Trek to Kumara Parvatha

Reading my previous travel blogs always brings a smile on my face, this one might make me feel sad. I was in bad shape couple of days before and had second thoughts about this task. But convincing myself was easier than others, so made up my mind and showed a Thumbs UP!!! Manu also was doubtful to join, Suma slipped away at the last minute for health issues. So finally we were 11 of us at majestic bus stand to catch a bus to somarpet at 11:00PM. Adi & Akki managed to arrange sleeping bags and tents for rent. Me, Suhas & Manu carried food packed for each in separate bags so that not one will carry all of it. Without bothering much for intro of new joinees we just boarded the bus and dozed off.

Early morning 5:15am, Adi had managed to look for a place to get fresh near the bus stand. Sumanth joined us lil later from Mysore followed by Kushal from Mangalore. By the time we got ready to catch the bus from Somarpete to Beedalli at 7:30am, we were pretty much got all our names registered. Akki, Ajay, Dani and Sumanth were making their first trek with us. I don’t remember how long the bus took to reach beedalli as I enjoyed a nice nap all along. We started walking towards the forest check post, which was around 3kms from where the bus drops you. On the way, a jeep dropped us till the forest check post where we registered our names by paying an amount of Rs200 each.

 It had rained the previous day in Coorg, so the weather was lil cool. We visited a temple just before setting off. The uphill trail started in good pace enjoying the thick forest around. Forest had a beautiful stream flowing from a close by falls. We knew that we would not get any other water source for the rest of the day and half. With enough water packed, we moved through the woods with small patches of open areas which showed bright sun. After a while, we had a surprise. Rocks!!! Too huge and long to cover in one shot. I stopped couple of times in the middle, finally crawled slowly to reach the top and waited for the fun watching others crawl. We decided to have light lunch to compensate the energy discharged. Trek became slower after this break. There were three such stretches of rocks. And after the final one we entered a beautiful canopy, naturally our tired bodies fell on the bed of dried leaves fallen. Oranges !!!! one, two, three and we lost the count of how much oranges we ate. Here we met an interesting person. Mr Ramaswamy Reddy a 65yr long man who had been to Himalyas 63 times till date. He explained that he visits Himalayas thrice every year. We were impressed!!!

By 2pm, we reached pushpagiri peak, tents quickly took shape in a safe place where it was less windy. We unpacked our bags and filled our tummies with chapathi, peanut butter, jam, oranges.

At the view point, we enjoyed watching the clouds playing games every minute covering the whole scene leaving nothing visible and sometimes cleared to give sight of beautiful green forest far down the hill. Few enjoyed listening to music, capturing pics and few others writing poetry. After spending sometime here, back near our tents we played UNO for a while. As dusk took over, we started collecting wood for campfire. It was difficult task to put fire as it was very windy and the night was equally cold. Fortunately, the sleeping bags we carried were good enough to keep us warm inside the tents. Dani tried many tricks to scare the crowd, thankfully we had a peaceful sleep.

 The first thing we did the next day morning was to go back to the view point and enjoy the tingle in the wind. We had Musli, bread-jam and good life for morning breakfast after which we quickly packed our tents and bags to start the trek downhill. We had to cover 14kms most of it being plains. Scorching sun was already on our head. We initially moved at good pace but no very far. The downhill was even more difficult than the uphill trail so we had to stop the leg at every step, and the loose stones on the track added to the difficulty. We managed to reach Bhatru mane by 12:30pm, for a stomach full lunch and fresh up. We relaxed here for a while. The next part of the journey for me was the most difficult one. Every step was a tough one and we took more pit stops to regain the energy and moved further. Thanks to my team to bear my speed and they waited for me to pull up every time I fell tired. Manu kept the spirits high by his sense of humor. We finally made it to kukke by evening 5. And on our way to this famous temple of kukke subramanya, we witnessed the snake dance for more than 15mins. When we finally found they were non-poisonous we decided to bother & forced them to continue the rest of their play inside the bushes.

We got the rooms near the temple to get fresh. Me and Su made it to the temple before it got crowded. It was long time I was planning to pay a visit to this lovely temple. Adi subramanya is some how very close to my heart. The reason being, it was here I very well recollect my mum sitting and resting the last time that she came here with me. The scene some how refuse to brush off from my mind. So I sat right in front of this place, and there were hundred thoughts running through my mind. Its no peace to have them but still felt better. And temple prashad I always love to have, inspite of the long queue. By safe 8:30pm, we all gathered outside the temple for a small round of chit chat. New comers were exchanging their first experiences with the rest of the team. To catch Vaibhav at 9pm, we checked out of the rooms. Journey was trouble some for several reasons and the body totally refused to move once we were back in Bangalore. It took very long time to walk like normal but the cramps only reminds me that it’s high time that I should start working out for the rest of the treks. 

Throughout the trek, I must say that I made sincere efforts to learn using my camera, I don’t say learning photography for I know I am still at the very first step of it. After every trek, the team usually exchanges couple of mails about the haal-chaal. This time the chaal part of mails were interesting and I thought of adding them here .... 

Suhas starts the mail chain as always :P -

" How are the legs screaming??? :P "

Su replies first : " SUPER!! me walking with full new style in office.. J J"

Ajay replied : "Me walking like a Robot!"

Manu says : "Robot walk defines perfectly! ;-)"

Adi wrote : "No problem with legs !!! Still alive and kicking !!! it's just i am deprived of sleep !!! Return journey was memorable with all the strange sounds and reckless driver shifting gears without even bothering to apply the clutch generating quakes !!! And our karnataka vaibhava equivalent to our sarige expect for half push back seats !!! Next time only airavatha's please."

Dani Replied : @ Adi : OMG. I am not finiding any like button here. :)

    Atleast your seats have gone a half-way, just think of mine whatever i did it came back to its original position.

In another mail, Adi writes :

@ All : This KP trek was more memorable than my previous one !!! Loved each and every moment of it !!! When you think you are completely exhausted and u think u can't even smile manu comes up with " Karadi bandre nan surrender agbithinappa" which lightens the air and brings a smile on everyone's face.