Kudremukh Peak Trek
Kudremukh was suposedly first trek I was to do ever since my first trek way back in 2005, but various due to reasons I could't make it -
On friday Dec 11th night 10:30 pm, Santhosh picked me up in the qualis he had arranged for the travel. Vishal and Krishna has already joined from MG road, also there were two more people in the qualis that's Praveen and his friend Anna. We reached the place called Balgal (this is 10km before kudremuk town and near to hike start point) at 7am in the morning with some pitstops on the way for tea and driver too wanted to sleep for a while :)
From Balgal we got on to a jeep (4x4) where there is a huge board saying 'trek to Kudremukh starts here', along with two more guys who joined us at Balgal, it was a bumpy and off roading exactly as the raod was heading towards the core of the KM forest, it was muddle and hilly with 45' inclination sometimes, it was a scary ride too. But the driver was well versed with the road so took us to the mullodi house which is 6km from the balgal and is the starting point for the kudremukh Peak. We started relaxing and freshen up quickly as we had to start the trek before 9am to avoid getting late in the evening as the camping inside the forest area or the peak was banned by forest dept, might be due to naxal problems.
We were all set and ready to go by 9 30am and we started to climbing from the mullodi, it was rough road initially with stones and gradually tuned to forest grassy land. Initial part of the trek was cool ... li'l uphill and then a li'l downhill ... a walk along the ridges with a view of valley on one side ... and then a few streams along which we cross with not much hurdles. In little more than an hour, we entered an open field and Ramesh showed us the 2nd Lobo Mane ... soon to be followed by the 3rd. The real trek starts from this point ... where the path becomes a lot narrower and uphill. Immediately after the 3rd Lobo Mane was a steep climb up one of the hills which took us to some height and provided a panormanic view of the surrounding. On one side was a cascade of hills covered with lush green grass, interspersed with shola forests(Its a patch of forest between the mountains or forest in the valley between two hills). To our front was more lofty hills, the tip of which having a sharp drop on one side and resembling a horse's face!
A little more than an hour from Lobo Mane was a small rock with water trickling down from the top. At this point, the peak was looking pretty close, but we were kind of vertically below the flat face of the peak and climbing up from there was just not possible. The path meandered to the right side almost going away from the peak taking us to another beautiful view of the valley. We had to cross over to the other side of the hill. It took us almost half an hour before we started moving up again, sharply to reach the foothills, at this point I was ahead of the guys and couldn't locate anyone back from view of few hundred meters, so I decided to take a break but soon I could see someone speaking it was Vishal and Krishna who joined me and then they just went ahead, from there the climb was really tough as it went vertical But, the excitement of being 'almost there' kept pulling us up. Though a sign post en route reading "KMP 1.5" pointing upwards almost killed most of us, our guide was quick to assure that "its just another 15 mins ... and then its flat terrain!". Indeed in another 15 mins, we reached the foothills of Kudremukh peak and from there it looked like a medium climb. It still needed about 20 mins to reach the peak from this point and I could see Vishal, krisha and other gang almost reaching there, so I just quickly trekked over and joined them, yes we had reached the KM peak in exactly 3 hrs 30 min thats an exciting timing. We just crashed at the peak and rested there while rest of the guys reached there after 20-30 min and everyone had photo sessions and ate the chowchowbath that we had packed from mullodi house.,but yeah it was not tasty as they had missed salt in it..but without choice we at it!!
As decided, we started our descend almost 2 pm. In spite of the slippery path we did descend down quickly reaching the rocky stream by (almost vertically below the peak) abt 3.30 abt almost uptill Lobo Mane. By then, the time was about 4.40 and it was safe enough with no signs of rain and enough time to reach back before dark. Vishal and Krisha was alomost running down hill...probably more excited to have food at mullodi or were panicking about getting stuck in the dark in forest :) We were back in Mullodi by 6 as planned and crashed at the first spot we could find.
Myself, Vishal, Krishna and our guide Santhosh decided to go to Somavathi falls nearby which was a 10-15 min of trek, the other guys were tired they dint join us. But yeah they missed the freezing cold water shower at the somavathi falls, it was exciting. We came back from shower and pitched in the tent and relaxed chitchatting while the dinner was getting ready at the Mullodi house. At 9pm we had our nice good dinners (akki roti, curry, sambar rice etc) ..yummy and then went to our tents and sleeping bags for a cosy sleep, couldnt imagine how quickly i went to sleep that night thanks to tiredness of the trek!!!
Morning we got up and had the showers and quickly started to horanadu which was 18km from there, we had darshan of Annapoorneshwari godess...what a sign of releif after having darshan for the devotess. We then had a delicius lunch the prasadham at the temple and started off to bangalore.
Kudremukh was one of my most awaited treks for me and worth all the the wait..
Whats the next adventure? never know :)
----------------------
Fact file: Area 563 Sq. Kms.
Rainfall 3000 mm - 6350 mm
Temperature 10'C - 35'C
Altitude 600 - 1892 M
Peak Kudremukh
Plan: To trek on very difficult route in Karnataka's one of the most magnificent forest.
Trekking routes: There are coupled of them, the one we took was Mullodi to Kudremuk Peak (9.62Km climb and 9.62km decend)
GPS data: http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=1886143
Album photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/skmanju/Kudremuka_trek
Cheers
Manjunath
First time when I planned along with my college friends, some one demotivated saying its not safe and not so exciting place.- Next I planned myself by checking information on the blogs, got the contact information of the forest officials, send them DD for the dormitory accomodation and permissions for the trekking, but that trip got cancelled due to various reasons..
