Brave Tavantians!!!!

BizDev trekking expedition to Kumara Parvatha

A group of 5 brave Tavantians - Mukesh, Umang, Sarfee, Suhas and me (Thallin) from the BIZ dev team set out on Saturday, 12th Jan @ 7 am from Tavant CSRIE. office to Kumara parvatha in the Western Ghats. It’s the highest peak in Karnataka. It is near the temple town of Kukke. Kukke is famous for its Sri Kukke Subramanya temple.

We had hired a Toyota Innova for our journey, which was blessing in disguise. We reached Kukke Subramanya around 1:30 PM had a light lunch and started our trek around 2:30. The first 3hours of our trek was grueling, as we trekked through dense forest.

The first stretch from base to our first check point (Bhattara Mane - meaning Bhatta's home) is around 5km, a steep climb. This particular forest route from Kukke is a very tedious and demanding with high climbs. But the humidity within the woods was took a toll on us. We were drinking water and Glucose and Lemon Water at regular intervals to keep us going. By the time we came out of the forest, sun began to set by 6:00pm.

By the time we reached Bhatta’s House by 6:45 PM, all of us dead tired. Bhatta is probably the only individual who has made his settlement at this altitude. For years he has been a retreat to all the trekkers on this track. You get food (rice with sambar/rasam & pickle) which feels like heaven at that point of time. Shelter is available but on FCFS basic. We had informed Bhatta one day before that our team of 5 will be taking shelter at his house. But before us there were some other groups waiting. Around 35 trekkers had already reached and had occupied the space. On our request Bhatta got us all occupied.

Had a very good dinner for the tiredness we had and packed ourself with whatever warm cloths we had to protect us from the cold. We were well prepared for this trek and so had enough of sleeping bags. We planned to get early in the morning and finish our breakfast and start around 6am. But as expected woke up only around 7. We realised that the other groups had already left and we were the only ones left behind. It was mild morning yellow sunlight.

With fresh legs we soon reached the small stream of water near the mantap crossing the forest office where the toll is hiked to Rs 200. Pitstop1, we had refreshments as soon as we reached the Mantapa. After few clicks of photos we proceeded from the left side of the mantap. The sun had identified us and started to stimulate our sweat glands. The morning was an ideal time for the climb. We followed the trail to reach the false peak.

From there we passed through the thick vegetation at the foot hill to reach the waterfall. During monsoon season this is the most dangerous section of the trek because of the slippery rocks. But we were playing hide and seek from the sun, either in the shadows of mountain or clouds. Previous day Mukesh was the slowest among all of us due to some Health reasons, but morning he was scaling mountain after mountain beautifully. Suhas and Sarfee were the surprise packages too. With their body weight, I was really astonished how well they did it. Umang as usual was motivating us all, from taking less breaks as we would lose the momentum.

Around 11:30 we came to the final stretch. We had to pass through the forest once more and we came across a small dried up spring below. It were finally 20 minutes from our destination. We came across a big flat boulder and we had to climb it to reach the peak. Some passerby’s warned from going there as someone had disturbed the Honey Comb and all the bee’s were swarming around. Once we passed this 45 degree stretch, we decided to sit for a while, so that the bees settle back to their comb. Sarfee found one new way up there and in no time we reached the peak. Mission Accomplished!!!!

All of us were so tired and we planned to take a nap. Had some light lunch and we were all set to come down to Bhatta’s house. Took some really beautiful snaps on our way. While trekking downwards, it was really very difficult as the soil was very loose & slippery. Umang slipped twice and had a fractured. Finally we came down to the BenchMark near to Bhatta’s House were we all waited for the Sun-Set. The sun was dipping and we had a really awesome time.

We stayed that night at Bhatta’s house. Morning 14th January, Monday, we started our journey back to Kukke. I was leading the pact for some time, but as usual was overtaken. On the way up and on the way down there were lot other trekking gangs whom we passed, each one giving others suggestions on how much it would take them to cover the rest of the distance. Some were really misleading, some were close. It was the toughest part in the trek. 3hrs to climb down alone, though we came down at a decent pace we reached Subramanya at noon.

As soon as we reached Kukke, Mukesh searched for hotel rooms to refresh us from the downpour of sweat. They demanded 200 bucks for 2 hours. Then had our Lunch and set back our journey to Bangalore. It was again bumpy ride though.