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Our Trekking Tales

Misty Kuduremukha

MISTY KUDUREMUKHA !!

For almost 4 years this trek was on top of my trekking Hit-list . I wanted to desperately do this trek but due to various reasons like permissions , rain , lack of people to trek etc. I was unable to do it.

 

But as they as “ Where there is a will there is a way “ , I made up my mind and fixed Sep 30 – Oct 2 as the dates on which I would do the trek come what may !!

So I started my preparations for the trek , the first and foremost being getting Permissions from the forest dept . Got phone numbers of various forest divisions of Kuduremukha from the website and called up all of them but in vain .

All of them gave the same old reply as “ Naxal Problem  - No Permissions”, “ Rain – No Permissions “ etc , but the most appalling reason being “ No Permission to give Permissions “ !!!!

 

So , after all this I came to the conclusion that I should change my way of approach . That is to say instead of approaching  the forest dept directly I decided to contact a local person and thru him try to get the permissions.

 

This plan worked wonders . I contacted one Mr.Satisha of Mullodi near Kalasa town. His brother was working as a guard in the Kuduremukha forest dept and thru him I could finally lay hands on the permissions but not physically as I could not get written permissions . I was able to get Verbal Permissions, which was risky but was enough as far as I was concerned. So with the permissions part taken care of , I headed towards Kuduremukha on 29th Sep 07. The only disappointing fact was that my friend Suhas could not join me as planned earlier due to last minute family commitments.

 

I took a Rajahamsa bus from Bangalore to Kalasa. Left Bangalore around 11Pm and reached Kalasa by 7.30 am. The road was good and bad in patches. Got down in Kalasa, headed to Yatri Nivas hotel near by and took a room for freshing up and was ready by 8.30. Then took a local bus to a place called “ Barkal “ which is just after Samse. Got down at Barkal and could see the Mud path leading to the peak via Mullodi where my guide was waiting for me.

The Mud path was in shambles due to the rain and also due to the frequent use of the road by tractors, which carried some construction material for a power project coming up near by.

I decided not to walk as I though that the path was not good enough and decided to hire a jeep instead. This instinctive decision was very very helpful, the reason I will tell you later. I called up our guide Satisha and he in turn called up his friend who had a jeep and in 10 mins I was on my way to Mullodi on the mud Track.

 

Mullodi is about 5-6 kms from Barkal and reached satisha’ s house in about 25 mins, catching a glimpse of the Kuduremukha peak (Kpeak) enroute.

 

I met my guide satisha and after the initial talks he suggested that it would be best to trek to the peak the same day as the previous 2 days it was raining like hell. The weather was clear that day and so he insisted that we do the trek now itself. Initially I was a bit hesitant as I had traveled the whole night before and was a little bit rusty, but later I thought that its better to listen to the local guy’s advice. This decision also proved very very helpful indeed.

 

So all set we both started off at around 10.30 am with some eatables to have as lunch on the summit. The initial trek was normal with the ground being rocky and little bit slippery. The view was fascinating and I was engaged in my photography but Satisha egged me to walk faster as there was more stuff to capture later.

 

Soon we crossed several streams, of which I could not keep a count. As the rainy season was coming to an end the streams were full, at some placed Knee deep.

The Landscape of Kuduremukha National park is of Grassland type with Shola forest in between. So whenever the shoals came, we used to run thru them as it has lots and lots of leeches and they were waiting to latch on to our feet !!.

 

There will be plenty of leech problems in the Western Ghats during rainy season . Actually they wont cause much pain but most of them get jittery by leeches upon seeing the blood . But in my case I was comfortable with them , many used to latch on to my feet , I would just put a pinch of salt and they would drop off . Yes some amount of blood loss was there but I feel its worth the effort !!

 

So our trek continued thru the mind-blowing grasslands , in-between we used to disappear into the shola forest and again re-appear after the shoals. The scenery around cannot be described in words hence I have captured them and put them at www.anilsuhas.fotopic.net for all of you to see and enjoy !!!

After about 2Hrs we reached a place called LOBO MANE , meaning LOBO House . There was a man by the Name LOBO who had settled there long back , but now it was deserted . Actually there are three LOBO houses very near to each other.

 

We continued and just as Satisha pointed towards the 3rd LOBO house , we could see some “Creatures” moving . After close inspection we found out that the “ Creatures “ were some Trekkers !!!!.

They were a bunch of 6-7 , from some software companies from Bangalore . The astonishing fact was that they had no permissions and to top it all they asked us why one has to take permissions !!!. The other thing being they had no guide with them !!

 

I would like to give a small advice to all the readers / trekkers  at this point.

Please always make it a point to obtain all the necessary permissions before you venture out to any trek inside a Forest Area / National Park.

Do not break the rules and how much  ever experienced you may be please have a guide accompany you without fail.

 

 

So after some talk with the “ creatures “ , we moved on . Next in the path was the most difficult part of the trek . There was a hill behind the 3rd LOBO house . It was most tiring climb that I had in recent times.

But the landscape looked so great after the climb that I did not mind it .

 

At this point we were right at the bottom of the horse shaped summit. But we could not climb directly . we had to take a sort of U turn and climb it from behind. This climb was relatively smooth . After the climb we were right behind the summit with the grassland and shola forest splitting in the middle.

 

Finally after 4-5 hrs of trekking I was on top of the Kpeak and had fulfilled my 4 yr dream . Took out the eatables that we had carried and just gulped it down . I had a small photo session on the summit . The other side of the valley was not visible due to the thick fog cover .

Spent some 30-40 mins at the summit and after a friendly reminder from my guide that we should head back , I reluctantly picked up my bag and started to descend , after kissing good bye to the Kpeak .

 

The climb down was easier and fast and in no time we were very near to the 3rd LOBO house. Here my guide pointed out at the only wildlife that I saw , a lonely bison grazing . By the time we reached the spot and I had my camera ready the Bison had other plans and just disappeared into the thick shola forest near by . I could just get a distant pic of the old fellow.

As we moved on it was getting darker and darker and when we went inside the sholas it was pitch dark sometimes . The only little pen torch that I carried refused to work  and as a result  I  was just moving ahead with satisha’s instincts to guide me.

 

Finally at 7Pm we made it back to civilization i.e. , reached Satisha’s house at mullodi. The blood from the leech bites was still oozing out , so took some time to clean it up. Had a hot bath and some excellent food prepared by Satisha’s mother and of course a good night’s sleep.

 

The Next morning I woke up around 8 am only to find that the entire surrounding was fully covered with mist and it started to rain cats and dogs .

At this point I felt so good that I had taken satisha’s advice to trek the previous day itself . If it had been today then my trek plans would have gone for a toss !!!

 

Spent the whole day lazing around , doing nothing ( could not do even if I wanted to as it was raining heavily ).

 

At around 6 , the jeep came and headed back to Kalasa. The jeep driver Jagadeesh had taken care of my return ticket to Bangalore thru Sugama Tourist.

 

Around 10.30 , the bus left kalasa and reached Bangalore as early as 5am. Reached home and just crashed on my bed and started to dream about Kpeak and of course my next trek !!!
 

 Bangalore, Karnataka , INDIA