31th Dec 2010 - 2nd Jan 2011
Mullayanagiri to Bababadangiri Trek
Bababudangiri Hill range. Baba budangiri peak is the one with the tower. The Team - From left: Vanathi, Anil, Arul, Anbu, Vinay, Prathap, Vikram, Naveen, Vijay and Me
Picasa Web Album LInk: Day 1: 31st Dec 2010 (Friday)
Having the tickets already booked in Rajahamsa (11;30pm) bus to chikamagalur, I packed up my rucksack and got ready to leave. Naveen came to my place directly from work. At 10;30pm we left to Majestic K.S.R.T.C bus stand. We met up with Vikram, Anil, Arul, Prathap and Vinay. Vanathi was also there. After a brief hi/hello session, we boarded the bus. If you haven't noticed it yet, we left on 31st Dec 2010. So obviously sleep was not an option till 00 00 hrs - 01-01-2011. So after the count down, wishes and phone calls, all of us retired for whatever sleep we could get. The morning was waiting and we had to be fresh to trek.
Day 2: 1st Dec 2011 (Saturday)
On the left is Vijay standing at the entrance to the path - sarpandaari, also know as sarpinadaari etc. "Sarpa" is snake and "daari" is way/path in kannada. So it's basically the snake path. After a small briefing, we started the trek at 10:15am. (Tooooo late, I knw). The scenic backdrop, route was just really nice. It's nature at its best. I went ahead with Vijay and Prathap. Vijay was leading the team. We had a few discussions as to which route to take when there were cross paths and diversions but following instincts and looking at the peak and directions works here. Worst case, one might loose about 30mins. So other than this, the trek up is very easy in terms of navigation. But it was pretty steep with surface inclination of about 60 degrees.
Mullayanagiri is the highest peak in Karnataka standing at an altitude of 1920 meters. We had already arranged for lunch there. Thanks to Vikram for that. For contact information, scroll down to the trivia and info at the end of this page.
The officer there asked us to take the ridge route as it was about 6kms to the peak.
The tents were up in half an hour (Which was a little too much - 3 of us had to put all the four tents). Now comes the most exciting/scary and life changing experience. Vijay and some of the others were very keen on putting up camp fire for the heat (cooking was out of question. we did not have enough water). Anil and me, we were pretty skeptical about a fire. Two things bothered us - one, the tents were pretty close which made a camp fire dangerious. Secondly, we might start a forest fire. There was grass everywhere. So both of us were strictly against it when first, I heard something duno which animal. I was not 100% sure of what I had heard. So we decided that it was a must for a camp fire. About 2 minutes of silence, everyone heard the sounds. We were in trouble. Lost... Less water... Very very less wood.. and a huge problem of having a camp fire. Now, the camp fire was just absolutely mandatory for our safety. So we started making a safe zone by digging out all the grass making a clear circle to contain the fire. Still there was the risk of tents getting caught due to the sparks that the fire emits. We had no choice but to put the camp fire. So we did that. In the mean time, we also had whatever we had brought. Chapatis with jam and chilly powder. No water.. The apples that my mother gave me came to huge help ( I has scolded her for increasing a kg of luggage.. How I thanked here at this point.... ).
Now it was clear. We went through some safety procedures that we would follow in case of a tiger, wolf attack. After the safety briefing, we decided a patrol and watchout schedule. Since we were 10 people, 3 people sets were formed to keep the fire going and the perimeter safe. Having good torches, we were able to, to some extent keeep a perimeter check every 5 minutes (like the lights in the prison - guard towers) and sooner if we heard anything. We had very little wood. If we had listened to the ranger (he told us that we would find wood in bababadangiri - if we had made it there, there would have not been a problem of animals.. we have damm. stranded in the middle of nowhere..), we would have had no fire and might have just ended up being food for some hungry animal. Anil, Prathap and I, we took the first watch from 8:00pm to 12:30am. We had a tough time keeping the fire alive and also listening to all the sounds. People were snoring in the tents, so we had a number of false panics during our watch. We took double precaution even for a piss. :D. . We had 3 knives and the fire for our protection. God's protection - we didn't have rain and heavy winds.
Day 3: 2nd December 2011 (Sunday)
All of us were very relieved about not being attacked by any animal. We un-pitched the tents quiclky. Took a few group photographs and started our trek to the tower. (Finally the tower was visible and we were actually not lost :) ). We started towards the tower expecting a water source there. On the way, Arul had problems with her knee. So we had to use "Volini" and "Iodex" for quick relief. We finally reached the tower.
We reached Bababudangiri at 10:45am. We had to have come here to camp the previous day. If we had done, then we could have continued as planned to Kemmanagundi (14kms) by trek. Since this was not possible, we decided to take a bus to chikamagalur. There was just one bus to chikamagalur which was to leave at 12:30pm. We had the remaining chapatis with Puliyogare gojju and pickle. The bus started only at 1:00pm. The charge was 30rs per head to chikamagalur. We reached chikamagalur at 2:10pm. We had tickets to Bangalore by Rajahamsa at 11:30pm in the night. We had booked that late cause of the plan to go to Kemmanagundi. Now that we were already there, we didn't want to wait there the whole half day, so we cancelled the tickets and took tickets in the express bus to bangalore. It left at 2:15pm. The journey was not very eventfull. We reached Bangalore at 8:45pm.
I reached home at 9pm, had a very nice hot water bath and jumped into my bed . ( Actually I was forced to take bath.. was supposedly stinking like or worse than a skunk :D ). So that's the end of a very very eventfull, excellent and a once in a life time experience.
(I have not read what I've written again, so please do forgive any typo errors here. I had a wonderful experience again just by writing this piece of experience.)
Photographs:::: pls visit the link http://picasaweb.google.com/arun.s.0106/20110102MullayanagiriAndBababudangiriTrek
Trek Trivia and information
Distance from Bangalore: About 280kms
Route: Bangalore > Hassan > Chikamagalur > Sarpandari (trek) > Mullayanagiri (trek) > Ranger Station (Trek) > Bababudangiri
Best time to visit: Nov - March (Good weather without rain. Not a single leech in this season)
Trek distance: Sarpandari to Mullayanagiri -> 4kms ::: Mullayanagiri to Bababudangiri -> 12-14kms
How to get there: KSRTC bus from Bangalore to Chikamagalur (lot of buses. Rajahamsa and Express). best bus is 11:00 o clock ish buses.
Chikamagalur to Sarpandari is about 15kms. By jeep (300-350rs), bus (private and govt. ) only early mornings by 7;30am.
Bababudangiri to Chikmagalur is about 23kms. Private bus and jeep. Bus leaves at 12:30pm. Jeep is damm costly. One guy asked for 1200rs. (Outrageous)
Contact for food at Mullayanagiri:
Guide can be hired from Bababudangiri to Kemmanagundi if required to trek.
Most Effective trek schedule is:
Day 1:start trek from sarpandari to Mullayanagiri at 7am. Reach the peak at 10am. Finish lunch and leave by 11:00am. Reach bababudangiri by 5pm. Camp.
Day 2: leave bababudangiri to kemmanagundi at 6:30am. Reach kemmanagundi by 3:00pm ish.
Some things that we didn't take and required very badly:
1) More torches
2) Rope - for fire wood, we had bad time carrying them.
3) Pack light. We took just tooo much food to cook.
4) More water. Duno how that would have helped.
5) Good long knives. We just had swizz knives.
6) Kerosine for starting a camp fire. We had to use campher to do it. (Was not as easy to get a big log burning)
Mainly, should start early!! |
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