The Trek to Remember

This is gonna be a long read folks, watch out.

Just as we planned, we gathered at Shantala Saree Store to embark on a journey long awaited. There were 5 girls and 16 boys. We greeted each other and seated ourselves in the mini bus. And that’s how we started the journey together to the destination that was far away, basking in the foggy night 300km to the West. Charmadi Ghat sat like a centre of a maze puzzle.

Day 1

What started as a relaxed journey ended with all our tummies stirred up. But, none of us threw up. It was still dark with the fog setting on every last thing on the earth. Post-monsoon weather was refreshing and pleasant. Those of us who wanted out,  alighted the bus quickly and started to walk around. Our stay was planned at this temple “Panchalingeshwara Devasthana”, which was around 5km away from the Ghat.

Everyone seemed quickly recovered from the nauseating journey and thrilled at the 4 am beauty of the morning. You see, not every day do we get up at 4 am to the Singing birds, screeching crickets and croaking frogs.  The cold breeze carried visible jets of the fog making it look like it was raining fog. We didn’t realise how quick the time passed chatting with the co-trekkies  and taking pictures. And soon day broke and we were all hungry like wolves. There was a small hotel close by where we had ‘Neer dose’ and ‘Idlivada’. We also packed our lunches and drove off to the Mountain foot.

We left most of the baggage in the bus except for a few essentials such as water bottles, lunch box, rain coat and snacks. It turned out that the raincoat was “non-essential”. You’d realise the importance of the rule, ‘Keep it light’ when you fight the gravity. The rule is the same, be it aircraft's and hiking humans.

We gathered at the mountain foot and our organiser Lohith briefed us on a few do’s and donts’ for the trek. Soon we were joined by our guide Ibrahim. There’s something I have to mention about this person. The man had lost his hand during a dynamite fishing venture. We heard he had to walk 13 km to the hospital before he could be fixed up as much as possible. No wonder he was at a whole different level of strength when compared to any of us during the entire trek. He carried a machete in his good hand and cut through the stubborn creepers and tall grass to make way for us, since there was no trail.

Starting Point

PC - Lohith

What started aseasy hike gradually turned into a testing trek. About 2 km up, we were sweating all over. I could hear my heart beat despite all the jungle noise around. Beginners including myself took our time to buckle up and get going. Lohit, Chandra and Ahmed sweeping the group waited on us patiently and kept pushing us.Shilpa and Sapna shared the glucose and chocolates to boost our energies. Personally, this was the most crucial part of my whole trekking experience. The little baggage I carried was weighing me down along with high humidity.We had to be on a constant self-talk and ‘try our best’ to get over our lazy asses. It was one of the most learning experiences. During this time inside the forest stretch we spotted 2 pit vipers. I almost stamped on of them.

Eventually we picked up the speed and kept the pace. As we climbed on,out of the forest into the grasslands, sun shone upon our light heads. Sweat glands were pouring out. Raghu was wringing off the sweat from his head band for the fifth time by now. We atechocolates emptied bottles and sat down for few minutes. Now we could see the peak.  With no humidity anymore, we felt better. We climbed on the heated rocks and tried to look as hot as we could manage for the pictures. We had to hurry before sun beat us. So, we kept on foot through the tall grass. When we finally touched the peak at around 12 pm, we picked our spots and dropped all the things and ourselves on the ground.

Later we ate our lunches silently and yearned formore water. Nonetheless, EriKalluGudda was breath-taking and breath-giving at the same time. We could see the boulders of BalekalluGudda and KodekalluGudda from here.  The wind under the EriKallu was soothing our sunburnt body and drying our sweaty clothes. We didn’t leave before 1.30 pm.

All recharged and ready we started the descent. Fog had cleared up and the mountain ranges emerged from the foggy background. The view and the wind were both amazing. Most of us kept mum enjoying this while focusing on the foot hold on the treacherous grass land. The others stopped at places to take photographs and still managed to keep up with us. 

Descent was as demanding as the ascent, only with less sun. Dusk was setting in and the forest was getting ready for the night. It was much relaxing to walk the trail with the little stories with buddies. We found a stream on the way down, filled our bottles and continued. When we made it through the thorny branches, slippery grass and lose ground, it was about 5 p.m. We were just so happy to be seeing the road again.

