right bank of the river and head towards West we would hit civilization. From the peak we worked out the possible path we take along the ridge.

Amedikallu The steep Ridge that we took to hurry down...

Remember we had no trails to follow nor navigation equipment to ensure we don’t veer off course.

The Steep Descent
To begin with it was shola grass initially with blades of grass cutting through our arms. The combination of sweat (salt) + Sun over bruised arms was quite something to remember. Our calculations went wrong when we hit a cliff and we were forced to revisit our plan. Satya and myself were forced to take lead and shift to an adjacent ridge a few meters away which was at an 80Degree inclination we certainly cheated death here a couple of times. But it was worth what we did, we discovered a new unexplored stream here, the water here tasted distinctly different, it was literally sweet and unforgettable.

Amedikallu Signs of Grasslands almost coming to an end..

We then found an alternate route that would help us go further without having to put the other 2 at risk. However these extras costed us more time than anticipated. Finally the grassland was over by then it was 18:00 hours. Without wasting much time we dragged ourselves through thick forests, Satya, myself cleared the way taking turns as Raghu & Anand had enough and just wanted to end this soon.

Amedikallu Stream in the thick forests; we camped nearby..

Anand ended up puking a couple times and Raghu already had a spinning head. Within no time it started to pour down heavy around 19:15 hours. In this thick forest cover we found a couple of snakes who posed for a while in front of my camera. With bad visibility, rains and leeches forced us to camp in the forest again. With food supplies running short and poor time to distance coverage ratio we had to sleep empty stomach, however we did get a couple of sips of lemon juice prepared with Glucon D + 2 lemons [400ml / 4 = about 100 ml per person; no sugar so I used Glucon D]. The campsite was of a different kind – A tree had fallen and cleared a small patch on the forest floor; we had no campfire, we were close to a stream with a lot of bamboo [elephant’s fav. food] and trees that appeared like leopards favourite hunting ground, so I guess we had chosen the right place. We heard and saw some curious creatures creeping in the dark, no guess what it was. Satya and I stayed up whole night ringing a vessel and screaming all night to shoo off nocturnal creatures.

Day 3 - Tough Decisions
Next morning we were just too tired to do anything. We again worked out a new strategy. We had run out of food we had to eat just enough to keep us going, we had a spoon of protein supplement [Whey Protein] + a couple of oat meal + 2 kharoojs + a little bit of MTR ready to eat stuff . If we followed the river it would take us to our destination in a winding manner which would be longer, the plan was to cut across by climbing up another mountain range and slide downhill other side to hit the valley down below. The climb down was too steep almost a cliff, I had to take lead and keep the team going.. Finally we hit the valley and the first glimpse of blue skies above and the adjacent Yettina Bhuja mountain ridge slopes. This was a great relief; it was just 09:00 hours.

Amedikallu We made to the Valley finally!

From here on we stuck to the right bank of the river and kept heading in the westward direction. The stream got bigger and wider here we saw a Manikchand packet indicating we were close to civilization. Soon we hit a pathway which took us back to Sheshila village. On the way we met a localite who took us to his home and served us Chai + Mangoes + Bathing facilities seeing our state.

Sheshila That's Satish's house a localite where we freshened up

Finale:
This was the best trek ever; I got a chance to use my new monopod to take most of the shots off my camera.
#1 We Discovered a new stream which had a distinctly different taste.
#2 All the while we had a GPS which gave us incorrect Altitude readings which was not of much help.
#3 Since the trek extended into day 3 and no network, people back home ended up panicking
#4 Monsoon treks have always been different and adventurous; if you make it out alive you carry some awesome memories with you.