- Once some of my colleages had planned, but unfortunately I couldn't make it.
On friday Dec 11th night 10:30 pm, Santhosh picked me up in the qualis he had arranged for the travel. Vishal and Krishna has already joined from MG road, also there were two more people in the qualis that's Praveen and his friend Anna. We reached the place called Balgal (this is 10km before kudremuk town and near to hike start point) at 7am in the morning with some pitstops on the way for tea and driver too wanted to sleep for a while :)
From Balgal we got on to a jeep (4x4) where there is a huge board saying 'trek to Kudremukh starts here', along with two more guys who joined us at Balgal, it was a bumpy and off roading exactly as the raod was heading towards the core of the KM forest, it was muddle and hilly with 45' inclination sometimes, it was a scary ride too. But the driver was well versed with the road so took us to the mullodi house which is 6km from the balgal and is the starting point for the kudremukh Peak. We started relaxing and freshen up quickly as we had to start the trek before 9am to avoid getting late in the evening as the camping inside the forest area or the peak was banned by forest dept, might be due to naxal problems.
We were all set and ready to go by 9 30am and we started to climbing from the mullodi, it was rough road initially with stones and gradually tuned to forest grassy land. Initial part of the trek was cool ... li'l uphill and then a li'l downhill ... a walk along the ridges with a view of valley on one side ... and then a few streams along which we cross with not much hurdles. In little more than an hour, we entered an open field and Ramesh showed us the 2nd Lobo Mane ... soon to be followed by the 3rd. The real trek starts from this point ... where the path becomes a lot narrower and uphill. Immediately after the 3rd Lobo Mane was a steep climb up one of the hills which took us to some height and provided a panormanic view of the surrounding. On one side was a cascade of hills covered with lush green grass, interspersed with shola forests(Its a patch of forest between the mountains or forest in the valley between two hills). To our front was more lofty hills, the tip of which having a sharp drop on one side and resembling a horse's face!
A little more than an hour from Lobo Mane was a small rock with water trickling down from the top. At this point, the peak was looking pretty close, but we were kind of vertically below the flat face of the peak and climbing up from there was just not possible. The path meandered to the right side almost going away from the peak taking us to another beautiful view of the valley. We had to cross over to the other side of the hill. It took us almost half an hour before we started moving up again, sharply to reach the foothills, at this point I was ahead of the guys and couldn't locate anyone back from view of few hundred meters, so I decided to take a break but soon I could see someone speaking it was Vishal and Krishna who joined me and then they just went ahead, from there the climb was really tough as it went vertical But, the excitement of being 'almost there' kept pulling us up. Though a sign post en route reading "KMP 1.5" pointing upwards almost killed most of us, our guide was quick to assure that "its just another 15 mins ... and then its flat terrain!". Indeed in another 15 mins, we reached the foothills of Kudremukh peak and from there it looked like a medium climb. It still needed about 20 mins to reach the peak from this point and I could see Vishal, krisha and other gang almost reaching there, so I just quickly trekked over and joined them, yes we had reached the KM peak in exactly 3 hrs 30 min thats an exciting timing. We just crashed at the peak and rested there while rest of the guys reached there after 20-30 min and everyone had photo sessions and ate the chowchowbath that we had packed from mullodi house.,but yeah it was not tasty as they had missed salt in it..but without choice we at it!!
As decided, we started our descend almost 2 pm. In spite of the slippery path we did descend down quickly reaching the rocky stream by (almost vertically below the peak) abt 3.30 abt almost uptill Lobo Mane. By then, the time was about 4.40 and it was safe enough with no signs of rain and enough time to reach back before dark. Vishal and Krisha was alomost running down hill...probably more excited to have food at mullodi or were panicking about getting stuck in the dark in forest :) We were back in Mullodi by 6 as planned and crashed at the first spot we could find.
Myself, Vishal, Krishna and our guide Santhosh decided to go to Somavathi falls nearby which was a 10-15 min of trek, the other guys were tired they dint join us. But yeah they missed the freezing cold water shower at the somavathi falls, it was exciting. We came back from shower and pitched in the tent and relaxed chitchatting while the dinner was getting ready at the Mullodi house. At 9pm we had our nice good dinners (akki roti, curry, sambar rice etc) ..yummy and then went to our tents and sleeping bags for a cosy sleep, couldnt imagine how quickly i went to sleep that night thanks to tiredness of the trek!!!
Morning we got up and had the showers and quickly started to horanadu which was 18km from there, we had darshan of Annapoorneshwari godess...what a sign of releif after having darshan for the devotess. We then had a delicius lunch the prasadham at the temple and started off to bangalore.
Kudremukh was one of my most awaited treks for me and worth all the the wait..
Whats the next adventure? never know :)
----------------------
Fact file: Area 563 Sq. Kms.
Rainfall 3000 mm - 6350 mm
Temperature 10'C - 35'C
Altitude 600 - 1892 M
Peak Kudremukh
Plan: To trek on very difficult route in Karnataka's one of the most magnificent forest.
Trekking routes: There are coupled of them, the one we took was Mullodi to Kudremuk Peak (9.62Km climb and 9.62km decend)
GPS data: http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=1886143
Album photos: http://picasaweb.google.co.in/skmanju/Kudremuka_trek
Cheers
Manjunath
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