Bhagathi Trek

An “all of a sudden” trek. Shrikanth called me up a week before the trek to ask if I was interested. I was waiting to go on a trek, so my immediate response was obviously yes. The trek was on 22^nd-23^rd Jan (weekend). I got in touch with Deepak for acquiring other details and on 21^st went to Majestic (Shantala silk house) to join the others. Anil and I were there by 9:50pm (reporting time was 10pm). Nikhila was the first to get acquainted. After a while Ashwini , Deepak and Shrikanth arrived. A brief intro and a long wait for the Tempo Traveller followed. We started our journey at 11:00pm. On the way, we picked up Lacchhi, Prashanth, and the Rohit’s. We reached the start of trek point at 5:15am. We slept till 7:15am in the TT itself. After sun rise, we got out, got the rations “separated and distributed”.

Trek started at 7:45am. Our team – Shrikanth, Lacchhii (Lakshminarayanan), Narayan, Sachidanand, Deepak, Ashwini, Leena, Nikhila, Anil, Rohit & Rohit, Prashanth and me. The picturesque, serene and mind soothing route through the forest was just amazing. We stopped near a stream to get our breakfast ready. A lot of effort went into making Maggie for breakfast and gojju for afternoon lunch to be eaten with chapattis. Having “home made/forest made :D” breakfast was really tasty and strengthening. All up for the trek, we started our ascent. The path meandered through the forest, mountain and flat land at some parts. The sun shined bright and temperature wasn’t very inviting but the wind made the walk very comfortable.

We reached the camp site of Bhagathi village (was a village of 3 houses 12 yrs ago). We dumped our stuff there and went to a nearby Natural swimming pool to have lunch and a lot of fun in the water. Although I didn’t now swimming, I enjoyed the dip in the cold water. Water is always inviting, especially when on a trek. By the way, my next thing on my list of things to do is to learn swimming :P. We went back to the camp site at 4:40pm. Some of us played Frisbee for a while. After that, we put up the tents. In the mean while, dinner was being prepared by the experts. All of us had dinner at 8pm and went to sleep at 9:30pm. It was Sacchi’s birthday that day so there was a wakeup call at 12:00am. After wishing, we all went back to sleep. In the mean while some of them went for a short walk to observe the rising of the moon. I was fast asleep. We had our share of encounter with wild animals. :D, not exactly wild. It was a couple of buffalo’s. They were were inclined in eating up our tent, not sure why…

The next day, we left to Demana gudda (aka Demon gudda) after the normal morning choirs at 8:00am. Lacchhi, Leena and Ashwini stayed back. They prepared breakfast for us. The climb was through the forest so trail wasn’t outright negotiable but Deepak took us to the top. When we reached the clearing at the peak, it was extremely windy. There is a steep climb to the top of the shiva ling shaped mountain. The climb was supposed to be very easy but the ghastly winds made it very tough. Climbing was sitting/sleeping over the grass :D. When we reached the top, it was like “Hold on to yourself” instead of a cap or camera. It was that windy. After a nice sight from the top, and a good rest, we started towards our base camp by 10:20am.We were down by 11:00am. After pack up, un-pitching the tent, we started on our way to the end point of the trek. This was 11kms from base camp and had about 50% uphill climb. Oh I forgot, we had super spicy savigebath for breakfast before leaving campsite. We left at 12:30pm. It took us about 3 hrs to reach the road. Boarded the TT at 4:00pm, had “lunch” at 5:30pm in kushal nagar and headed to wards Bangalore. We reached blore at 9:30pm. I reached home at 10:15pm. After a good hot water bath, I went to sleep. It was a wonderful and a memorable trek indeed.

Picasa Web Album Links: here