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]

Aramane Gudda - Best place to be!

Introduction

ME Single Barrel loaded Riffle

3 trekkers lost their way while exploring Aramane gudda and their skeletons were recovered in 2007 [Link].
2 Navy helicopters have crashed in the vicinity of Aramane gudda in the recent past.
A few days ago[b/w 17th~19th March 2009] a man was hacked to death by a rouge tusker in Kempuhole river[Kempuhole Reserver Forest], soon after 2 cattle were eaten by a tiger...[Moorkannu Gudda] We knew we were going to the right place. I managed to convince 8 trekkers to join me but just 2 showed up at Majestic Bus stand.

Day 1 [Saturday 28th March]
We reached Sakleshpur at 0400 hours & killed time upto 0700 hours before having breakfast. Our guide was to pick us up at ಆನೆ ಮಹಲ್[Aane Mahal] but was late by just 4 hours! We started our trek from Kadumane estate at 1130 hours. The trek is quite difficult and pretty long [10 kms]. The terrain is mix of grasslands and extremely densely forested areas with no visible trail at all....

Snake Near Aramane Gudda

The first place of interest was the place where the bodies of the 3 trekkers were recovered. The surroundings had grass cover with trees in small numbers. We saw the trees from which they were recovered and the gorge from where the remains were picked.

Trail The 3 Trekkers were found here....

In the same vicinity it appeared as though some ritual had been performed, studying the remains the guide suspected a human sacrifice had been made! he immediately informed the forest guards on his findings. The Third place of interest was a Navy Helicopter crash site (2 in numbers), the interesting part here is, its an open grassland with no tree cover, the GPS devices don't show reading. The device failed to link up with any satellite!

By then we had reached ಅರಮನೆ ಗದ್ದೆ[Aramane Gadde]. We see what appears to be remains of a paddy field, the terrain is flat and surrounded by forest trees on 2 sides and mountainous terrain on the remaining sides.

Campsite A naturally formed Cave where we spent our night cooking and sleeping

The fifth place of interest and the last for the day was our camp site, which was a naturally formed cave.
On our way we got to see a snake,elephant shit, tiger shit :) and 3 pairs of Great Indian Hornbills....

Sunset Near Campsite

Day 2 [Sunday 29th March]
Even before brushing teeth we decided to explore the region, ನಾಯಿ ಗುಡ್ಡ [Nayee Gudda] appeared to be the tallest we scaled it first, we then decided to scale all peaks in the vicinity and did so in 5 hours.

ನಾಯಿ ಗುಡ್ಡ Early Morning Mist over adjacent mountain Ranges

The view from these peaks is breathtaking.
After lunch we took a small nap and started the descent back to civilization.

Red Stone Semi Precious Red Stone found in the open

The descent was steep with a sandy terrain. On our way down we stumbled over some semi-precious red stones which are abundantly found in the Western Ghats. On our way down in the forest we lost our way and were forced to follow a dried up stream that would lead us to Kempuhole and then we find our way back to the NH48. The last 3 kms in the forest was a risky affair with sunset not too far. We walked straight down a dried up water fall for about an hour and half and finally hit the Highway. It took us 30 mins of waiting time to hitchhike a lorry that dropped us off at Sakleshpur which took another 2 hours. We boarded a 2300hours bus heading to Bangalore which just took just 4 hours to reach Bangalore!

Panorama Near Nayee Gudda

Finale
#1.This is one of my best trekking experiences so far!
#2.The terrain is too difficult to trek and dangerous.
#3.The map from Map Survey of India is wrong! So do not try your luck with those! Remember the 3 trekkers were all the while referring to those maps of 1970's
#4.This area is known for contraband, murders, human sacrifice & hunting
#5.We trekked about 20 kms in 2 days
#6.I was too tired to click photos and hardly took any good ones:)

Early morning walk Amazing ridge