Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Kodachadri: The Trek of a lifetime

Kodachadri that was the place we were heading too this time around.. It was one trip i was apprehensive about initially, but after the forcing of the guys I had to accept to their demands and agreed to it... So the check list was made, we were planning to trek, we were planning to camp, we were planning to party... In a nutshell we were planning for a blast of a weekend...

We booked the tents and sleeping bags from BMC... We could get the tents but they were short of sleeping bags, but we managed get them with some quick thinking(Thanks to me)... After another addition to the initial group of 10 there was a new member to the gang a fledgling to our gang...

The good fellas gang comprised of Me, Sunil, Abhi, BK, Rajanna, Chira, Harish, Pradeep, Supreeth, Bharavi and the new fella Suhas... :) We had stocked up for the evening at camp site thanks to Supreeth for the drinks and Abhi for the MTR ready to eat... :)

D day(25th DEC 2009)

We all met up directly at the bus stop where a last minute check revealed that we had forgotten basic stuff like i forgot my tooth brush and we had forgotten to take cups for the next day... Once we put the luggage on the bus we were all set and there was no turning back.. :) It was a riot drive in the bus, just imagine a group of 11 guys together under the same ceiling... After some talking and bantering we all retired for the night...


Day One(26th DEC 2009)

Thanks to the ksrtc driver who drove in the ghats like an insane man who had lost his nuts... We reached kollur at 5 45 in the morning to find kollur was filled with people... To our luck it was some kind of an auspicious day and pilgrims were flocking the place... We had a tough time even to find a place to freshen up... After running around from one end of the town to the other for almost an hour we found a matta called the hegde matta that offered us shelter... It was no fancy place but we found a place to wash away our filth and get ready for a day that would be one of the most adventurous days for us... :) After a bath and a photo session we were all ready and raring to go...

We walked back to the town to have breakfast and to find a jeep that would take us to kodachadri that is about 40 kms from kollur... There was some talk about why only jeeps could go to kodachadri and i got the answer why it was that way once i took the ride... It was one helluva ride on the jeep some stomach churning experience... I am still wondering how the jeep made it all the way up to the peak... We reached the bhatta's house who runs a temple there and also gives food to people who come there...

That was the last meal we had for another day and a half... We trekked around till our lunch got ready and explored some territory around... After we were done with lunch we trekked to the camping spot which was another nice trek up hill... On the way we visited one of the caves which also houses a temple... :) We finally made it up to our camping site just in time to catch a beautiful sunset... We set up our base camp here and set off to get some fire wood for the night...

After the sunset started the party and some awesome time.. We sat there talking about totally random things keeping ourself warm with the campfire that we set up... Once it started getting cold we got into our sleeping bags and started star gazing, thanks to Sunil and Abhi who started drawing maps on the sky... :) Then we crashed for the night once it was getting real cold...

Day Two(27th DEC 2009)

We woke up early morning in the hopes of catching a good sunrise... But the weather played spoil sport and we couldnt see the sunrise because of a foggy and cloudy morning... After we lazed around the camp site clicking some pics we decided to head down to bhattas place... The trek down was beautiful as we took the longer route in search of finding a waterfall which we only heard and never saw... Finally decided against it and got back to Bhattas house...

After a light breakfast we decided to trek down from the hill top... Got our water supplies and started the descend... The trek down was long and tiring but one of the best treks we ever did... The forest was simply mind blowing... After a trek for almost 6 hrs and a leech bite to me we reached the bottom of the hill in one piece...
We caught a bus from there back to kollur and got back to hegde matta to freshen up... We were wasted and totally hungry but we dint wanna have dinner at kollur...

We were right on time to the bus stop for our bus but the bus was 45 mins late... Thanks to the traffic jam because of the over flowing pilgrims the bus got delayed for another hour... After another leg pulling session we crashed for the night...

Another traffic jam at nelamangala ensured some more delay and the driver decided to take magadi road instead and we reached the station at about 8 in the morning... Got back home by auto with Abhi and Pradeep... All in all an awesome time with the guys...

For renting tents and sleeping bags: http://www.bmcindia.org/
Few pics from the trek: http://picasaweb.google.com/deepak3565/Kodachadri25thTo28thDec2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCLDJ167kxPH1PA#

This is probably my last post of this year unless my mind cooks up something real soon... :) If not then have a great new years eve and an amazing 2010 guys... :)

2 comments:

Ishma... said...

:) This blog makes me nostalgic... Had been to kodchadri on my college trip.. HAd one helluva tym. Awesome place...except fr the leeches :P

Deepak said...

Yes its a beautiful place da.. We had such an awesome time... We went after monsoon so no leeches, but i was lucky so got one bite when i was washing my face from a stream.. :) but neverthless was a memorable one.. :)