The bus arrived in 5 minutes and we got on our little ride to our base camp. As soon as we reached we took our clothes and walked to the river Nethravathi  for bath which was a just 10 mins walk from the base camp. All the exhaustion of the day disappeared in the moment our bodies hit the water. The serenity of the river spread around to the whole area was almost tangible.

It’s surprising how many stars you can spot when you are away from the city lights. How I missed this view in our Bengaluru. So on this starry night we cooked ‘veg pulao’ in the temple kitchen. It came out surprisingly well. Turns out, our Chandra is a great Chef too. Everyone enjoyed the food. Even the temple priests had the food and some got it packed to home. Later by 10:30, we had all our tents and other sleeping arrangements set up and then we went straight to sleep. 

Day 2

The mysterious singing bird and the cold morning wind broke the day for us. Some of us woke up early and walked to the river and some slept for some more time. By the time Vani and I were back from the river, all were up and active. We did our part in the kitchen and went on to play cricket.  It was ‘AvalakkiUppittu ’ for breakfast and ‘Chitranna (lemon rice)’ for lunch. We sipped on our tea, ate the delicious breakfast and packed the lunch and took to the roads again.

Out of the bus into the forest trail, the destination was KodeKallugudda today. It was scorching midday already. We all were told that this was going to be the easier one. It was about 12:30am when we reached the peak. Kodekallu was so called because of the umbrella (kode)-like rock at the peak. It could easily shelter around 30 people. This was the most scenic and soothing place of the day. We spent around 45 minutes here and walked our way to BalekalluGudda.

By the end of reaching the peak we were exhausted due to sun and tricky grass land. I was disheartened to hear there were no rocks or any shade at the peak. Later I realized that every peak has something to offer when I saw the beautiful range of mountains layered and shaded differently due to fog.  The wind at the peak was compensating for the shade. We sat at the edge under Sun’s watch with cold mountain wind cooling our bodies. The lunch tasted way too better than it did in the morning. Curd was the delicacy most in demand and shared fairly among us good folks.

We sat there after the lunch gazing at the humongous result of unfathomable series of events that this part of the earth endured. That’s the thing about mountains. They’ve been here longer than us all, yet so alive and changing. One can only wonder.

Used to the hardships of the mountains by now, we descended with much more ease than otherwise. We even sang our way here and there. Later the guide took us to a stream which was thin yet flowing. Ahhh! The feeling you get when you immerse your tired and heated feet in the water is inexplicable. The cold water took away all the pain in the foot immediately.

Further on our way down, we saw a trail well-made with the branches from the nearly trees tore down. We instantly knew who did it. We could spot the elephant dung all over the place. Since it was getting late we hurried our way down and soon we were sitting in the bus enjoying music with a smile on our face. We thanked and dropped the guide at his home, reached our base camp and headed towards the river for one last bath here.

The river blessed us with all her purity and took away our exhaustion at once. She looked beautiful with sun setting in the west and the crescent moon lighting up the evening clear sky. All of us enjoyed in the river as long as we could and headed back to the camp to pack-up. We left the temple around 7:15pm andreached Dharmasthala which is only 20 km away by 8. There we had dinner and hit the road back to Namma Bengaluru. 

This time around, the faces we saw on 4^th night at the first huddle were more than just faces. We knew each other in a way different than knowing a colleague. We supported each other in our own way. I had a lot to takeaway, definitely more than I can jot down here. We all had our moments here, which are treasured for life. That’s our Western Ghats for you.

Narrated by: Shashikala
Event date: 5th & 6th Nov, 2016
Place: Charmadi Ghats, Karnataka
No. of hikers: 21 (15 M, 05 F)
Event Organizer: Lohith V N
Photos of the event: Coming soon...
Photo Courtesy:

Kudremukha Hike: 23 - 24 July 2016

It all started when my exams got over last month. Being an adventure and nature freak,I wanted to go on a trek in the western ghats.After much research I decided on Tadiyandamol trek in Coorg district. I immediately started collecting more details on this and informed my friends. However the trek kept on postponing and I felt some of them weren’t interested at all. Weeks went to months and my patience grew weaker. By this time 2 of my friends Nithin and Lokesh went off to Mullayanagiri and other places. I too badly wanted to go somewhere soon. I came across a post for Kudremukh trek organized by Bangalore Hikers for the upcoming weekend and immediately decided to go for it. I told it to others on Thursday night and they were quite surprised.

