Nah, I am not referring to the book by M.Scott Peck lying in my library of ‘yet to be read’ books but to a recent trek trip I made to Kallathigiri on the foothills of Kemmangundi in the state of Karnataka. On the road from Kemmangundi to Tarikere a deviation takes you off to Kallathigiri, a beautiful non-commercialized hill station. 18 of us from my office planned a trip full of adventure and team building activities. Ofcourse we took guidance from experts from Outback India, a 15 year old firm comprising of 12 enthusiasts.
It was a 6 hours journey from Bangalore through the peak evening hours to the home stays in the heart of the coffee estate. Nice and cosy cottages where we shacked up. We had a rigorous trek planned for the next day hence we got into bed as soon as we arrived which was past midnight.
I got up quite early the next morning. The warm rising sun as if pacifying the cool whiff of breeze, swaying of the silver oak and mango trees besides other beautiful wildflower bearing shrubs and coffee plantation; I watched all this in peace sipping a nice hot cuppa coffee. My cottage overlooked the hills and absolutely nothing can describe the view or the experience.
Post a game of badminton and breakfast, I stacked my bag with water, snacks and medicines for the group and set off for our trek on Saturday morning (5th May) at 0900hrs. The whole trek was divided in three parts depending upon the interest and physical level of the group. The first and second part concluded at the foot and the centre of the Kallhathi falls while the last one which was more adventurous and risky concluded at the head of the Kallhathi falls.
We had a rocking time at the foot and the centre part of the waterfall. Most of us didn’t carry a change and neither had we planned to get wet. But, our excitement took over us and in no time we found ourselves splashing water and standing right under the falls. The rocks were slippery and we literally had to walk animal till we reached the fall. We stood amidst tiny rainbows in the waterfalls for hours together and took lotsa pictures.
We had a nice picnic with snacks that we carried and then split into two groups. Ofcourse I was in the group which decided to explore the mountains even further. The gravity at its best, the trek now got more rigorous and scary. We had to walk with nimble feet holding on to the tiger grass from its roots. Tiger grass gives you good support when you are climbing up. There were no other trekkers besides us. Now you know why I titled my blog as road less traveled?
With bruises and scratches on feet and thorns in hands we finally made it to the top. We slouched on our belly over the rock on top and experienced the bird’s eye view of the area. Our instructor showed us the route we took from the top and also circled in air the home stays where we started our trek from. What a sense of achievement we all felt.
The trip down was more risky than I thought. We had our heart in our mouth for the initial 1 hour. Myself, Ritika (12 year old daughter of one of my colleague) and Revankar headed the group and we had personal agenda of being at the lead during the whole trip. Trust me, it was great fun in doing that. :-)
We reached our base camp at 4 pm for lunch! and in very good time since ½ hour post that it started pouring heavily. Should I call that a bonus? Indeed! Team from Outback India were sweet enough to arrange for some nice hot pakoras and bhajis alongwith some coffee. What fun!
We had few team building games before we assembled back for campfire and a dance party. Post dinner at 2330 hrs, we had the option of night trek. Only two of us opted for it. The rules for the night trek were no talking and no carrying of torches! We were supposed to walk in the moonlight and to our amazement; we could actually see a lot of stuff without any artificial light! We heard all kind of spooky noises and for once I was really scared :-) and talks of various strategies we needed to adopt just in case a wild animal passes off was just worsening our fears. My shoe laces were open and I was in no mood to stop and tie it up. LOL …..Anyways, we were back to the base camp safe and sound and tucked ourselves in bed. We slept like a log.
I woke up early the next day, and found no water in our washrooms. We learnt that the pipe which gave the water supply from the falls to the home-stay got damaged in the rains the previous night! So we were instructed to change and freshen up with the available stored water and start off for our rope activities. The group was again divided into three with one team leader.
We had rappelling, commando bridge and bungee rope game. For rappelling instead of a mountain which had got wet and slippery with the rains, rope was tied off a 35 feet tall tree. We were given a zoomer, gri-gri, carabiner and ropes for rappelling. From each team 3 people were supposed to participate with participation of 1 lady a must and for the rest 2 activities the entire team was to participate. This was my first rappelling experience and truly speaking the technique confused me. But somewhere midway in the air I got a hang of it and made it to the top of the tree! Damn…it was hard but a great experience.
Post the games we rushed back to our rooms, and thankfully the water supply had restored by then. We washed and changed and packed our stuff. Our lunch was arranged in Kemmangundi, 8 km drive uphill.
Post our lunch we started off for Bangalore. Nice breezy weather followed by rain coupled with Kishore Kumar retro songs made our day. I had a terrible headache by then so I decided to a pop a pill and get some sleep while the team engaged in antakshari, the music game. We reached Bangalore around 1930 hrs while I reached home by 2130 hrs after securing some stuff at the office which I carried for the trip. Having no strength or patience to eat I hit the sack and funny enough I found myself discussing the intricate techniques and ways to follow to make trek easy, in my dreams….
Technically my first adventurous trek (long time back I did 11 km on roads in Ooty with my school friends which I now will call a walk and not a trek!). Well, all in all it was a super trip, super memories fringed with some super cool camera shots!
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