Hello all , i am back with one more trek blog after a pretty long time , last trek i have done was in December 2010 .. so now u know its pretty long time , now this trek route was never new to me , as i had done this almost 2 years back , and still have some partial memories of it.
This time it was new group of ppl and all of them are from my office colleagues, although they are new to me and many of them not regular trekkers and infact for some of them its there first time with nature, but these things didn't bothered us anytime, and we enjoyed every bit of it.
Planning:
Planning for the trek started almost a month back and as usual it was initiated through mail chains and , that time we have not decided about the place to trek ... but as the days passed ..we have decided to visit OG [Ombattu Gudda] in reverse ..coz of 3 main reasons.
1. This place is most untouched by human population [read as un-disturbed]
2. Deep inside the Westren Ghats and lush green environment
3. Climbing it reverse will be easier
So after having enough discussions and pros and cons of this place .. we all decided to finalize this one. and initially there were total 9 people volunteered for this trek. and we decided the date as 17/18th Sept 2011 and finally total of 6 ppl [me,Vishal,Mayur,Ravi,Shiva,Sumanth]became ready for the event [3 last min dropouts]
Trek Day:
We have started from the B'lore late in the night around 12am .. after waiting for our transport to arrive , we have fixed earlier 3 pickup points and later it became 4 pickup points ... funny thing is Vishal and Mayur were waiting in the office @12 in the midnight :D [as this was one pic up point]
after gathering everyone we hit the road ... our route was B'lore-Hasan-Belur-Mudigere-hosakere .. the first part of the journey was quick as B'lore to Hasan road was in excellent condition .. and after that its pathetic. by the time we reached the mudigere it was morning 6am and everyone started to wake up from there half comfort sleep .. we reached bus stand and after freshup .. we started to look for hotel to finish a quick breakfast, soon we found one near bus stop.. and this hotel was a small one and we are the first customers on that day .. quickly our orders come on to the table .. and trust me ..everyone of us were very pleased by the taste of the food .. and we took some parcel to our afternoon lunch also.
Then after heading towards Hosakere .. we needed to reach Lakshmi-Saraswathi estate for our start point .. and to our bad timing .. on the way we asked 2 old people to show us the route to the estate ..and guess what they shown the road exactly opposite to the estate.. and i bet that later they will laughing there A** off that they made us fools [Damn ..some ppl always get fun by misleading others]... it costed us another 20min journey and couple of km more... finally we decided to ask multiple ppl before proceeding and this time .. some gentlemen helped us to get to the estate..
we reached the estate entrance gate ...and from here it was my turn to lead the rest of the team to starting point .. but unfortunately i did this trek in reverse that too 2 years back and ..i never had memory of this entrance..now which made me doubtful about whether we are in right estate . the only way to find the ans is to ask some one .. but there is no one nearby the estate .. and finally me and shiva decided to go inside estate and ask some one ... we started our walk .. and we kept on going for almost 3-4km and till that time there was no one anywhere near us .. its all forest alone with sound of birds and lush greenery... at the end i realized that this was the right path to start of the trek path .. and last time we come in reverse direction on TT .. so i didn't remembered this path.. after talking to person who manages the estate there .. we decided to head back to estate gate to bring others .. and again we had to go back uphill to reach our guys and to tell them that .. the trek distance just increased by another 6km ..due to this distance from estate gate to start of the trek point.
On the way to trek .. we encountered our most ferocious friends .. the leaches .. and some of the colleagues with me were seeing these creatures first time .. got scared like hell...and were very afraid even to touch them. although later this fear is completely vanished ... but with past experience with leaches .. this time we made foolproof arrangement for these things .. with ..repellent cream.. multilayer socks and proper technique .. at the end of the day i got only 1 leach bite and most of them had in single digit ..like our salary hikes ..
. After a quick break at the starting point for some photoshoots .. we started our trek with more energy and spirit .. after couple of hours later we .. traveled enough distance to take break .. and good thing is due to mist and coldness in the air ..we didn't felt the tiredness which u feel in summer, and also it saved our lot energy .. where ever ur eyes can see .. its only one color ..GREEN every where .. its shades of green and sound of different creatures humming throughout the path .. and the silent of the nature .. wind blowing with breeze in it making different sounds as it passed through countless trees ..was heaven for us .. and out of world experience .
it took almost 3 hours to reach the place from where u can see the entire westren ghats hills range ..and as these hills will have thick forest till way up to the peak .. and on the peak its all 4 foot high grass... which looks like a bed of green carpet.. here we took our first major break ..done with photoshoots and had lunch .. best thing is we decided to make this trek ..litter free..and we did followed it ..all the plastic and paper waste we carried with us back .. as this nature is clean and we don;t wanted to spoilt it ..unlike other places where the entire place will be riddled with garbage.