We had to gather in Majestic at 10.30pm on 22nd July(Friday). At 10.15pm I saw the group standing. I was fully nervous as this was the first time I was going on a trek with total strangers. I met the trek organizer Ahmed and introduced myself to the group. We left for Kudremukh at 10.45pm. We made a quick stop at the petrol bunk for refueling and we all(thirteen of us) gathered in a circle and introduced ourselves. I was the youngest among them and others were all working people. We continued our journey after this intro.

I woke up at 4.30am and after seeing the way the driver was driving our TT, I couldn’t sleep back again. I opened up the windows and the cold, pollution-free air hit upon my face and it was quite refreshing to feel and inhale it. We reached a village called Balgal from which we had to take a half hour jeep ride to Aruna’s homestay at Mullodi. The ride was full of small streams and after 15 minutes it was entirely muddy road. It was a roller coaster ride till the homestay.

Imagine waking up and the first thing you see in the morning is this ~

Yes, this was the view from the door of Aruna’s home. Pretty cool right!

Guest Lecture in VIT University on Hiking

On March 21st, 2016, Santosh, Co-Founder of Bangalore Hikers received an email from Vellore Institute of Technology where Bangalore Hikers was invited as a chief guest to inaugurate their VIT trekking club 5th anniversary. The Board members of VIT requested a member form Bangalore Hikers to give a guest lecture on Empowerment of Women in Trekking. Perfect theme, I would say.

VIT Events

We spoke with one of their board members and understood their expectations for the talk. The students want us to share our passion for trekking through inspirational talks and presentations. They requested us to focus on women empowerment, since they felt the number of women in their club was eventually less when compared to male. So, our lecture was mainly focused more on encouraging women towards trekking and made them understand that trekking is not a male ruled passion.

VIT Trekking Club 5th Anniversary Agenda

Though trekking undoubtedly needs a lot of stamina, throughout our speech we carried a message that trekking needs more of will power than stamina by sharing our real experience from the past trekking events. We explained the problem women face during trekking and how to overcome them. We displayed the beautiful pictures clicked during Dudhasagar trip and all the students got impressed with the Serene beauty and were glued to the screen. At the end, they requested us to arrange a trip to Dudhsagar for them. They have also organized many events like Triathlon, Treasure hunt as a part of 5th anniversary and requested us to distribute the prize for the winners.

The students requested us to do a workshop on camping and their highly positive spirit did not let us down from sharing all our experience.
After the lecture and workshop, I met few of the students and explained them that women are no less as trekkers. One of the Adventure Freak reminisce the formation of VIT Trekking Club and how a group of adventure freaks started this club on 9th July, 2010. It was great to meet the students of VIT University who was very passionate about trekking.

We had a request from students to stay with them for a night camping and share the experience of Night Treks, horror stories and memorable trekking experience.  We stayed with the students that night and taught them the basis of camping and tents.

All the facilities such as stay, food and travel was arranged by VIT.

No doubt, this event is a feather in cap for Bangalore hikers. 

Written by: Deepika Muthusamy
Event date: 23rd April, 2016
Place: Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu
Lecture by: Deepika Muthusamy
Photos of the event: Guest Lecture in VIT University on Hiking, 23 April, 2016

A Dream Trek to Kallu Ghati & Dabbe Waterfalls (Sharavathi Valley)

The moment I saw this post on the Bangalore Hikers Webpage, there came a bright smile with a musical memory of our own Dr. Rajkumar singing “ಶರಾವತಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ನಾಡ ಭಾಗಿರಥಿ , ಪುಣ್ಯವಂತರು ಬರ್ತಾರಿಲ್ಲಿ ದಿನಂಪ್ರತಿ !” (Sharavathi is the Bhagirathi river for Karnataka) forcing me to deny all reasons to say No for this trek.
Amidst the beautiful Sahyadri range, this massive river running in a valley beautifying the already beautiful western Ghats! Rich in flora and fauna and the villagers so humble and friendly, this beauty of Malenadu has no words to describe its goodness. Dating back to olden days of Kuvempu, Shimoga Subbanna , Dr. G S Shivarudrappa and so on, Malenadu has borne and seen the best of Kannada Literature / Music days.

