Write up by Jakka,
Early morning by 4:15, 14 adventurous souls gathered at Koyambedu to go on and conquer the mighty Nagala.
Our main aim was to go from west to east of Nagala while climbing the western and eastern peaks in between. By 7 am we were at the foot of the range. We quickly shared the food and common gear and started walking towards the mountains.
We soon reached the western stream. The stream was very different unlike the last time I have been there, it was very violent and the rocks were very slippery. We went up the stream and reached the third pool. We enjoyed it to our hearts content.
The rocks were so slippery that falling became a common routine throughout. We left the third pool and climbed up to reach the fourth pool. We didn’t stay there long; we climbed up the hill and got down to reach the fifth pool.
We wanted to climb the western peak but later decided to do away with it as we felt we wouldn’t be able to reach the camping site.
We kept on following the stream upwards for an hour and a half until we found a hut by the side of the stream. We rested there for some time and regrouped. We further climbed upwards for some distance and left the pool to go up the hill and catch the eastern stream. While leaving the stream Bala the coordinator just happened to place his hand 5 inch away from a green snake. Lucky snake it didn’t get bitten by Bala. We had our lunch before we went away far from the stream.
We went up an altitude of 720 m before climbing down to the eastern stream. After getting down some altitude we hit a dry stream. We followed it down some distance and split up. Some followed the stream and the others followed an existing track assuming it will lead is to the stream. We realized that we were going away from the stream after some time and decided to go down to touch the stream.
We had to decent almost a 70 degree steep for 50m .It really scared the **** out of me but I did it. It took us half an hour to decent down that small bit. A strange thing happened then; the others who followed the stream happened to reach the same spot where we touched the stream at the same time.
It was slowly getting dark and we kept descending down the eastern stream. Our plan was to camp at the picnic pool but on our way we saw two huts side by side just enough to accommodate the 14 of us. It was like someone has built it just for us and left it. So we decided to camp there as it was getting darker and it was cloudy too.
We quickly spread the tarpaulin sheets and made a cooking area. There was no dry wood around but the camphor we took did the job. We mixed the noodles and the soup and the item came out very tasty. It didn’t rain in the night, so most of us had a comfortable sleep. I had a dreamless sleep.
We wanted to spend time at the picnic pool so we decided to make our tea there. So we left the camp site early in the morning. There were pretty tough descents from there on until we reached the picnic pool. It would have been a great challenge if we had done that stretch in the dark.
What a pool it was. It is an amazing spot to camp. It is rightly named as picnic pool. We made tea there and almost spent an hour and a half swimming and diving and fishing and posing and on and on and on. This was truly the best part of the trek.
On our way down from there on we made popcorn in between which almost consumed an hour of our time as there was no dry wood. While crossing the dead end pool our photographer Meenal got a sprained ankle and we became slow from there on.
The eastern stream was violent because of the rains and on top of it one of us was injured. The coordinators put great effort in carrying her from then on and she too never complained though under pain. It became dark while we were still in the forest. Slowly we made our way out carefully and reached our bus by 10pm.
It was a great team to trek with. We had great time together through out
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