Kumara Parvatha, Nov 12-13

[MASANAMUTHU ARUNACHALAM]

It was very well planned for booking train and bus ticket for Kumara Parvatha by Chennai organizer – Raj and Bangalore organizer – Arasu. I was sick just 3 days before the trek, took 2 sick off days for recovery and approached Doctor to cure my viral fever ASAP (before Friday) for getting ready to the trek, doctor must be thinking that I’m a crazy guy who is serious to recover from the fever just for the weekend trek but I know Nov 2^nd week is something very special than any other week end because of KP trek with my lovable CTC friends who is already known and many unknown friends. Yes, Even if people are not known each other, I know that they will be my friends because of CTC – Like minded People.

We three guys reached Tidel park station to catch train @ central. While most of the guys carrying laptop bad @ Tidel Park station, I could see couple of guys were carrying sleeping bag/Mat which is easy to spot the Ctcians. We introduced each other. After a fine lunch, a group was gathered near allocated coach and handshake ceremony among us before boarding train. Raj must be the tensed guy who faced drop out from the time of ticket booked ( 1 month back ) to 1 hr before boarding the train but he is our captain cool carrying smiling face , It sounds he is ready to expect the unexpected that is what he is an organizer.

Train journey is always fun but with CTC friends it is Funnnnnnn with lot of mokkais,comedy tracks and eating all types of IRCTC food item by sharing among the group and making noise with unusual laughing sounds and playing with Kids. 2^nd class compartment is designed for 3 people to have seat but we 6 people will park our seat on this when a camera man is trying to shoot a photo. Our passengers were really jealous about our enjoyments throughout the journey. One passenger told Arun that you guys are enjoying with any stop, Are you guys from same College? He replied that we are all from same school. He might have meant we are all from school of Trekking.

After a fun filled journey, we reached Bangalore majestic station. Breezing air and traffic road welcomes us , we had dinner before moving to the bus stop. As usual, round of handshakes with Bangalore friends before boarding the KSRCTC bus. Conductor is the happy person who will have not much work to do as 30+ people are from same group in the bus. It is been told that 8 hr journey to reach Sowampet. After a chit-chat at the bus, everybody started sleeping after closing the window tightly to rescue from Bangalore Fogs and chilled air. Now nobody can escape from the cold because bus got punctured at back wheel around 3 am and of course conductor, driver had to work much to replace the tyre. Most of the guys came out from the bus and discussing about fun events happened during recent past treks. After 1 hour of repair work, we resumed our journey but the beauty here is some guys never know that vehicle had stopped for puncture work and waited for 1 hr. They got into deep sleep before getting tired in the trek.

We reached the destination – Hill station bus stop around 6:30 am and we had to take another local bus to reach the base station, we all quickly finished the breakfast and got ready for the bus. The local bus was crowded like anything becoz of our boyz. It was very nice experience to travel in the Hill station along with nice sceneries, nice view point from the road. This must be first bus for the day which is going from main village to other places because conductor has to do lot of work like delivering Newspaper while bus is going on and had to deliver chicken/other material to villages. It was nice to see multi personality on him. Local villagers are really very kind in helping us, Bus is crowded with innocent school boys and girls while they were on the way to their school. Bunch of girls said “Thanks Uncle” to Arun and “Simple Thanks” to me for carrying their school bags with us. I’m sorry Arun; you must know that you are getting old.

We are all dropped Pushpagiri – Last stop. Arasu took the charge of sharing food materials and common items to all guys. Here is our best friend “Leeches” saying “Hello” to all by finding O +ve blood at my foot then most of the guys started preparing for it. Every individual had their own remedies such as tobacco powder, Neem oil, tobacco water, Leech socks and etc…, we walked about 5 km on the road to reach the forest check post, and there was a halt for clearing few formalities that helped SLR camera Men to click nice snaps. After a while, we actually started our trek towards the Pushpagiri Peak. You never know that Western Ghats will not allow you to trek without spending time on long living trees with natural design and greenish plants with sun light. It was beautiful sceneries all over place and nice to enjoy the bird’s rhythm.  We stopped at one point to dive into water, It is an beautiful and chilled water falls, WE felt that legs and fingers are freezing after coming out from the stream, There are lot of differences b/w Western and Eastern streams. I think people whosever didn’t take bath here is really missed a big refreshment, Next is photo session because the only time our face will be looking pretty is after taking bath so it is important to capture our faces with lot of refreshment.

We resumed our trek by crossing dense forest with natural beauties; there were many SLR cameras in this trek to capture single moment of forest, Everybody was trekking very cool and took many snaps while passing , It was looking like photography trek for some time. WE could spot few view points in the middle, that was looking very beautiful and there were no evidence about civilization from there. We have to trek 4kms more to reach the peak. Excitement was going high but stamina level was going low because of bag weight. You can’t take rest in a place for long time because of Leech Attack. Keep moving, Keep Trekking for some time to reach the steep rock. Some private trekkers were there at the spot who were struggling to go up. They were trying a path one side of the rocks. I and Raj climbed the rock straightly without pushing hard. We made it easily.  

