Karnataka Chronicles - Kumara Parvatha Conquered!!!!!!

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.  The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.  ~John Muir, Scottish-American naturalist and preservationist”

The above quote by John Muir aptly sums up our entire trek to Kumara Parvatha. Post our Vellingiri trip, we decided to hibernate for a few months as summers aren’t an ideal time to go trekking, but it seems the trekking bug had some other ideas and it soon bit us and our cravings for the next trek became too hard to ignore. It all started off with a casual mail from Palani about an unheard peak called Kumara Parvatha in the Western Ghats. Since this was a totally uncharted territory, we were quite apprehensive if we could make it during the summer of 2013. After googling more about this place, we realized that this was supposed to be the toughest trek in Karnataka which set us a bit on the back foot.

Kukke Subrahmanya Temple

I called up my Manager  Santhosh in Mysore and enquired about this place and to our pleasant surprise he had scaled this peak 6 times already (Star trekker, isn’t he?). Initially he was a bit doubtful about the dates (25-26 May), so we asked him for suggestions on how to go to this place and stuff. Eventually to our delight he confirmed that he would be joining us and that later proved to be a blessing for us. Having set aside our worries on how to scale this peak, we started making our travel arrangements to this place. Venkat, Surya, Senthil from Chennai confirmed their availability and our Trekking guru Palani was to join from Coimbatore. I worked for a day from Mysore office with Santhosh, Deepak and Manjunath who also decided to join us for the trek.

Our daily rigmarole of work kept us away from physical activity of any kind and that wasn’t an ideal preparation for the trek (Toughest trek and no exercise, are u kidding me?!). We decided to give it a shot anyways which was definitely going to stretch our bodies to the limit. Since we were going to spend a night on the mountain, we had to do arrangements for food and stay. Santhosh, Deepak and Manju arranged for 2 tents for the Eight of us. We rented out 3 rucksacks too to carry all the stuff.

The Team prepared to Conquer the Peak

We finished our work and left office by 6 pm and went shopping. We went and bought all the regular stuff for a trek like medicines, Bakery items, dry fruits, glucose etc. Santhosh went a step further and bought rice and utensils to make tea and food (This was something new to us, since we always ate packed items and not freshly prepared food!!). I was wondering if we could carry all that stuff up the mountain. Picked up Manjunath and Deepak from their homes, dumped all the stuff into Santhosh’s car and four of us departed from Mysore at 9 pm and set out on a 210 km drive to Kukke Subramanya.

Manju did tell me about the driving skills of Santhosh and boy oh boy, we were in for a fast drive. With his Schumacheresque driving skills on display, we were gobbling miles by the minute. Took our first break before Kushal Nagar for coffee, post which I took my turn behind the wheel. With Aashiqui 2 songs being played, we drove towards Madikeri (I am sure my slow speed heckled Santhosh :P). At the next pit stop, our Schumacher (Sorry, Santhosh) had enough of my sedate driving and took up his second stint behind the wheel. To pep up his mood, we changed to Eagles/Akon/Bob Marley and the speedometer stayed constantly at triple digits!! The curves of Madikeri Ghats were dispatched with aplomb and we were swaying inside the car literally from one side to another. We reached Sullya at 12:50 am and checked into a lodge as we had to pick up Palani who was to arrive from Coimbatore by bus at 2:30 am. Sleep got the better of us and we woke up only by 3:50 am and found missed calls from Palani. Called him frantically and enquired his location and to our surprise he found a cab and reached Kukke Subramanya. With our purpose of stay at Sullya defeated and cursing ourselves for oversleeping, we left Sullya by 4 am and reached Kukke in an hour.

Unlike Sullya, which was a sleepy town, Kukke Subrahmanya was bustling with activity as it was a famous pilgirim town. We picked up Palani from the temple and checked into a hotel and waited for the other three from Chennai to join us.

Altimeter reading at Start of the Trail

With Senthil, Surya and Venkat joining us, our group and ready and raring to go. Santhosh ran a final checklist of the things needed for the trek. Had our breakfast and uttered few prayers to Lord Subrahmanya and proceeded towards the Kumara Parvatha Trail. We had to walk for about a km to reach the trail, on the way we could see the lush greenery of western Ghats and were excited about trekking in a dense forest.