Feeling immensely proud for having done this trek recently, here I am going to pen down my experience at the trek and the best things which made this trek a memorable one.

Forest Dept MileStone

Started from Bangalore on the 20th of May 16, a group of 12 individuals, some already familiar with other members and some first timers, we, gathered at our common pickup point – Majestic. There was huge traffic because it was a Friday evening, which caused a 30 minutes delay . We left Bangalore at 10.30 in a Tempo traveler. The orientation for the trek occurred in a petrol pump while the TT was devouring diesel. The Juicy part of the orientation was a box of home made gajar ka halwa prepared by Santosh, the co-founder of Bangalore Hikers. Post orientation we left to out respective positions inside the TT and unlike other trek drives, this one was comparatively quieter one!

Day 1 : 21 May 2016

We reached Sagara town in the morning by 6 am and got into the IB to get freshened up. This is where we met our dear Guide the tiny but loud (read as Very talkative) Sandeep. We did not waste much time in freshening up and started darting towards the hotel to have breakfast. Truly, madly in Love with Mangalore Buns, I made the best of my breakfast and devoured it!!

We bought grocery for lunch and dinner for next day and started from Sagara towards Bhatkala in the TT. We crossed Muppane forest area and proceeded further around the Sharavathi Wildlife Sanctuary.
Unable to recollect exact village name, but were close towards Sigandur.

This is the first time I trekked along the river and it was quite an experience. When we started first , there were some school children standing on the bund and watching us (read fools) walking on the dried river stream where as there was a perfectly good road running parallel to it. I asked a child prankfully “alli road idyene? (is there a road)”, she laughed loud and said “ide (it is there!)” and am sure they all took us to be fools taking tough rocky trail when there is a perfectly fine road along. After about 300-400m, the stream took a deviation into the forest.
That was when the feel of trekking started. Slowly sun started rising to welcome us to the mid –noon. There was scarce water in the stream. While we parted ways (Same fast trekkers VS Slow trekkers saga!) , we hiked a small extra distance to witness a beautiful grassland above this Valley! There was a good steep climb of around 500m in length and since the forest was virgin, there was no sight of trail! Sandeep came looking for us and then we hiked down and trekked a bit more to reach our lunch spot. It was only about 12.30pm, we had lunch , took bath and rested there for a while to continue our trek to Kallu Ghati.

Small stream on the way...

Summer is a good time to do these river treks , but there was very little water at the kallu ghati falls! Lot of us were disappointed, but nevertheless the beauty of the Valley and the stream gave us a relaxing pacification. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, I will tell you why), there was no flat surface to pitch a tent on the huge rocky terrain and we settled for camping by the stream since the next place (Dabbe Falls) was about 1 km steep hike and then again total 5kms by trek. Since it was already late and It was getting dark, we agreed upon sleeping on the rocks.

We spent the evening playing Bluff and cleaning the rock making rocky bed, and who would dare to miss mentioning FOOD ANTAKSHARIIIII!!!! That is the star game of every trek (mostly)

It started real clean with DECENT food and shooted up, got really nasty with “Susu with lime” and “Gomutra” … This time also it was a fun and innovative group who discovered new dishes for antakshari within a snap of a finger!

We had our dinner and some went to sleep post dinner. But I was not getting sleep and for good.

At around 1 am, the moon was at the zenith of its beauty since it was a Full Moon Day (Guru Purab) and I swear to God there could not be a serene beauty as such with stream gleaming with silver moon light and the melody of flowing river! One has to witness and live this enticing moment once in lifetime. At certain places where moonlight could penetrate, it made astounding patterns on the dark trees. For a moment it was giving an illusion of someone showing a torch. That bright was the moonlight!! And on the left side of the Valley where the palm trees made a step like arrangement, moon light spread itself making it look like a stairway to heaven! Or was the moon planning to get down the stairs to take a shower in the stream?
I wish I was a poet to glorify the beauty of that evening. I wish there were words enough to ponder and explain that exact feeling one will go through on seeing such a magic of nature.
This probably is only one tenth of what my feelings were seeing that glorious beauty.
We live only once and if one hasn’t witnessed beauty of nature at any point of time and awed at it, I feel really sorry for that person...

