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.

Moorkannu Gudda

Introduction:
The trek was a sudden plan out of the blue. The head count was to be around 10+ when we meet up at Majestic Bus stand it was just 6, with destination Moorkannu gudda.

Inorder: Vishnu,Meeliya,Ganesh,Abijith,Varun,Pradeep(Guide),Rohit.

Day 1[Saturday]:

Bou Bou ನಾಯಿ ದೃಷ್ತಿ [Dog's Influence]

We reached Sakleshpur at 4:30 hours. Abijth had arranged for a guide who would guide us to Moorkannu gudda. The plan was to go to Maranhalli pick the guide (Bill-Pradeep alias Billu) and then to kadumane estate from where the trek begins…

Kadumane Estate Tea Estate - High Dynamic Range Imaging

The trek began through Kadumane Tea estates private roads. The terrain was more or less flat.. On reaching close to Moorkannu gudda we decided to break for lunch. We cooked alu special, knorr soup, MTR ready to eat over the open flame. All took bath in the adjacent steam excepting me:D. We hit the peak after a while but we had to miss the sunset due to strong chilly winds and thick fog cover.

Our guide discouraged us from camping near the stream where we earlier cooked, we were forced to camp at Verrapan’s(a localite with that name!) solitary home in the forest.

The night was peaceful except that domestic animals in Verappan’s home freaked me out.
First it was Veerapan’s doggy who came sniffing leftovers while everyone was asleep, he came right behind me and dragged away the plastic which woke me screaming for help
Then it was the turn of their pet kitten who came and slept with me from nowhere, this time I again woke up screaming and woke everyone around me within no time the culprit hid away. By now day light was out but we were still asleep, the one final thing that got us out were small chicks who came pecking at me!!

Kadumane Estate Moorkannu gudda Peak in the Background

Day 2[Sunday]:
All got ready to leave and we spoke to a Nature lover (Vikram) who stayed next door, he stayed single at 45+ with a Nikkon D 80, laptop, GPS and an off-road jeep with fundoo modifications.

Our next stop was kadumane estate Tea Factory. It was nothing very interesting a Tamil speaking guy was our guide who nodded for everything and anything asked. I was highly optimistic on a free complimentary Kadumane Chai which did not happen! We then set out to the last itenary for the day an unknown waterfall off Sakleshpur Ghat in-between Gundia check post and Maranhalli. The falls was in a secluded place covered with forest on all sides. Water falls off at 4 places, re-unites and cascades to fall a one large fall. We were the only visitors to that place. To get there we had to cut through thick forest covered with a lot of fine dust.

We got dropped off at Sakleshpur from there we took another bus to Hassan from where we hit Bangalore to reach by 23:30 hours.

Nature Beside an unknown Water fall...

Finale
The expenses worked out to about INR 700. [Journey proved expensive]
It was more like a trip not strenuous and no after effects felt
If we had been there after rains we would have got to see a lot of greenery

Waterfall Three Shot Panorama