Kodachadri Trek (3rd and 4th Jan 2015)

The plan to trek Kodachadri happened all of a sudden. We were actually planning to go for one day trek around Bengaluru. But later, we decided to go for a long trek far from Bengaluru. Kodachadri was on top in our list.

We were 4 in the group, Nanthan, Suresh, Prakash and Naveen. We assembled in KSRTC bus stand terminal 2(main portico) on Friday night(2nd Jan 2014) to begin our journey.

Our itinerary to reach Kodachadri was as below:
Bengaluru to Shivamogga(285 km): KSRTC bus
Shivamogga to Sampekatte(~100 km): Local Bus
Sampkatte to Kodachadri Base(4 km): Jeep
One way trekking distance: 9 km through Idlumane falls.

We reached Shivamogga at 5 AM the next day after six hours long journey. After taking a brief rest, we got into a private bus to reach Sampekatte which is about 100 Kms away.

Upon reaching Sampekatte, we bought fruits and few other eateries to aid us in our upward journey. We hired a local jeep to reach Kodachadri trek starting point which was 30 mins away.

Suresh and Naveen
Nanthan
Prakash
As we started our trek, we crossed a river stream, which was flowing through the rocks. We ate Chapathis, which we had packed from home near the stream.

River stream
The initial route itself was very misleading and we had all chances of getting lost. We began to feel the need for a guide. We found a localite who agreed to guide us till the Sitaram guest house for 500 bucks.


The trek began through lush green forest. Trekking through thick forest is an experience of its own, which cannot be contained in words. The chirping of the birds, falling leaves, the fragrance of the forest, the sunshine piercing through the leaves, magnificent trees, humongous mountains, grassland and what not, one would certainly fall short of words to explain the beauty of the forest.








The route through out the forest was pretty steep and it was quite a challenging trek I had so far. Halfway through the forest, we began to hear the sound of the Idlumane falls. We were very eager to take bath as we hadn't had bath in the morning. The intensity of the waterfall was average and we thoroughly enjoyed drenching in the falls.


After trekking for about 2 more kms, the forest opened up itself to an open grassland which was quite dry since it was almost 3 months post monsoon. The grassland also posed a challenging trek and it drained us a lot under the hot sun.






After a km or so, the grassland trek path got connected to the Jeep track. This was the easiest of the all the paths and our stomachs had already started making noise! We were very very hungry and had little patience to trek the last stretch of about 1.2 kms to reach Sitaram's guest house which we had booked fews days back.

The time was around 3 PM when we reached the guest house. The Moola Mookambika Temple is situated here along with kalabairaveshwara temple. We prayed to these Gods before heading to the guest house. We ate to our fullest stomach to quench our hunger.


We took well deserving rest for about an hour in the guest house. Our next plan was to witness Sunset which Kodachadri is quite famous for. To reach the peak, we had to trek for 2 more kms. There were a lot of people heading towards the peak who had come through the jeep trail.

The peak is bestowed by the great Adi Shankaracharya's temple, which makes the peak all the more beautiful.


The sunset was amazing to say the least.

It was quite dark when we started trekking back to the guest house. We had our dinner and slept early as we had planned to witness the sunrise as well.
We woke up at 5 AM the next day and had to bear with the insanely cold weather of the early morning. The place to witness the Sunrise was not far and we waited for about 45 mins for Sun to begin his day.
This sunrise is the most beautiful one I have ever witnessed. The sea of mountains along with thick clouds, which disguised as lakes was picturesque and made the sunrise more amazing and picture perfect.


We returned to the guest house and had our breakfast. We trekked all the way down through the Santosh hotel trek path which connects to the main road towards Kollur.

Our downward journey began through dense forest with well defined trails.




We were quite fortunate to see a green thin snake which crossed our trek path. The descending trekking also offered us breathtaking views of the landscapes and we did record them in our cameras.


It was a tiring 4 kms trek we had till Santosh hotel. We took rest for some time in Santosh hotel to gather energy to trek the remaining 6 Km mud path. This stretch was quite boring as it was monotonous and we were almost back to the area of civilization.

The sun was in zenith when we reached the Kollur main road. We got into a local bus to reach Kollur temple which is around 20 Kms away. We reached the temple by 12:30 PM and took bath in the Souparnika river. It was a refreshing experience for us to take bath in river under the hot sun. We bought dothis to be worn to visit the temple. As usual, we had to stand in long queue to get a glimpse of God Mookambika and it was worth it. We had lunch offered by the temple.

We got in to a local bus at 4PM to reach Shivamogga. It took 4 long hours to get to Shivamogga. We had our dinner in an hotel and caught KSRTC bus at 9 PM to reach Bengaluru. It was early morning 3:30 when we landed in Bengaluru. We were back to our chores and will be looking out for more such frequent treks...

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