I had lots of apprehensions before the trek started. But this group was amazing. I never realized that I am trekking with group of freshers. It was a complete trek with all the fun, adventure, night trek, conquered the 850 m peak, cleaned up Nagala and dance in the bus all the way to Chennai.
Thanks to Vadivel and Manoj for Navigating us to the destination.
Thanks to Vadivel and Innavil for preparing yummy noodles.
Thanks to Sanjeev, Kalirajan, Raj Jacob and Tushar for coordinating.
Thanks to Peter and group for the surprise visit.
Thanks to Sucharita, for being with me from day 1. ; )Thanks to all the participants who made this trek memorable.
- Shumon
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Write-up by Innavil.
Well! my first ever write-up for a trek. So beloved trekkers, bear with the opus*
Offff from koyambedu in a Bus -- Started from Chennai to Nagala with a bunch of 54 CTC'ians -- Saturday, 12th of March, 2011, saw its kick off at 5:30 am.
The Bong couple took the call this Time- Sucharita and Shumon along with some of the experienced trekkers organized this event.
We reached Nagala west around 10:00am, then the food distribution was taken care of.
Half hour later, we were on the trails of Nagala west, uphill.
The confusing trails, backpacks, helping hands, stream crossing, with all this, we kept walking with a mission of reaching the pools n falls..And,
---Like magic ---
We were there. Wild, noisy, beautiful, crystal clear pool & falls. At the very sight of the pool, the swimmers just went and dived in, like crazy sea birds diving at their diving escapades. Let alone the swimmers, even the non-swimmers dived in enthusiastically (ofcousrse! with their swimming tubes!)
We were on a mission of seeing maximum number of pools, hence the moderate-trekking continued with a bit of luxurious (it was indeed!) stream-indulgence once here and there.
Trust me, how much ever walking we did, how much ever exhausted we became, just a dip in Nagala’s crystal-waters pooh-pooh'ed all the fatigue n droop away!
Towards the sunset, we reached our final destination for the day, our camp-(resort)-site! We all gathered the Maggies from our backpacks. Under the stewardship of - Vadivel, (one of the core-trekker among the CTC'ians), we cooked yummy tomato soup and Maggi noodles—
Hot Moonlight Maggi seems to be the world's best dish that one has ever hard, while you are in Nagala trek. I'm sure many of you would agree with me on this!
After which, most of them went to sleep, a few of them continued exploring atop of Nagala, and not to forget a bunch of naughty ones were camp-firing n singing throughout the rest of the night. (Well! I’m one of the Culprits! ;-P)
But, still-- Throughout the night, the rest of the CTCians' Snoring and snorting was unstoppable along with the croaks, chirping and trilling of the forest inhabitants.
On Sunday the 13th of March, we had some of the core trekkers along with Peter joining us in the morning, who were on Nagala- East-to-West- Extreme trek.
After Breakfast (This time-- the Sun-lit Maggi session!), which was accompanied by Vijay's(one of the best singers of this trek) melody numbers and a few of us humming along.
Few minutes later, the Down-hill mission started.
On our way back, somewhere in the middle we got lost and almost approached the other side of the mountain, but luckily we found out that we were heading wrong and took the right way downhill.
Once again- the pools, falls, dives, SLR clicks, loose sands n rocks, steep trekking at a few places, helping hands, all continued.
As dutiful CTC'ians n nature lovers, we also made sure that we collected whatever plastic materials that were littered around, by some anonymous people earlier, down the hill-----Through this act, once again, ------- Leaving Nagala green and verdant for the rest of the trekkers to enjoy.
Goodness me! I have to mention this.,
The bus journey back home saw heights of craziness---- did I say that we were all worn out? I'm sorry. None of us even gave a slightest clue of being tired, in the bus. My mates were jumping, dancing, singing aloud, cheering for the Masala Tamil numbers. ------------Kuthu pottom paarunga! gaawdd! appadi oru kuthu, adichukka mudiyadhu! -------
All this wouldn't have been possible without the sweet Bong couple and other louwely organizers. Cheers to all the 54 *awesome* mates of this trek—who together made it happen! It was an amazing group and we had great fun....
