Finally 10 ppl [Ramesh,Nagoo,Mohan,Vadi,Malli,Vikram,Praveen,Shivu,Anand and Rajendra] got ready for the trek and most of the guys were from NSN [company] and with our usual frnds now we have some new faces with us.
Now about this place : Amedhi Kallu means tortoise stone if u purely translate to english , well this place is trekked by many ppl and groups over the years , but still its virgin place in terms of civilization and humans intervention. and to conquer this peak one has to trek through most dense and deep forests of western Ghats and through a uphills with full of tall grass, which can cut the skins like razor blade in some angles.
well in all my previous experiences initially i thought KP was the toughest and later when i trekked i found Bandajji arbi i realized that KP is nothing in term of difficulty, but now after Trekking Amedhi kallu , i second all my previous thoughts .. now as for as my knowledge this is the one ... i mean this is the toughest trekking place that anyone can imagine.
Our main idea was to trek in early Mansoon and we knew that we may have to face some heavy rain also, but honestly we never expected this trek to be this much difficult.
Friday Night
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After the Office hours we decided to meet at the designated places at around 9:30pm for departure in a TT, that day i got little bit late from office and when i reached the home it was already 8:30pm , and by that time Mohan [Trip co-ordinator :)] already brought some sleeping bags for hire and was waiting for me to go for some shopping for the trek, so when finally i reached home without wasting time we both went for shopping to buy some energy drinks and food items like MTR ready to eat and finishing the shopping its time for us to do a final packing of stuffs , by the time i finished my packing it was almost 10pm and ramesh also come to my room by that time , finally we departed from bangalore at 11pm.
In the TT we spent some time to know each others and later its all hungama , most of the night has fun with teasing the guys and cracking the jokes, and some spirited dancing with music for few times
Saturday - Day 1
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We reached the Darmastala in the morning around 6am and we decided to get freshup there and leave for shishila for the guide , who can take us for trek this peak.
after the freshup we had breakfast there in a hotel , and left for our destination, we needed to go via kokkada [small town] to reach shishila [village] and interestingly kokkada is the last point where our mobile signals can reach after that village there is no mobile network coverage.
Finally we reached Gopu Gokule house [the person who can arrage a guide for us] and he was nice talking person , he helped us to get a guide and also we needed a utensil for boiling water [for MTR ready to eat] which we forgot to carry from B'lore.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
by the time the Guide arrived we started the final preparation for the trek by packing and dropping the items needed or not needed to make the luggage light, soon after we reached the starting point a 4-5km away from shishila village , and asked our TT [Tempo Traveller] to come to same spot on next day at around 11am to pick us back again.
Actual Trek
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The Trek started spiritedly but within few couple of minutes some of our guys pissed off by hearing that the peak of this Trek will be around 18km [This was wrong information], and cursing themselves we started off.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
After a couple of meters the real horror started with hundred thousands of leeches spread across entire stretch which ever space they can get and waiting for the prey to leech. as many of us expected few of us come prepared for this and the most of them were too negligence about these and they quickly become the prey for leeches, even more to add difficulties there started drizzling rain and what more the entire trek is totally uphill and there is no flat land or slope.
soon within first 2 km some 100 leeches feasted on us with fresh blood, although i was totally prepared before trek itself for these monsters, for the entire trek i was bitten by only 2 leeches :D, but others are not so fortunate sadly.
as we keep on trekking in this deep forests, we faced difficulties as rain started increasing its speed and as well leeches too become more aggressive and more over here the leeches are lot bigger compared to my other treks be it be KP or Green Route, and adding to this was our luggage, for me i was carrying 32kg of luggage comprising sleeping bag, tent, food, water...etc..etc. and what more .. after some 3km Ramesh started to loose his patience with these blood suckers and he was already fed up with them and he clearly said he can't carry his luggage , he was too overloaded with tent and some hidden water and snacks in the bag :P, soon i had to carry his backpack also ...