It was close to 2:30pm and still the peak is around 2km away .. and we needed to proceed .. after some distance ..we did something for which we are famous for ...we have lost the trail for the peak .. and now most of the guys become so tiered that 3 people said they can't move further ..and they wanted to take rest and head back .. well this didn't sounded good ..and finally after some discussion .. me ,Vishal and Sumanth ..decided to press further to search for the path to peak ..and rest of the guys said ..they will be slowly heading back.. after leaving them to head back ..we pressed further in to the deep forest .. and at one point we realize that we 3 are really lost with no idea where to head .. we spent searching for path in those thick forest wondering from here to there without any trail .. and after spending almost one and half hour ..we found some track and followed it to find a old single house ..where we found some of the estate employees ..after checking with them .. we come to know that we would have taken a different path from the place where we had lunch .. and quickly we speed up our climb back to the place where we had lunch and by the time we reached there it was almost 4:30pm.. and now we needed to make some tough decision .. if we proceed with the reaching peak ..it will take at least another 2 hours ..as the terrain involves steep climb in forest and grassland .. and by the time we reach the peak it will be dark ..and again we need to head back to our starting point which might take atleast another 4 hour min .. if we continuously kept our pace fast. so after long discussion we decided to let it for another day .. and decided to head back... at this moment it was strange feeling ..as u can see ur target in far away and now u can see the path also ... but u can't proceed .. it made us to firmly consider ourselves to reach this place once more after one month..
we started to head back .. and on the way we found one more trek group who were doing Ettina Buja to Ombattu gudda peaks .. and after saying them best wishes .. we head back towards the starting point.. at this point .. it was started to get darker .. and call it mind power of energy from the surrounding nature ..which flows in our body too.. that we did the ascend non-stop .. and by the time we reached the starting point .. most of our legs were paining .. and that day we almost crossed total of 27km trek since morning .. and still another 5-10km trekking energy still left with us if we would have taken a big break .. but sadly .. due to night falling .. we decided to head towards estate gate ..where we left of transport vehicle .. and still we needed to climb another 3-4km to reach the estate gate.. but with determination and hoping to rest in the vehicle we kept our pace of walking uphills and when finally we reached there .. we were for a surprise .. our vehicle was not there and the rest of the team took off to nearby town to have some food... this made all of us 3 to pissed off.. and the most with Sumanth ..as he was dead tiered ..and there is no place to rest or even to sit.. where ever u stand ..there are ample of leaches attacking ur legs.. with heavy steps we reached the main road .. which was totally deserted and there are not even single living creature is visible .. its only thick forest in the dark.. and we had torch to our rescue ..and worst part is mobile network is too weak .. finally after many tries we were able to contact those guys and asked them to pick us up quickly .. and after some 40min .. rest of the guys showed up .. and we headed back to B'lore .. in and all we have done allmost 30km of trek that day.
Some Poser Pics :
Pics : https://picasaweb.google.com/102729674108102165962/OmbathuGudda9HillsOG2#
This time it was new group of ppl and all of them are from my office colleagues, although they are new to me and many of them not regular trekkers and infact for some of them its there first time with nature, but these things didn't bothered us anytime, and we enjoyed every bit of it.
Planning:
Planning for the trek started almost a month back and as usual it was initiated through mail chains and , that time we have not decided about the place to trek ... but as the days passed ..we have decided to visit OG [Ombattu Gudda] in reverse ..coz of 3 main reasons.
1. This place is most untouched by human population [read as un-disturbed]
2. Deep inside the Westren Ghats and lush green environment
3. Climbing it reverse will be easier
So after having enough discussions and pros and cons of this place .. we all decided to finalize this one. and initially there were total 9 people volunteered for this trek. and we decided the date as 17/18th Sept 2011 and finally total of 6 ppl [me,Vishal,Mayur,Ravi,Shiva,Sumanth]became ready for the event [3 last min dropouts]
Trek Day:
We have started from the B'lore late in the night around 12am .. after waiting for our transport to arrive , we have fixed earlier 3 pickup points and later it became 4 pickup points ... funny thing is Vishal and Mayur were waiting in the office @12 in the midnight :D [as this was one pic up point]
after gathering everyone we hit the road ... our route was B'lore-Hasan-Belur-Mudigere-hosakere .. the first part of the journey was quick as B'lore to Hasan road was in excellent condition .. and after that its pathetic. by the time we reached the mudigere it was morning 6am and everyone started to wake up from there half comfort sleep .. we reached bus stand and after freshup .. we started to look for hotel to finish a quick breakfast, soon we found one near bus stop.. and this hotel was a small one and we are the first customers on that day .. quickly our orders come on to the table .. and trust me ..everyone of us were very pleased by the taste of the food .. and we took some parcel to our afternoon lunch also.
