Kudremukha Trek (11th-12th Jan 2014)

Before I write about our trekking experience, I would like to brief a little about the Kudremukh mountain range.

Kudremukha National Park is one of the beautiful landscapes of the Western Ghats, located in Chickmagalur District in Karnataka. The name is derived from the shape of the peak which resembles the Horse's face, which in Kannada means Kudremukha. It is the second largest protected region in the Western Ghats that is spread over an area spanning 600 sq km.

Image explaining the origin of the name.

 Source: Wikipedia

We had been planning to trek Kudremukh for quite some time. We finally decided to trek on January 11th, 2014 as this was within the ideal time to trek(The ideal time is between October and February).

We were 5 in the group, Akshay, Dinesh, Naveen, Rajesh and Suresh, all in our 20's, awaiting a great trekking experience ahead. A week before, we had called a localite of Mullodi, named Rajappa, who is into the business of providing food, stay and taking prior trekking permissions for the trekkers. We got confirmation from him about our stay in Mullodi. You can contact him at:9481179008.

The itinerary was like this:
Bangalore > Kalasa ; KSRTC bus
Kalasa > Balegal ; Local Bus
Balegal > Mullodi ; Jeep 

All five of us assembled in KSRTC bus stand(Terminal 2) on the night of 10th Jan, 2014. We had booked tickets to reach Kalasa and the travel time was about 8 hrs. The journey was comfortable except for the last stretch(about 90 kms) which was tiring as it was through Ghat section with continuous turns.

The next day, we reached Kalasa at 6 AM. The place was highly foggy and was very cold. Two of us had a cup of hot coffee in a nearby shop. The local bus to Balegal arrived at 6:30 AM and we got into that. It took half an hour to reach Balegal which is about 10 Kms from Kalasa. 

Hoarding indicating the way to trek

Once we reached Balegal, a jeep was ready for us to take to Mullodi. The Jeep was a 4 wheel drive, 1997 model from Mahindra . The jeep driver had an exceptional skill in driving on these pathetic roads(In fact, mud paths). It was a bumpy 30 mins ride to Mullodi.

On reaching Mullodi, we were welcomed by Rajappa. His house is situated at the foothills of the Kudremukha Mountain range. We freshened ourselves up in his house and had idlis for our breakfast. We had brought chocolates, cookies, fruits, Glucon-D to keep ourselves energized throughout our trek. 

Rajappa's Guest House

Guide Ranganath

We started our trek at 8:45 AM and had planned to reach the peak by 1 PM. We carried water bottles and foods that we brought, along with lunch(Uppittu) packed for us by Rajappa. Our guide was a localite named Ranganath. He informed us that the one way trekking distance is around 10 km. So we would be trekking a total distance of 20 km. All along the way, he was sharing his trekking experience with us.

The first 4 km of the trekking path was fairly flat without any significant steeps. A major advantage that any trekker to Kudremukh can have is the presence of plenty of water streams all along the path till one reaches the peak. Thus the weight of the load one carries is considerably reduced. The rest of the trek posed a little challenge to ascend them. While trekking, we witnessed breathtaking landscapes of the mountain range and captured them on our cameras. We felt rejuvenated after drinking water from the streams. It was cold and tasty!!!

Peak from a long distance

View of the mountain range

Water Streams

We reached the peak at 12:15 PM way earlier than we had expected. So we had reached the tip in less than 4 hrs(3.5 Hrs to be exact)! The peak is at an altitude of 1892 mts from sea level.

The Peak which stands at 1892 mts

Upon reaching the peak

At the peak, the fog was so dense that it blocked a certain part of the landscape from our view. 

Dense fog at the peak

We were quite disappointed that we couldn't spot any wild life as we reached the peak.We had our lunch near a water stream at the peak. We freshened ourselves with water and started to descend at around 1:15 PM. We decided not to descend in a hurry and took our own time to trek down as we had more than enough time to descend down to the destination. On the way back as well, we drank water from the water streams which helped us to maintain our energy to trek down. When we were in the midway, we managed to spot a wild bear quite far from us. We tried to take a clear snap of it but in vain as the bear was too far for our cameras to capture it with clarity.

We spotted a bear!

It was 4:30 PM when we reached back Rajappa's house.Thus we trekked down in just 3:15 hrs. Overall, the trekking difficulty was moderate and we enjoyed being with nature for the entire stretch of the trekking. 

After reaching Rajappa's house, we took bath in a nearby small water fall. We found it difficult to bath there as it was very slippery due to heavy build up of algae. Somehow, we bathed in a safe place though it had less water force. We again felt rejuvenated and the body pain due to trekking started subsiding.
The snacks and coffee were ready and we enjoyed them.

That moment which scared the hell out of us...
We built two tents at around 7:15 PM in a place, little far from Rajappa's house. 

Tents that we built

To kill time, we started playing cards.I opted not to play and was busy using the torch in the pitch dark night. I spotted few tiny light sources far from the tent in the dark. I initially thought them to be fireflies. After closer look, I found that they were stagnant. This amused me and I started observing them more closely to find out what they were. Then I came to the conclusion that they must be eyes of some animals waiting for its prey. I alarmed everybody and all of us ran to a safer place. That moment really scared the hell out of us.

Rajappa, his men and people from other groups started looking at the animals with curiosity. It was after the intervention of a cowherd, that we got to know they were poor cows, which were scared to pass us!!! 
We then burst out laughing at the moment that scared us like hell! :-) Since we had spotted a bear on the return path, my belief that they were some wild animals was reasonable.

After this funny incident, we had our dinner and went to sleep in the tents, though the fear of wild animals still lingered in our minds.

We all did get a sound sleep. The next day, we left Mullodi after taking bath and breakfast. We decided to trek from Mullodi to Balegal. It took us 3 hrs to complete this stretch as we spent some quality time observing nature and capturing them on our cameras. 

Dinesh took some brilliant snaps along the way. 

Spider and its magnificent web

Butterfly in all its glory

Beautiful. Isn't it?

On reaching Balegal , we had our lunch in a nearby hotel and left for Kalasa in a local bus.

In Kalasa, we visited Kalaseshwara temple and left for Horanadu which is about 6 km.

We reached Horanadu at around 5 PM. We visited the temple shrine and we had our dinner in the temple by 8 PM. 

In Horanadu

Horanadu Temple Arch

The bus back to Bangalore was at 8:30 PM.

We reached Bangalore next day early morning with a memorable trekking experience.

A word of caution: Take care of your belongings during your stay.

Break-up of cost:

	Description	Cost/Person(INR)
	KSRTC bus(Normal) both way	600
	Trekking Permisson charge	275
	Stay and food in Rajappa's house	600
	Jeep (Rs. 600/5 persons)	120
	Local bus(both way)	100
	Food	200
	Total	1895

Looking out eagerly for the next trekking spot...