Kumara Parvatha Trek

Route : Hyderabad to Bangalore (by train), Bangalore to Gundya (by Bus-7 hours, direct bus to Kukke was not available in the afternoon), Gundya to Kukke(by Car, 30 minutes), Kukke to Peak to Beedahali forest office - Beedahali to Somarpet (by Jeep, 1 hour), Somarpet to Bangalore (by SUV, 5 hours, because we had time constraints, else Buses available regularly) and finally Bangalore to Hyderabad(by Train)

DoJ: 4-8 November, 2011
DoT: 6th Nov(early morning) to 7th Nov (9.30 am)

Important Information about Trek: Take care about Leeches, Dettol, Lime, Iodex, Tobacco are some of the possible solution(not complete, have a look at my album) ... Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner/Nightstay(not sure) available at Bhattarmane (4 hours trek uphill from Kukke, need to pre-order on xxxxxxxxxx - would update when i get)

Link to Album: https://picasaweb.google.com/rathi.rocking/PushpagiriTrek?authkey=Gv1sRgCIuq7rTMhrDcwQE#

My Experience

I went with GHAC for the first time to a trek. We boarded the train from Hyderabad for Bangalore. First time I saw the Railway Station of Hyderabad and use the MMTS. It is pretty good service as you can go to any part of the city in Rs 5 :) . Met the other team members at Kacheguda station. Some of them were very experienced, some quite naive. I was kind of in the middle. We reached Bangalore the next morning, had Breakfast cum lunch and then went to Bus Stand only to find that there was no Bus for Kukke till 8pm. We were disappointed until someone suggested that we can take a bus for Gundya(25 km from Kukke) at 1pm and then take a jeep. We took the busto Gundya and reached there around 8 pm. After that took a jeep to Kukke and found ourselves a decent place to stay.Quite reasonable double room was available for Rs 200 a night. Had dinner and the next morning breakfast at a hotel near the Temple.

We started early from Kukke around 7.30 am, reached Bhattarmane around 11 am. In the mid-way stopped a couple of times to get the leeches off the shoes/socks who inspite of taking preventive measures still managed to suck our blood :( We didnt expect to reach Bhattarmane so early and had pre-ordered Lunch at 12.

So we waited there for an hour during which Me and Vijay went for some sightseeing around. The view was breathtaking and made the effort worth. Finally we managed to left around 1pm(was a big mistake on our part to spend so much time there). In the meanwhile Mallikarjun managed to drop his IPhone in water and then was literally heating it with a lighter to dry/evaporate the water in it :) Never saw an Iphone being treated this way :)

The other trekkers who also stopped at Bhattarmane scared us that it would be now impossible for us to reach the peak today itself and suggested that we should camp at Mandap which was 2-3 hours before the actual Peak. The route ahead was difficult than the route till now. Their sadist comment actually got into 2 of our team members, and one due to leg injury and other due to slow speed and fatigue decided that they wont be able to make it to the peak today and decided to go back to Kukke as we had to catch a train from Bangalore the following day at 6.20pm for Hyderabad and if we do not reach the Peak today, there is no way we could make it for train tomorrow. After going for around 15 minutes, we met another set of around 20 trekkers who again infused some negativism about the peak being too far. This demotivated Prasanth a little bit but we managed to convince him to come along.

This was where the fun and excitement started for me. We were thrown a sort of challenge and we had to achieve it. Our organiser Ankur said that if we had to
make it to the Peak today itself, then the rest of people would have to walk at my speed. I was leading the way until now and this statement was quite flattering especially given the fact that I was the underdog in my previous 2 treks. To my credit I was much more confident and mentally prepared this time, dont ask me how. There is an entry ticket to the forest for Rs 200/- per head. As decided I was leading the way, little bit of self praising I sense here :) , we reached Mandap by 3pm which was quite fast on our part.

We were told that there are two false peaks after which you descent a little and then climb again to reach the actual peak. When I reached the peak(false one), I screamed at the top of my voice that we have done it only to find and realize later that it was the false one. It was around 4.30pm and suddenly it started raining heavily. Luckily for us it rained just for 15 minutes and finally mist cleared for 5 minutes during which we had to decide whether to go for the real peak today itself or camp at the false one and go for the real one tomorrow. At the back of our mind, the catching of train to Hyderabad played a major role I guess for which we had to be at the peak. We estimated that it should not take us more than an hour and a half to reach so we started the journey forward.