And thus the blissful '2 day trek to Nagala-west' tale ends!
P.s. Trek Polamaaa! woottle solittu vantiiya???
Write up by Kruti
After finishing the easy trek of Nagala eastern entry, Fresher’s party on Feb 19-20, I was waiting to move on to the next level. One fine day I got mail from Shumon, that he is organizing a trek to Nagala eastern entry on Mar12-13, those who had completed one easy trek can join. I was excited and called a few of my friends to join me. As our discussions were going on to enroll for the trek, i got a final list of participants and the registration got closed. Den I called up my friend Raja and asked him to speak to Shumon. Shumon said that there was an overwhelming response, 80 people had registered for the trek and based upon the previous trek experience he had short listed 50 people….And he promised that if there are any drop outs, we can join him…And thanks to people who dropped out and because of them myself and my friends got a chance to explore the beauty of Nagala… And now am penning down my memories which I had carried from there….
With the happiness of getting into the trek, I went early to bed on Friday night…Woke up early morning at 2.30a.m,and I got ready and I headed towards Tidel park wit ma friends…We reached there around 3.50a.m.. The bus kicked off at 4 from Tidel park and we picked up other trekkers on the way and reached koyambedu around 4.30a.m.. We completed the formalities like filling up the disclaimer forms and other things and started our journey with 55 daring souls to Nagala… It was some two hours drive to Nagalapuram. We had a stop at Poondi reservoir for a group photo. We reached Nagalapuram at around 8:30 AM. Then all of us had breakfast at the base camp – Idly, vada and sambar. We had our strict officer Sanjeev serving us.He was very strict that he even asked the organizers to come in queue to get their breakfast… All of us were given the food for the next two days. We took apples, cream buns, Energy bars, a Glucon-D, Maggie,Soup packets and a pack of rotis each. We packed veg-Briyani for our lunch…
We had initially walked on dry land over naturally pebbled narrow pathways which had given way to rockier paths as we progressed. The mountain was lush with huge trees, shrubs and grass peeking out of every available nook and crevice. After couple of hours of trekking I could hear the soft murmurings of water and then I saw the stream. We had reached the first pool. Shumon and sucharita said that the second pool was just five minutes away from us and it will be beautiful than this one. We headed towards the second pool. Pool 2 was good and a beautiful one. After seeing the falls all tired souls which trekked in the hot sun got into the water in no time. Everyone had indulged in the cool waters happily. We had resumed our trek after another hour and we ended up in the most beautiful third pool. The mountain stream flowed through the mountains eroding the rocks and formed this beautiful gorges. All the guys were happy seeing this and it was time for them to show their diving skills. We enjoyed a lot being there. All were jumping into the pool and were having a great time. Then we had our yummy veggie Briyani that we bought with us. And unfortunately one of our co-trekker had sprained his neck doing the back flip in the second pool. And we had to leave him back.
From the base camp to pool 3 it was a normal trek without much difficulty. Now we started to realize the difficulty of the moderate trek. We had to climb steep mountains, Jump on the rocks and cross the stream. And while crossing the stream my rabbit shoes got slipped into the stream and slided down and landed into the third pool. Thanks to Vadivel for resuming back my rabbit shoes. Then we continued the trek and we reached the mini- coutrallam falls were we took a dip and proceeded further to our camp site. This was the toughest part of the trek, we had to climb a really steep hill and get down again. We had to do a bit of rock climbing, taking the support of the trees and grass along the way. The climb up the hill was an unusual affair for most of us. Nothing really mattered when it came to reaching the heights as long as there were helping hands when ever in need. It was a superb experience. People got tired like anything. It was very exciting though. Finally we reached our camp site at 6 pm in the evening. We threw our bags and spread out our sleeping bags. We then collected some firewood and somebody started a campfire/ cooking fire. The cooking pots which the organizers had carried were quickly put into use. The pots were filled with water from the stream and vegetables were added to it and out came the Maggie noodles from our bag which was added to the cooking pot. It tasted relishing and filling than the best buffet that I had ever tasted in Chennai. Special thanks to our all-rounder Innavil acting as a chef along with Vadivel, Sanjeev and Ela murugan for providing us such a dinner.
