Last year when I first heard about the fun that Chethu and his friends had at Kumara Parvatha, I knew for sure that I had to visit this place. I mailed all the guys as soon as I came back from B'lore but we had to dump our idea as it was not the best time to go there.
One fine afternoon in November when most of us had been to Hotel Khushi to have tea, I brought up this idea again and almost all of them gave a thumbs up :) so we shot a mail to the remaining guys as soon as we returned to office and I must say that the response was really overwhelming!!! The next important task was to arrange tents for camping. We searched the entire net for any details about tents on rent in and around Udupi but in vain. Sada and Raj visited each and every shop that could possibly give out tents for rent but that turned out to be a futile exercise too. It had been raining incessantly for three days now and the non availability of tents was proving to be a show stopper. I, Raj and Sada finally bought sleeping bags just to make sure that all of us will have something to keep ourselves warm in the "Kallu Mantapa". Atlast Manju like the heroes in those hindi movies saved the day by saying that he would get the tents while coming from Bangalore :) one problem solved, but the rains had'nt stopped yet.
It was the D day. We packed all our bags before leaving for office on the 19th. We had decided to catch the last bus to DharmasthaLa from Udupi @ 7:20 PM. By the time we left office it started raining again and all of us were drenched, but the state of excitement in which we all were nothing could dampen our spirits. So as fate would have it, nine of us, Anroop, Abhi, Chaddi, Kanthesh, Kiran, Puneeth, Raj, Sada and I boarded the bus. Manju and Lokesh were to join us in DharmasthaLa.
We had lots of fun in the bus and were in DharmasthaLa in no time ;) We checked into our rooms and forced our eyes shut. In the anticipation of the fun that we would have for the next two days sleep was nowhere to be seen!!! The next thing I remember hearing was Sada calling out my name. He's always been our designated alarm guy oh and not to forget our designated Finance Minister too :D more on that later. Manju and Lokesh arrived early. All of us got ready had our breakfast and boarded the bus to Kukke Subramanya.
Standing 1712 mts tall Kumara Parvatha is the second highest peak in Karnataka and is considered to be the most difficult of all treks here. There are two ways to reach the peak, one from Somavaarapete and the other from Subramanya. From the Subramanya side the elevation varies from 40 to 70 degrees and is physically challenging. The total distance from the foot of the hills to the peak is 13KMs approx. The entire trek can be divided into 3 phases.
Phase 1. From Kukke Subramanya temple to Bhattara Mane.
Phase 2. From Bhattara Mane to Kallu Mantapa.
Phase 3. From Kallu Mantapa to the Peak.
Our plan was to start the trek from Subramanya side on 20th and reach Kallu Mantapa by sunset. The next day ie; 21st we would trek to the peak and descend back to Subramanya.
The adventure begins!!!!
2 comments:
Beautifully written, awaiting the upcoming episodes :)
And ya, Manju was like the heroes of the Bollywood for sure!
yup me too waiting for next episode :-) but I think we all never read next episode :-) , because i am not sure that you will write next episode . See your last blog , first part is written long before, and next part is not yet came out :-) .
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