After a long difficult trek of 3 hours we reached some Grass land away from trees and .. now we faced even more difficult task to climb it as its even more vertical and very steep which are needed even more energy.
we stopped by that place for some relaxation and photoshoot and this place is the most beautiful place i have ever seen till now ... there is huge mountains surrounded us with lush green grass land and trees , and playing with them was this clouds soo close to ground and mist all over those mountains .. its like heaven .. and there is no camera can capture this much beauty , where ever eye's can reach u can find natures ultimate beauty and its soo refreshing .. even though there was drizzling rain .. no body seems to care .. everyone is busy in tacking snaps in different angles and enjoying the natures beauty.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
after the session started the real hard trek, climbing these majestic mountains, we kept on climbing these and around 3pm we reached a spot where we decided to camp, this place is almost top of the mountain and there was a very big rock under which we took shelter, we had our Lunch there and decided to set up a camp, and most of guys were too tiered and they wanted to stay there for the rest of the day, unfortunately by the time we finished our lunch its was almost 4pm and still we needed to go for another 3km to reach the peak.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
finally no body willing to go further other than me and Malli, and by that time there was heavy rain started and combined with heavy fog there was almost narrow visibility, maximum we can see is about 15 feets and we both along with the guide started climbing again and that time it seemed very difficult due to heavy wind which can blow away a person strait in to cliffs below .. as further we ascended about 2 km it become impossible to see anything and even 5 feet visibility became very difficult and combined with heavy rain and fog, our guide advices us to return back as he was also unable to see the trail to the top, and it was already 5pm and still 2 more hours of trek we need to do, it became clear that if we push further it can be dangerous to descend back in dark night.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
so we finally disappointed and decided to head back, and with those difficult environmental condition we realized that even descending steep hill can pose serious difficulties.
First time in my life i saw a wild animal here .. its a wild cat .. its very big and very strong , it just jumped infront of me and crossed my path in a lighting speed .. before i realize wt happening it disappeared in to tall grass, all this happened in 3 seconds
when we reach back to the base camp, the guys were already pitched 2 tents and were enjoying there warm moment , only we 2 were totally drenched in rain and cold were standing like monkeys, and moreover to our shock there was place for only 2 tents to pitch and each can accommodate only 4 ppl, we 2 left out. and although we had one more tent, we didn;t have enough space to put it, what can get worse than this ,.. all my cloths were totally wet and finally around 6pm we were decided that 2 of us will sleep outside tent in a sleeping bag and it proved to be good idea later in that night.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
quickly we prepared our Dinner and had some good moments together chatting joking and laughing, by the 7pm we already in bed and i think this is the first time in our life we are sleeping so early :D
we'll be 10pm in the night once again most of us woke up and started making hungama , which led other sleepy guys to wake up and spend some joking/teasing time till 12am .. after that everyone went to sleep again till 6am in the morning except malli who sleeping besides me outside tent occasionally looking outside all around with his torch for any possible animals :D and every time i used to ask him sleep without worry.
Sunday - Day 2
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We woke up around 6 am in the morning and it was chilling cold, the fog covered us completely and thankfully the rain has been stopped, so we decided this is the good time to head back, without wasting our time we packed up everything, and started our descent .. and trust me .. coming down a hill is as difficult as climbing it.. and finally when we come down the grass land it was started raining heavily and without caring the rains we had good time to enjoy the beauty and lot of pics .. now every one took a pause and got ready to battle the our ultimate nemesis the leeches ...
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
as we entered there territory, they started there attack .. it seems they were waiting for us. and as we started our way back carefully , they were also got ferocious and adding to this was heavy rains .. and almost we took only one break .. most of us already tiered and it was leeches who got advantage of this .. after almost 3 hours we finally reached the road , from where we have started our trek, and Oh,,boy its soo nice to see the civilization again and especially the road , a clean road :D
soon we started we remove our bangs shoes .. in the middle of roads to get rid of leeches which are swarming on our shoes and socks and even on bags .. and there we found the actual causalities.. most of us got bitten by them very hard .. and thankfully i got only one bite.
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
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| From Mansoon trek to Amedhi Kallu |
soon after taking bath in nearby stream we relaxed a bit and enjoyed the photo sessions and started waiting for our transport and the wait went on till 12 pm and every one getting frustrated on driver .. and unfortunately there is no mobile network coverage. finally we hired a jeep and went to Darmastala .. where we are able to search our Transport and finally we started our way back to B'lore and till Hassan there was heavy rain lashing and most surprisingly..the total weather is changed after Hassan and it was sunny.
finally we reached B'lore around 9:30 pm, and brought us with lot of memories and fun.
Photos :
http://picasaweb.google.com/nagoo12345/MansoonTrekToAmedhiKallu#
Final words
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1. This is most difficult trek - i rate this 9 out of 10 in terms of difficulty
2. Best time to visit : 2 months after mansoon good at Dec or Jan
3. Water Point: only one, Take enough water
4. Mobile Network: Interestingly on peek its available but not in bottom
5. Guide contact: Gopu Gokule 08251269246 - shishila village
1 comments:
I'm itching to go after your statement of this being much more difficult than KP!
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