Though Pushpagiri or Kumara Parvatha is the 23rd tallest peak of the Western Ghats at 1712 m (5661 ft), the relative distance a trekker has to ascend is among the top five. The Altimeter showed a mere 97 m (320 ft) at the base of the trail, which translates to 5341 ft of vertical displacement which is definitely tough and long by any standards. With the mathematical calculations inspiring a bit of awe, we slowly started our ascent. The forest being a part of the South Western Ghats montane rain forests, was quite dense and the sun could barely peep into the forest floor even at 9 am in the morning. Delighted at the prospect of being shielded from the sun, we were enjoying the lush greenery all around. With the sounds of various insects echoing through the forest, we made steady progress when we were suddenly stopped in our tracks by Santhosh. He quickly pointed out to a viper slithering across our trail. The poor reptile was equally scared and disappeared quickly into the thick vegetation. After trekking for an hour or so, we stopped beside a large rock and quickly gulped down the fresh lemon juice prepared by Santhosh. Having refreshed ourselves, we proceeded towards the next major milestone, the Bhatta's House at Girigadde at an altitude of 2560 ft. We had planned to reach there for lunch, but we surprised ourselves by reaching there at 11:30 am, 30 mins ahead of schedule.

A Viper Snake slithering into the Bush

The Bhatta's are a self sustaining family who feed trekkers like us with sumptuous lunch for 80 bucks. Getting fresh hot homemade food on any trek is welcome, so we weren't complaining. Bhatta's house was located beside a beautiful hillock of areca nut plantation. As lunch was being readied, we relaxed in the cool shade beside his hut.  Santhosh told us a few facts about Bhatta's place and the hill and we were ardently listening to his earlier trekking escapades here and the various climatic conditions on the peak. After lunch, we took rest for 30 minutes and started towards the peak. The Forest cover had given way to Motane grassy meadows with a clear trail. Just after Bhatta's house was the forest office at Girigadde  where we had to pay 200 bucks per person and report for the trek. Santhosh told us that this is where the trek actually begins (This was a cruel joke as I had already considered the trek half done!) We refilled our bottles with fresh water, plucked some tasty guavas from the forest officer's orchard and kept munching them along the way.

The weather was quite sunny now at 2:00 pm and we were directly at the mercy of the hot sun. I was wondering if we could last another 2hrs as there seemed to be only grassy meadows all along. Little did I know what lay ahead and this was just an aberration of the things to come! We could see a couple of peaks in the distance and enquired with Santhosh if that was the Kumara Parvatha. A more cruel joke was cracked and he revealed that the actual peak is hidden and there are 2 more peaks behind the one I could see. (Hot sun and Santhosh definitely drove me nuts!!).

The Forest Trail

The only way being up, we trundled along till we came to a view point and a platform with benches. We were surprised to see the skull of a bison/cow along with bones strewn all over the place. I initially did think it was a cow slaughter by some poachers, but then how wrong I was! This was a carcass of a cow that went for grazing from Bhatta's house and was killed by a tiger on Jan 29, 2013 as per the forest officer. This really did send a shiver down my spine in the hot sun as I wasn't very comfortable seeing the carcass. But to put up a brave face, we clicked photographs and tried to show our funny side with the skull of the cow. Another 30 mins into the trek, it started getting cloudy which was a welcome relief (I realized later, I spoke too soon!). Soon we were covered with clouds and mist and the temperature did dip to a comfortable 25 degree celsius by 3:00 PM. We encountered some breathtaking vistas and views of Kukke Subramanya below. The mountain now covered with clouds in beautiful shapes made us wonder if we were in heaven. We soon reached Mantapa which was at 3520 ft by 4:00 pm. We were actually making good progress and reached this place sooner than expected. Filled our bottles from a fresh water spring close by. As per our plan, we were to spend the night here and trek to the peak the next morning. Since we had 2.5 hrs to nightfall, we decided that we will go close to the peak and camp there for the night (How wrong we were, and a risky adventure awaits us!). The wind was picking up by now and the breeze soon turned to gusts of wind and the clouds grew darker. Soon it started to drizzle and we packed our essential stuff into plastic covers to avoid them from getting wet. Santhosh's advice of getting a wet jacket proved to be a right thing after all ( I was wondering earlier if it would really rain in May!!).

Bhatta's Place

Since it became quite cold with the mist, I could barely see a thing with my glasses getting fogged and blinding my vision. I had to keep cleaning them every 10 meters and continued catching up with the rest of the group. We reached the 2nd false peak before the actual peak and saw a group of trekkers who had ascended from the more easier Somwarpet route. They warned us of the inclement weather and the dreaded 'Leech territory' ahead. The Grassy meadows now gave way to a dense forest and with the mist so thick in the air, it seem straight out of a fairytale. However, we could not admire the scenery for long due to the leech menace.