Then after heading towards Hosakere .. we needed to reach Lakshmi-Saraswathi estate for our start point .. and to our bad timing .. on the way we asked 2 old people to show us the route to the estate ..and guess what they shown the road exactly opposite to the estate.. and i bet that later they will laughing there A** off that they made us fools [Damn ..some ppl always get fun by misleading others]... it costed us another 20min journey and couple of km more... finally we decided to ask multiple ppl before proceeding and this time .. some gentlemen helped us to get to the estate..
we reached the estate entrance gate ...and from here it was my turn to lead the rest of the team to starting point .. but unfortunately i did this trek in reverse that too 2 years back and ..i never had memory of this entrance..now which made me doubtful about whether we are in right estate . the only way to find the ans is to ask some one .. but there is no one nearby the estate .. and finally me and shiva decided to go inside estate and ask some one ... we started our walk .. and we kept on going for almost 3-4km and till that time there was no one anywhere near us .. its all forest alone with sound of birds and lush greenery... at the end i realized that this was the right path to start of the trek path .. and last time we come in reverse direction on TT .. so i didn't remembered this path.. after talking to person who manages the estate there .. we decided to head back to estate gate to bring others .. and again we had to go back uphill to reach our guys and to tell them that .. the trek distance just increased by another 6km ..due to this distance from estate gate to start of the trek point.
On the way to trek .. we encountered our most ferocious friends .. the leaches .. and some of the colleagues with me were seeing these creatures first time .. got scared like hell...and were very afraid even to touch them. although later this fear is completely vanished ... but with past experience with leaches .. this time we made foolproof arrangement for these things .. with ..repellent cream.. multilayer socks and proper technique .. at the end of the day i got only 1 leach bite and most of them had in single digit ..like our salary hikes ..
. After a quick break at the starting point for some photoshoots .. we started our trek with more energy and spirit .. after couple of hours later we .. traveled enough distance to take break .. and good thing is due to mist and coldness in the air ..we didn't felt the tiredness which u feel in summer, and also it saved our lot energy .. where ever ur eyes can see .. its only one color ..GREEN every where .. its shades of green and sound of different creatures humming throughout the path .. and the silent of the nature .. wind blowing with breeze in it making different sounds as it passed through countless trees ..was heaven for us .. and out of world experience .
it took almost 3 hours to reach the place from where u can see the entire westren ghats hills range ..and as these hills will have thick forest till way up to the peak .. and on the peak its all 4 foot high grass... which looks like a bed of green carpet.. here we took our first major break ..done with photoshoots and had lunch .. best thing is we decided to make this trek ..litter free..and we did followed it ..all the plastic and paper waste we carried with us back .. as this nature is clean and we don;t wanted to spoilt it ..unlike other places where the entire place will be riddled with garbage.
It was close to 2:30pm and still the peak is around 2km away .. and we needed to proceed .. after some distance ..we did something for which we are famous for ...we have lost the trail for the peak .. and now most of the guys become so tiered that 3 people said they can't move further ..and they wanted to take rest and head back .. well this didn't sounded good ..and finally after some discussion .. me ,Vishal and Sumanth ..decided to press further to search for the path to peak ..and rest of the guys said ..they will be slowly heading back.. after leaving them to head back ..we pressed further in to the deep forest .. and at one point we realize that we 3 are really lost with no idea where to head .. we spent searching for path in those thick forest wondering from here to there without any trail .. and after spending almost one and half hour ..we found some track and followed it to find a old single house ..where we found some of the estate employees ..after checking with them .. we come to know that we would have taken a different path from the place where we had lunch .. and quickly we speed up our climb back to the place where we had lunch and by the time we reached there it was almost 4:30pm.. and now we needed to make some tough decision .. if we proceed with the reaching peak ..it will take at least another 2 hours ..as the terrain involves steep climb in forest and grassland .. and by the time we reach the peak it will be dark ..and again we need to head back to our starting point which might take atleast another 4 hour min .. if we continuously kept our pace fast. so after long discussion we decided to let it for another day .. and decided to head back... at this moment it was strange feeling ..as u can see ur target in far away and now u can see the path also ... but u can't proceed .. it made us to firmly consider ourselves to reach this place once more after one month..
we started to head back .. and on the way we found one more trek group who were doing Ettina Buja to Ombattu gudda peaks .. and after saying them best wishes .. we head back towards the starting point.. at this point .. it was started to get darker .. and call it mind power of energy from the surrounding nature ..which flows in our body too.. that we did the ascend non-stop .. and by the time we reached the starting point .. most of our legs were paining .. and that day we almost crossed total of 27km trek since morning .. and still another 5-10km trekking energy still left with us if we would have taken a big break .. but sadly .. due to night falling .. we decided to head towards estate gate ..where we left of transport vehicle .. and still we needed to climb another 3-4km to reach the estate gate.. but with determination and hoping to rest in the vehicle we kept our pace of walking uphills and when finally we reached there .. we were for a surprise .. our vehicle was not there and the rest of the team took off to nearby town to have some food... this made all of us 3 to pissed off.. and the most with Sumanth ..as he was dead tiered ..and there is no place to rest or even to sit.. where ever u stand ..there are ample of leaches attacking ur legs.. with heavy steps we reached the main road .. which was totally deserted and there are not even single living creature is visible .. its only thick forest in the dark.. and we had torch to our rescue ..and worst part is mobile network is too weak .. finally after many tries we were able to contact those guys and asked them to pick us up quickly .. and after some 40min .. rest of the guys showed up .. and we headed back to B'lore .. in and all we have done allmost 30km of trek that day.
Some Poser Pics :
Pics : https://picasaweb.google.com/102729674108102165962/OmbathuGudda9HillsOG2#