Our trek also had a moonlight trek – we would go for a trek using our LED torches light alone. We wanted to go for the moonlight trek, But unfortunately we had to back off due to the limitations of the space available at the top to sleep. Ten people headed by Vadivel had gone for a night trek. And by that time we planned for a camp fire most of the people hid themselves into their sleeping mats and gone to their dreams. But myself and my group of friends had set a camp fire and had a fun time the whole night. Discussing and sharing the information about us, under the moon light. We even saw the constellations in the form of a dagger and an oval one. And not to forget, the song sung by Iniyavil and dance performance by Srikanth and Venkat. And then we went to have a small nap around 4.30 a.m.
Next day morning, when I woke up I saw everybody sleeping like anything, no body was willing to wake up. After all, they were so tired the previous day. We had some good funny time in the morning. The organizers Shumon and sucharita initiated to prepare the breakfast for us. As usual Innavil joined to prepare the breakfast for us and Vijayagopal entertaining us with lovely Ilayaraja songs, we finished up with our breakfast. The team which went to night trek came down. When I was just relaxing someone jumped into the place were we had camped. Its none other than our “King of the Jungle”, Founder of CTC, Mr.Peter Vangeit followed by his group, who were about to join us the previous night but joined a bit late with us. Peter jumped into water, had his breakfast, took a map from his bag to see the trial and decided to climb the peak which was above us. Now we got separated into two groups. One team moved on with peter and the other group guided by suchi to the base camp.
I joined suchi gang and we followed the trial along the stream. Raj Jacob was sweeping us. But we had missed our trail. We took a left instead of taking a right and started to climb the wrong mountain. It was full of thorns and slippery rocks. We ended up in a place, without knowing how to proceed further. Suchi went further to see if there was any trail. And raj who was sweeping us said tat, he knows the way and we shall go in that way. But we want to go thru the easy trail and we sticked to the group waiting for suchi. Raj was sure to move out of the group and he went back to proceed in the way which he knows. We halted there for around 30mins and since we had no clue how to proceed further we changed our mind set and decided to take the trail which raj took and seeked for his help. To our surprise he had already climbed half of the mountain opposite to us. Then he asked us to walk back 2 kms and wait near the place where we need to take a right, so that he can rescue and guide us from there.
Now we followed Jacob and getting down the steepswas more difficult than climbing up. There were loose stones at places. We started off with easy terrains, Then a moderate trek, which then changed to a difficult, and exploring our own new trial. Finally we reached the third pool, refreshed there again…Went to second pool had our chapattis for lunch .After few mins we all moved towards the first pool and camped there waiting for rest of them to join us. We caught some fishes from the pool. Kudos to sucharitha for initiating it. By the time we caught the fishes, few guys had already set the fire, and the fish was cooked. Peter and others had joined us by this time and we started our way back to the base camp.
On the way back we saw that nagala was polluted by the villagers. Beyond all the goodness that nature comes with, there is one thing that keeps Nagala as pristine as it is. It is the single most, unquestionable, non-negotiable policy that we strive to preserve - NO LITTERING. The next mission started. Nagala clean up campaign. In next twenty mins we had collected all the paper plates and water cups that were littered all around and carried them in big bags. Finally reached the base camps at 6, and we headed back to Chennai.
And how can I forget to mention the fun tat we had in the bus. Dance performance by sucharita, Durai, Max, Victor, Bharath and Innavil for peppy numbers. And we had our Israel lady gaya singing Suraangani and a song from thirupachi. Vijay again performing the Ilayaraja songs for us. When the enjoyment was going on, the bus driver had put an end to it. We had reached Koyambedu around 10p.m.
Thanks to all for making this a Enjoyable trekking trip!!! The beauty of Nagala trek as more enjoyable & memorable one to each of us… This weekend trek had everything in it like, adventure, thrilling, vertical climb, dry leaves , skidding, Night trek, Swimming(Even I dived into the deep pool), Fishing, Clean up, Team spirit and so on and on; Keep it up guys. Meet u al soon in next trek.
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