Day 2 : 22 May 2016

Next morning was a bright sunny morning! We were up by 6am and started getting freshened up to continue the trek. We ate our breakfast and packed bags to set the journey. We cleared up all that we dirtied, leaving no signs of Human Nuisance! Why am I making this point here is, if Nature has so many nice things to give us, we should not leave poison like Plastic, tins, glasses etc. which may be hazardous to the nature. If she has so much love and caring for us, we have no rights to ruin her beauty. So we made sure we made minimal damage(I am sure we did to some extent by intruding) before we left the place at 9am.

The next phase of the trek was awesome too. It is a perfect 80 degrees climb of about 1 kms length. It was very challenging as we had to climb with our backpacks and make way for ourselves holding some uprooted tree roots. An amazing experience for me of my lifetime. It was tough and very challenging to make groove to keep the feet, hold the root to gain momentum and fix the other feet to a higher level. It needs upper body strength and the whole team did wonderful job there by hiking it with no issues at all. After the vigorous climb was a moderate hike of about 5kms to the Dabbe Falls.
The whole trail was full of leeches and these leeches had their share of Bangalore Hikers Blood without any hesitation. This was that small favor we returned to the nature. I never kill a leech if it bites me. Trust me I gently remove and throw it aside. It doesn’t have to die! For all the niceness I show towards the nature, there was this one angry Hornet which didn’t certainly like me! I realized that this Hornet was following me from a certain distance, and when it came in front of my face and went all around me once to make sure it has got the right target, it intelligently chose a highly inaccessible place on my body!!! No need to scratch your head a lot, it went and stung my hamstring!! I mean seriously? That is one place I cannot even see! I had severe radiating pain. It was so bad, I started abusing the Hornet! I shrieked out of pain. That hell of a pain I had never ever experienced in life. I cursed that insect to my heart and continued the trek.

We reached Manjappas home (I think its called Manjappas home only) at around 11.30 am and got rid of the bags after trekking 5kms. We took only few things like lunch, water and dry clothes as the way to the waterfall was very steep and dangerous to carry the backpacks.

We spent some more time at Manjappas’ and started towards the fall. There was another group (WORTH MENTIONING) of men who had carried food and BEVERAGES !! trust me they had carried alcohol to take to the fall.
We climbed down. This way was too steep and risky. The first slope was quite challenging and a straight 90 degrees drop of about 10ft without anything to hold on to (other than the far spread roots). We carefully got down this slope and after another 300m there was another. The best one was almost about 750m from the top and there was just a rope. This was rocky slope of 90 degrees with few grooves, hardly giving any grip. So, once has to hang his body lose, give a 70-80 degree angle to the slope and rappel down!! It was one of the best experiences!! We successfully made it to the base of the fall and only to be mesmerized by the awesomeness of the beauty called Dabbe Falls.!!! She is epitome of surprise and beauty mixed with melody.
She is a tall beauty of 253m (Source Internet) and even in summer she was full like a loving mother. The other group was already enjoying alcohol while we waited for them to give some way to sit under water. They were not troubling otherwise (we were two ladies in the group), and were decent enough to let us play In water after some time. Desperate were we to get into the water, we plunged and played and had a gala time at the pool made by the water. We ate our lunch, got ready for a group photo session (and of course solo sessions too!)

After series of photo-shoots, we set to leave from the waterfall. Lohit showed me a very tiny green snake at the small poodle of water and the shy snake started climbing the rock. I also unfortunately witnessed the leftovers of the beer –boys crap! They had thrown food and palm –leaves plates and BEER TINS. I request readers to follow some rules while going to such serene places. We have no rights to ruin this.

We took 30minutes time to climb and reach Manjappas place. Our dear friend Modi took hot water from their home and made amazing lemon tea which was just that thing needed at the moment. We packed, bid bye to Manjappa and started rest of the hike towards Hosagadde.
It was a 5km journey and we walked a mix of small hikes, streams, one or two houses, jeep tracks and a hell a lot of mango trees. The mangoes were ripe and no one seemed to care for these. We also found a treasure of a guava tree bearing fully ripe big guavas. We devoured like never before and continued walk to find few Date palms!!! How wonderful can it get?