 This was my first experience with so many leeches around and they slithered quite easily past our shoes and into our legs. This so called beautiful yet deadly leech territory was about a km long and all we had to do to escape being sucked was to walk fast ( Easier said

The remains of a Cow after Tiger attack

than done, eh?) People did suggest that putting salt would get rid of these blood suckers, but the moment you see them sucking blood, you become crazy and just feel like getting rid of these things somehow. To my horror, I had two leeches happily sucking blood from my calf and I struggled to remove them. I pulled the first one with great difficulty and in vain, it stuck onto my palm and started sucking blood. Luckily Santhosh came to my help and pulled both of them in one go. We finally came out of the Leech territory and none of us came out unscathed. Each of us had a minimum of 3 leeches sucking blood. By this time, the rain became heavier and it became quite dark at 5:00 pm itself. As per our calculations, it would take another half an hour of trek to reach the peak, but with the gusty winds winds and ever increasing rain, each step was becoming tough. To compound things, we had a huge rock face to be ascended on the way up. It was quite slippery with water flowing down it and we had a tough time negotiating it (We almost did a moon walk ala Michael Jackson on a vertical surface :P). 

The Max reading recorded by Altimeter

We were drenched by the incessant rain and reached the peak at 5.45 pm. We were dripping wet and had to quickly assemble the tents in this stormy weather. Gusty cold winds made life difficult for us and the mercury plummeted to 18 degrees. With hands numb from the cold weather and teeth chattering faster than a typewriter, we finally assembled both the tents. But the adventure was far from over. We still had a few leeches on our body and couldn't enter the tent and spend the night with them. Santhosh ordered each of us one-by-one to strip down to the underpants to scan for leeches. Cold rainy weather , standing almost naked at the mercy of nature, things couldn't worsen than the situation we were in, eh? Finally, we left our leech infested bags and went into our tents by 6:15 pm. All our plan of cooking food and carrying utensils were in vain as it was still pouring outside and we were better off huddled in our tents. The tents were still flapping wildly due to the howling wind, but it was atleast a warmer 23 degrees inside the tent.

Darkness had now fully set in and the rain finally relented. We had dry fruits, biscuits and bread to keep us from starving till the next morning. We distributed them amongst ourselves and completed our dinner. It was too cold outside by now and all we could do was stay huddled. We  were famished and dozed off till we were rudely waken up by a storm at around 8:30 pm. With Gusty winds, we struggled to keep the tent in shape and had to prop it up with our hands to prevent it from collapsing. By now, the floor was wet and roof of the tent was leaking. It was definitely the adventurous night I had ever spent and we all prayed to god to help us survive through the night. I don't even recollect when the rain stopped and was shivering through the night in drenched clothes and finally dozed off.

Our Tents - after being ravaged by the overnight Storm

It was really cold the next morning and Santhosh definitely had courage and conviction to start a fire to keep us warm in the cold weather. I could barely step outside the tent as it was still freezing. We prayed for the sun to come out, but it was playing hide and seek with the clouds (The same sun, which I was cursing in Chennai a few days back. Funny how things can change!!).  Santhosh somehow managed to start a fire and we finally got some much needed warmth to our cold and tired bodies. We visited the makeshift Shiva temple at the peak and offered our prayers and started our descent by 9 am.

Making through the Leech territory again was a nightmare as the overnight rain seem to have multiplied them in numbers and they had a field day sucking out the myriad of Blood groups all 8 of us had to offer with a special liking to mine. We finally reached the 2nd lower peak and cleared our blood stained legs. Things were much better now as the sun finally showed itself and we descended slowly and reached Bhatta's place by 1 pm for lunch.

The Shiva temple at the Peak

After drying our drenched bags for some time, we started from Bhatta's house at 2:15 pm and descended towards Kukke.  As if the earlier adventure wasn't enough, nature decided to spice up things and opened the heavens to a strong downpour. We were drenched again and somehow made it back to the hotel by 6 pm with great difficulty.

Looking back one might wonder, why should we undergo such a risk instead of spending our weekends in the cozy comforts of our home. Anyone who has undergone a tough trek must have experienced the adrenaline rush, the strong sense of excitement, the desire to do it against all odds and a recognition of the will to conquer the peaks ahead. There is more to trekking than scrambling rocks and hills. It gives you a new found sense of freedom and feeling of being Independent and being one with Nature!

A group of 8 trekkers battled against all odds and conquered the Kumara parvatha on the weekend of 25 - 26 May, 2013. Nature did throw a challenge and we came out of it unscathed and together.  Special Thanks to Santhosh for guiding us without whom, we might have definitely faltered. Thanks to all my fellow trekkers, Palani (Trekking guru and mentor), Venkat & Surya ( The usual suspects and my partners in crime), Deepak ( Ever smiling and ready to click), Senthil ( My Cycling partner) and Manjunath (Youngest member of our expedition)

Some more random clicks: (Photos: Deepak, Sriram)

 

Bhatta's House

Peaks covered by Clouds - View from Bhatta's Place

The Trekking Route Map at Forest office

Cold and Windy!!

Removing and Surveying the blood sucked out by Leeches

Santhosh KB - The Leader of the Pack