POORNA PRAJNA: Kudremukh

It had been almost an year since I last trekked. Trekking is something I love the most reason being I feel it gives me time to be with myself and also it tests my mental fitness to push myself even in the worst conditions. It was a perfect trek reason being I had an injury which made things worse and I kept thinking what is the limit I can push myself and where will I break down. I felt really happy and lot more confident when I trusted my legs and walked till the end.

Initially the plan was to trek Ombattu gudda during rains. But with a river bed along the trekking path and with heavy monsoons in the region, we gave up the idea of trekking Ombattu gudda and narrowed down on Kudremukh. Kudremukh a very common house hold name to hear in Karnataka for its iron ore mines, had been on my trekking radar for a long time and for some reason I never visited this place.

I always say trekking in rains makes the trek at least twice dangerous and risky reason being slopes/rocks are very slippery and you can injure your ankle/knee easily, streams will be overflowing and at some places it can be risky to cross the stream without anticipating the water levels if it rains heavily for the return journey, can easily get lost in the thick green cover during the monsoon if left out from the group, at peak there might be thick clouds making visibility almost nil so either you can get lost or can surprise a wild animals, and finally who can forget the blood sucking leeches during the monsoon in western ghats.

We started at around 11pm from Harsha's house and headed towards Khalsa. We stopped at around 12 near dinner at a Dhaba on the Bangalore - Hassan highway after which we again stopped at Kottigehara for having neeru dosa at around 4:30 am. We reached Khalsa around 6:30 in the morning. From Khalsa you need to head towards Kudremukh - Shamsha road for around 10kms and then stop at Balgal.

After getting down at Balgal, we started walking towards Satish's house which is around 6kms walk. We took around 1:30 - 2hours before we reached Satish's house. We had heavy breakfast at his house and started our trek towards the peak. Even though I enjoy the rain treks a lot, I miss the opportunity to use my camera at will and it takes lot of pain to carry it. You have to be very careful about your camera as it rains real hard. Make sure you have enough protection.

Kudremukh is a national park and trekking without permission is illegal, also you are not allowed to camp in the peak and hence one is forced to reach back to the starting point before night. From Satish's house we started to walk towards the peak around 9:30am. One can also take a jeep from Balgal to Satish's house. They charge around 500rs for 8 people.

I loved this place for the reason, there was no plastics. After so many treks I feel very places are left so clean. It was perfect green cover till the peak. I would rate this one of the finest trek for the green cover and clean environment.

We reached peak around 3 in the afternoon, after a quick lunch started heading back to Satish's house. It also started to rain consistently till we reached the house at around 6:30pm. It was during this stretch that an old ligament tear in my right leg opened up and I had sever pain walking down. By the time we reached Satish's house almost everyone were dead tired and almost every one were bleeding with leech bites. After a hot water bath and heavy dinner it was time for some rest with dead legs.

We got up early and went to Somavathy falls which is just around 10min walk from Satish's house. After spending some time near the falls we started walking towards the main road. We reached around 12 and then we started back to bangalore