Here came the most difficult part of the trek. We had to climb up a waterfall where the way became even more slippery due to rain. Somehow we managed to climb up only to find that we have lost the trail and are in the middle of nowhere. Ankur went across the waterfall to find some route from inside a forest which earlier looked like a dead end. We took the way and were extremely elated when we saw the yellow arrow on the path confirming that we were now on the right track. We reached the Peak around 6.30pm where we meet another group of trekkers who were camping alongside. We somehow managed to camp using torchlight by 8 and tried to cook ready to eat meal for sometime after due to mist and chill above, the effort was in vain. After which we just ate it like that only. The worst part was even though we had leeches on our shoes, socks, bags, clothes , everywhere we had to forget the pain and camp first since it could have started raining anytime. Lucky for us it started raining around 9.30pm by which we were done with the arrangements.

I did not carried a sleeping bag and until the rain came it was quite warm inside the tent and I thought my shawl would be enough. But then it started raining heavily non stop for 5 hours and that is a complete ball changer. The water flowing underneath your tent takes away the heat and I could not sleep whole night, shivering at times, trying to find a position to lie down to minimize heat loss. The other group who camped alongside us were in a even worse situation than me. Somehow they messed up in the setting of their tent and their tent was drenched in the rain. But to their spirit, they started singing songs,gossiping around 1 am in the night and since I was anyways not able to sleep, I decided to enjoy that. You somehow learn to make the best out of every situation, I guess :)

The next morning Ankur waked us up at 4.30am since we had to reach the Beedahali asap. After all that happened on the previous night, the first thing Mallikarjun asks about after getting up at 4.30 am is, "yaar! kisi ke phone me network aa raha hai kya"(team joke, dont worry if you dont get it :) ). The other group, which climbed from the Somarpet side, told us that it will take us atleast 4-5 hours to descent down and there was around 150 ft slope. We didn't paid much attention to that and packed our tent and were waiting for the first stroke of light so that we could move forward. Since we already lost our way the previous night, we requested them to show us the place from where the trail started. Around 6.30 am we started our march down.

After around 15 minutes of walking, we encountered the first slope which was not that steep but became extremely slippery due to the continous rain on the previous night. We somehow managed to cross it only to find the bigger one sometime later. This was very steep and damn big and to cross this one was going to be no mean task. Ankur and Vijay had some experience with rock climbing and were crucial in their guidance. Even the big rocks on the slope were very unstable and the odd one on whom you were trying to take support kept falling down and you warned the guy down then to take care as it might hit him. Just to cross those 150 odd feet slope, I think it took us more than 30 minutes. If the leeches were problematic on the way from Kukke, here it was even worse. One just cannot stay at one place for even 30 seconds without 3-4 leeches getting on him. I must have easily thrown around 30 leeches off me. For those who have not gone there might feel that to be an exaggeration but I guess the people who went there would say that this might even be an underestimate.

We were very fast during our descent as we had to make give ourself enough time to reach to Bangalore before 6 pm. We did not stop even once. Anyways the leeches would not have allowed us to. Since the route became very slippery due to the rain, we were slipping a lot. I fell around 4-5 time but on the back where due to bag did not suffered any injury. We reached the Beedahali forest office by 9.30 am, yes !!! we did it in 3 hours :) where we called for a jeep to take us from Beedahali to Somarpet. Although the forest guy was nice enough to offer us amazing tea and called a jeep for us, he charged Rs 900 for 26km :( and the jeep also came at 11.15 instead of the promised 10 am which meant that we could not catch the bus to Bangalore at 11.30am from Somarpet. We finally reached Somarpet around 12.30, it took around an hour from Beedahali to Somarpet, and finally took a Tavera to Bangalore which dropped us at Bangalore station at 6.00 pm just in time to catch the 6.20 train. Finally when we approached our coach, we were in for a pleasant surprise as our tickets were upgraded to 3 AC :)

All in all, a moderate trek became a difficult one for us due to the time constraints and rain. I didn't expected rains in month of November but the climate can change any moment up in the mountains. My suggestion would be to take it as a 2 full day trek. The leeches are menace but I guess that will be so round the year. In my opininon climbing from Somarpet side would be an easier option but that depends on you which route you want to take.