We reached Hosagadde by 5pm and got into the TT which was waiting for us there.
We reached Sagara by 6pm, visited a nice restaurant serving Yummy dosa, Maddur Vade and Bhajji. We enjoyed our evening snacks with amazing tea. We bid a formal farewell to Sandeep our friendly, humorous guide and started to Bangalore.

We stopped at Shimoga for dinner and our formal feedback session for Bangalore Hikers. We got good feedback and some pointers on improvement side too from the participants including me. Since all were tired and sleepy from the trek, everyone dived into sleep after dinner.

We reached Bangalore at 4am from the most memorable, adventurous trek for 2016 monsoon.

Written by: Mamta Rivonkar
Event date: 21st & 22nd May, 2016
Place: Kallu Ghati and Dabbe Waterfalls, Sharavathi Valley, Karnataka
No. of hikers: 12 (10 M, 02 F)
Event Organizer: Lohith V N
Photos of the event: Coming soon...
Photo Courtesy:
Author's blog link: A Dream Trek to KalluGhati and Dabbe Waterfalls (Sharavathi Valley)

In the Nest of Forest - Dudhsagar Hiking

As someone wisely said,

In the end, we only regret the chances that we didn’t take.

And luckily for me this is one of those chances that I didn’t let go. It’s been two weeks since I returned from the Dudhsagar trekking, but the experiences are etched in my memory like it happened only yesterday.

Click on the image to see the full view

This was my second trek to Dudhsagar (link to my first Dudhsagar trek) and the magnificent Dudhsagar falls has grown more splendid by the day. This time, our trekking was a little different from the last time and more adventurous, I must say. We (group of 17 wonderful people) began our journey on the Friday evening. All of us boarded our train at 2 different stations whichever was convenient to us and the journey began. I already knew few of them from my previous treks and a few new people. And how can I forget first event of the journey FOOD ANTHAKSHARI, I recommend everyone must play this game and within no time you are a master chef!

We reached Castlerock around 10 o’clock morning. As we had already booked a farmhouse, those people were waiting for us already there and the jeep safari began through the woods and streams. After around 30 minutes, reached farmhouse, had some refreshments and started our exploration of the forest and the streams.

What an exploration it was!!! It’s everywhere greenery as far as you can lay yours eyes on. Anywhere you turn, the view was so mesmerizing. And icing on the cake, the raining which never left our side for the next 2 days and did I complain about it??!!!

We had a guide to show us a spectacular waterfall in the middle of the forest. We got to cross a few ice-cold water streams on our way. Oh yeah, here I must mention we had other companions too throughout our journey, the tiny, creepy crawlers, the Leeches. The moment you stop walking, they would crawl up your legs and you wouldn’t even know that they are feasting on your blood. I was a little afraid of them in the beginning, but the experience you get walking the deep forest and playing the waterfalls, greenery everywhere, it’s all worth it. We all played there in the water for a while and after some photo sessions, started back to the farmhouse.

In the farmhouse they had a Desi paintball game for us. Few of us were so exhausted we didn’t play the game, but I can say they were having a great time by hearing their screaming and shouting.

After that, we all freshened up setup camp fire, played music and had some nice food. The next day, had to get up in the middle of the night and began trekking to Dudhsagar. This was so adventurous, walking in the middle of nowhere and no light to guide you forward, a new experience altogether and then came THE DESTINATION, the magnificent, spectacular, Dudhsagar in its full glory.

I am getting short of words describe the feeling when you see the falls. It can only be felt, no words can ever be able to explain that. All of us felt a sense of great happiness. Then came the photo session of course, and after sometime, we started back to Kulem.

On the way back, there was a small stream in the middle where we taken natural Jacuzzi, spent sometime and got back to Kulem railway station and back to Bangalore. This is one of the most adventurous, memorable, beautiful trekking. Thanks a lot everyone to make it to this trekking and shared the memories with me. I had a great time.
Thanks to BH and Santosh for organizing this and made sure everything went well.

Written by: Pavithra Shivanna
Event date: 8th & 9th August, 2015
Place: Dudhsagar Water Falls, Goa
No. of hikers: 18 (11 M, 07 F)
Event Organizer: Santosh Kumar Gupta
Photos of the event: Dhudhsagar Hiking : 8 - 9 Aug, 2015
Photo Courtesy: Kartik, Santosh, Anshul