H*God Falls

Rakesh Holla had been the source of information for many of my trips to hidden treasures in Karnataka, but this was all the special one because we had never met before and it was an opportunity to meet in person. I spoke to couple of my friends and we decided to join Rakesh and his team at Honnavar during the peak season of monsoon for exploring close to 4 waterfalls.

Right from where we freshen up, food, stay, guide, local travel everything was taken care by Rakesh, probably this was one of the treks where in everything was planned to the minutest of the details and with great care. This would go down as a trek where in we were fed with abundant food all along, i don't remember any of my treks where in I had so much food especially of such great taste. I don't remember eating so much jack fruit in 2 days time, every house we visited we were given jack fruit.

We dropped our backpacks in a house owned by one of the relatives of our guide and started the journey towards H*god falls after having a heavy breakfast.

The walk from the house was around 1hr not very difficult, but it was raining continuously and it was very slippery. Had to cross couple of man made bridges across the streams which are the sole source of connectivity for people leaving in this part of the world during monsoons. Monsoons of westren ghats has always been very special, the thick ever green forests come to full life during monsoon. People who have experienced these virgin forests know what the feel is like.









The falls is around 8 stages is what I heard, right from the beginning we could see the huge falls from a distance. During the monsoon it is very difficult to reach to all the stages of the falls. We managed to visit I guess around 5 stages. It was very slippery and risky though one mistake can be very costly one.And we did manage to create a dangerous situation, every body got into water and were enjoying and 4 of us were trying to climb to next stages which were very tricky and risky in the process a big rock got dislocated and the loose soil and moved towards the people sitting down. Because of the sound of water fall no one could hear us shouting and they never realized what happened until the rock stopped. It brushed one of my friend on his back, but was a miracle that nothing happened to any body. We managed to see the beautiful fall up to around 5 stages, the last 3 stages were inaccessible

After an heavy lunch provided by Yashashree, we decided to explore a new falls. Since it was the peak on monsoon, the trails were all covered and we were walking with great difficulty. We had seen the water fall from a distance and were heading in the direction. We would hear the water gushing with high speeds as we approached nearer to the falls, but the forest was so thick that we couldn't get a view of the waterfall even after spending quite a significant time. Finally we had to make a choice to explore it next time because the light started fading in the evening and we had to come out of the forest area before night hits. It was a tough decision being so close yet couldn't get to see the falls. There is always a next time.











I am writing this blog after almost 6 months, I don't remember much now. Also some of the pics might be from some of my friends I would like to give credit to these people Hemanth, Rakesh, Arun, Prashanth . The best I could remember was walking almost close to 30+ kms through numerous streams, thick forests, slippery rocks, small snakes and leaches to explore around 3 falls, getting close to 4th one which we couldn't really see from a close distance through. It was a great trip meeting new people, talking to new people and experiencing the hospitality of the unknown people.