After many years of my life, some how Trekking came to my mind all of a sudden. As soon as I got this idea, Searched for places where I can take 2 days out of my busy life. Saw lots of places where people do trek, read lot of blogs, inspired and made my mind and said to my self... "Let do it"
As it was my first time, I wanted to try some thing which my body can support. One of the interesting place came in my search was this Mullayanagiri.
Quick Facts of this place:
- This is the highest peak (6,330 ft from sea level) in Baba budangiri range of Western Ghats of Chikmagalur Taluk, Karnataka. 3rd highest in India!!!
- July-Dec is the best time to go.
- Make sure you go with proper guide or you will be roaming in mountains for days to find a way out of it. :(
Days of Travel: 2 Days... Just perfect for my weekend :)
Date: 29th July 2012
Trekking Guide: Bangalore Mountaineers Club (For more details: www.bmcindia.org)
Best Time to Visit: July-Dec.
Tips: For free :)
- Rainy seasons are not good as the path will be very slippery and lots of leaches.
- Avoid night treks and make sure you are out before 7pm.
- 100% guide is required even you have a great GPS tracking system... Because in clouds your GPS also may not work accurately.
- Water proof bags, Jackets, Very less luggage.
- Medicine.. mainly pain killers and allergy one
- First aid kit.
- Dettol, Move spray, salt, and the list goes on to make leaches leave you from sucking blood. Simple rule: Leach just leave you from sucking blood as soon as the taste changes. So just put some thing near the wound, it will go off...
Story Begins...
Started our Journey from Bangalore at 10pm Friday night. BMC people picked us from one of stops. We were around 25 people where most of them were first time trekkers.
Slept in the Bug for entire journey. Reached our homestay "Mugila Mane" around 3am. This is very near by place for trek start point. This was a very small homestay with very basic facelities. But our guide always remained us ----- "We are here for Trekking not for sleep in resort :) "
HomeStay... |
Entrance to HomeStay |
Read for Trecking... |
Slept till 6am. Had bath and junk breakfast was ready. Remembered the Guide words again and eat that only. And our trek started at 7am.
From bottom we were able to see only 25% of the peak due to fog and hence we were all not sure how big the mountain is. Below pic is the starting point of Trek. From here it looks like we have nice path, but later we found that only entrance is good and rest all path is unknown.
The entire trek path is called as "Sarpa Dhari"... Mean snake path. Once we started climbing we came to know why it is called so. The path will be like snake only...
Entrance of SharpaDhari... |
Trekking was really great. It was almost 4KM up trek and 5KM down trek. Just standing for 1min for rest will bring back all energy in us. There were 2 guides, one at front and one at end. They make sure that no body is missing all time.
Just show the slope |
Check out the back..very slope... |
Some places needs an extra effort... |
Very Windy.... |
Feeling Great to Reach till this height... |
Finally We reached the the Temple which is at the top of the Hill... Wondering how priest can reach this temple everyday? That's simple... There is a road till that place... We came for trekking so no steps, no road, only Mountain path....
Took a few minutes break on top of the hill and started the trekking down the hill in different route...
It almost took 3.5 hours to reach top and another 3 hours to come back down.
Finally our body was completely down and no more support for any other work... We badly need rest... Went to base camp, Had lunch. And our Guide declared one more trek to Baba budangiri Mountains which is again 10KM trek. Asked us to get ready with in 10 min for next trek... I and Vandana was completely down and dropped from the plan and lied on bed peacefully. Out of 25, almost 15 went for next trek. Had a nice time in base camp and a nice sleep.
Other batch completed the trek and came back at 6pm. Walked on road for few km to find some shop for some food. Found one shop where we bought maggi, and cooked in our base camp kitchen. Seriously it was our maggi moments...
Took rest again and our dinner was ready. Eat dinner and chatted for time in front of fire camp...
One side cooooool breezzz of coffee plantations and other side a warm fire...Enjoyed the night and went for sleeping....
BMC provided us sleeping bags where we enjoyed the warm sleep in that cold climate.
Day-2:
Woke up early in the morning 6pm. Got ready and had break fast and started for next trek... But this time it was not mountain but trek in small muddy roads in between coffee plantation to reach a water fall. It was almost 3KM walk... Enjoyed the walking on beautiful Sunday morning... Reached Water fall...
Path to Water falls |
Best way to enjoy a Fall... :) I Love it |
Water was chilled and we can hardly touch also. But we all took deep breath and entered the falls. Our body got freezed for few moments... Later we adjusted to it and started enjoying it...
Spent good 2 hours in falls... Hey here is where I first met with my Enemy... A leach... It got stuck on my leg and already started sucking the blood.. I was too horrified and shouted for help..Guide put some salt on it and it left me. Later 2 more leaches attacked me but I was already used to it and applied the same technique. Best part of the leach is it wont pain you even little bit. You will not sense anything and a big thanks to the anesthesia that it applies before sucking blood...
Now biggest problem is that we need walk up the path for again 4KM to reach road. We were very much tiered playing in falls and pulled up all energy and started walking.
Started back journey to Bangalore at 2pm. Had Lunch In dabha near Hassan. Then playing few games in bus. Finally reached Bangalore at 6pm... Our Nose started smelling pollution and ears started hearing noises of road....
Finaly reached home at 8pm. Played with Kid which we missed for 2 days... Had Moms great Dinner and Slept with remembering great memories of our journey...
Thanks for reading this blog... See you all in next trip.....