We CTC folks always different in following path/trail and eager to have adventures often

After moving some distance, it was completely wide open forest with big Rocks and it is the best time to eat chocolates, oranges. We captured few snaps to make our Face book audiences happy and then trekked again. Finally we reached the Pushpagiri Peak, trekked 8.5 km in total. Now we are on the top of Kumara Parvatha Hill. Everybody is started relaxing in the fresh air and enjoying a spectacular view of KP.

Now the time is 2:15 pm, we finished our lunch packets. 

Just want to recollect the trek title “Sunrise @ Kumara Parvatha”. Somebody raised question that Are we going to stay here till tomorrow morning? It will be boring to stay at the same place. So shall we climb down and try Ombattu Gutta? series of questions was asked to captain cool Raj, the answer was positive but we need to travel 22 km to climb down and only brave hearts are allowed to move because it is going to be long distance to cover before night time. So it is time to resume the trek, we are real trek hungers, never be satisfied with view points, sun rise sceneries. We wanted to have more joy, more adventures and challenges too.

We started climb down on the other side of the Hill to Kukkai, stopped in the middle to handover food items to the guys who are staying back at the peak. Now what will happen to the trek title “Sunrise @ KP”, there is small change “Sunset @ KP” now. Our plan is to reach base station by 7:30 pm. After crossing leech forest which is really dangerous in Monsoon because leeches even will fall from trees but this time it doesn’t have big impact. We reached a peak where you can see the entire KP hills with lush green sceneries. I couldn’t believe my eyes with wonderful view. So there is a halt to capture the green land and also noticed that trail somehow that goes from the peak to Mandappa (the place is to take rest for trekkers and taking food) but the distance is looking very long, we have long way to go. Initially I pushed myself hard by running and trekked fast to descent each of the Peaks. It is such awesome feeling to cross each small peaks and cover nature in my eyes. It is visual treat to my eyes. These peaks are usually be covered by Karnataka Cinemas where Heroes will run behind heroines in duet songs but they must have spent more time to come here. We CTC real heroes are to dare to cover the KP range in single day where as initial plan were to cover it in 2 days.

The whole 14 members was fast in climbing down but myself ,Prem,Sankar,Arun was faster than them and was ahead one or 2 peaks from them. While looking back, they were looking like Ants which crossing the peaks. We waited for some time to re-group the people, I have no water to drink, and throat was completed dry. There are no water bodies at the peak too. Push gave me little amount of water, that rejuvenated my body and ate oranges, energy bars to gain the stamina level.

 After re-grouping, started the trek again. It is big game-challenge to the legs because all the places were steep descents and moving stones will be disturbing lot so the whole body goes directly to your leg that makes us tired very quickly. Another beauty in KP is , we climbing up/down, we used to think that peak what we were seeing in our eyes will be the last one but while reaching there, you will find  new series of Peaks there. Sometimes Life is having same theory whatever we see in front of our eyes will have end but the end will have fresh start. (What a philosophical thinking Masu, It is time to sleep and continue the writing tomorrow)

We could spot a small stream at a peak where we filled water bottles, Walking, Walking and Keep walking, finally we reached Manadappam where we asked food (rice) as we tired enough and we got the food luckily. All of us had a nice meal; it is another unique experience to eat rice at the Hills in CTC trek. Now the time is currently 5:30 pm, we have still long way to go to reach the base station. Do we able to reach the base by 7:30 pm? The challenge starts here, started the trek again to descent the Hill and the same steep descents, moving rock but this time it is closed forest.We could enjoy the sunset at KP in the middle. We prepared our legs with leach remedies as we are going to enter the closed forest and light is going dark. LED torch is on, camera is off, but action is started to experience the night trek, because it was complete dark after the sunset.

The whole group was scattered into 3 to 4 groups, climbed down along with the trail. There were many obstacles, like the tree root, blocks the way, moving stones and irritated me for some time and we got to fall down at many places.Pushparaj torch was not working, so i had to help as well. It was full of pain, walking, walking, but we never reached the base station. There were no stops, halt in the middle for at least one to 2 hours.We were climbing down constantly with normal pace. I could feel that my legs are pushing me to stop for some time and I managed it without any stop. It’s not a idea to take rest at dense forest with dark light too.This is game of winning mind over body, though your body pushes you to take rest, but your mind will move on without respecting the signal. We could feel the power of inner engineering.

We had to pass few places where full moon was visible openly at the forest that gave me a feel, we will complete the mission very soon. But that is not the case, as we returned 1 hour from there.I keep torturing Pushparaj, who already trekked at KP, by asking questions like how long it will take?, but he never gave me a look about getting the base station. At one point of time, I thought we could have stayed at the peak without trying this.but at the same time, i haven’t lost my whole energy, to complete the mission.

Keep trekking, keep climbing down; finally we reached the base by 8 pm. It is remarkable achievement by the group to have the KP mission completed in single day. Wooww.Wooww. Great, we made it.

We waited another 1 hr at the base for other guys getting reached the camp.

More fun, More Adventures @ OG forest, Stay tuned for  write up.

Thanks
Masu