Mission Possible -------------------- KP

Objective:

A trek on the western ghats, starting from Bidahalli, via Kumara Paravatha peak and ending in the temple town of Kukke

Levels:

There are four levels in this mission..
Level 1: Bidahalli to Forest office at the base of KP.
Level 2: Forest office to KP Pushpagiri peak.
Level 3: KP Pushpagiri peak to bhatra mane(Girigadhe).
Level 4: Bhatra mane to Kukke.

Players:

Praveen:

An enthusiastic player who will always be in the first group to reach any place..

Boyz:

The player with the lightest luggage..

Raghav:

The silent and efficient one

Nithin:

The photographer

These 4 players are the best ones to play this mission with.. They will always reach first and without any problems.. Now there are 3 back markers who will always be the last, whatever maybe the scenario..

PPR:

So fragile that the player gets injured too often.. Has starting and finishing trouble.. But above average player in the middle..

Chick Pooja:

Just the opposite of PPR, very enthusiastic in the starting and ending, otherwise always in the bottom 2.. Even a snail can walk faster..

MoMS:

Always the last and the slowest.. No one would dare to chose him..

Obstacles:

There are many obstacles.. Some of the prominent ones are torrential rains which makes the route slippery, the route itself, the unknown unseen wild animals and last but not least the blood sucking leeches

Weapons and Boosters:

Some of the energy boosters available are Chocolates, Biscuits, water and lots of other food items.. Once Level 3 is completed there is a big energy booster available at Bhatra mane.. Now coming to weapons, most of the weapons availble are to counter the least dangerous obstacle, that is leeches.. Salt, Tobacco, sunna being some.. The player Chick Pooja has an extra weapon, a kitchen knife.. Out of all the players available, PPR, Chick Pooja and Nithin are loaded with the most weapons while Praveen and MoMS are the ones with the least weapons..

I being the underdog supporter chose the weakest player among all, i.e, MoMS.. Yes the slowest one, but there is a saying that 'slow and steady one wins the race'.. mmm i know that this is no race.. but i liked the proverb :D.. Let the mission begin..

Even after reading all the junk above, if you want to continue reading, this is where the real trekking experience starts :P ;)..

It all started with uncertainty because of the Ayodhya verdict.. But somehow it did not get cancelled.. The real trip started with us meeting at Majestic bus stand.. I had not met Praveen and Harish(Boyz), so we had a little intro session.. Mmmm nothing but asking names :).. We took the 11 PM bus from Bangalore to Somwarpet.. The bus reached Somwarpet at around 6 AM the next morning where we had a nice breakfast.. The bus to Bidahalli was at 7.15 AM and it took around 1 hr to reach Bidahalli..

From Bidahalli we had to walk for around 5 kms to the base forest office.. On the way we found a nice little stream and we just couldn't resist the water and so we all jumped into it and took a refreshing dip..

After freshening up we continued our long and tiring journey towards the peak..

Then we reached the Forest office where they charged an entry fee of 115Rs per head.. Harsha(Chick Pooja) cracked a PJ asking if it is 115Rs per head, then how much will it cost for Ravan.. ( :P i know this is not needed)..

I just wanted to add it somewhere.. Totally impressed with the photography skills :)

From here started the real trek into the dense leech infested jungle.. Some of us had taken precautionary measures by wearing 2 pairs of socks, Harsha even had a layer of plastic cover in-between the 2 pairs.. Some applied tobacco all over their legs, painted sunna on their shoes, carried loads of salt, just in fear of a tiny little bug :o..

The trek was not a difficult one.. But for some reason Prasanna(PPR) was getting very tired in the beginning after some 3 kms trekking.. I asked him 2 to 3 times, that if he is really not feeling well, then we can go back.. I so wanted to go back for no valid reason.. I just wanted my Iron Leg legacy to continue :D..

If we even wait for some seconds, there will be atleast some 5 leeches trying to suck our blood.. So we could never a long break unless we find a big enough rock.. On such rocks the number of leeches will be drastically less..

In one such break, Praveen gave us all a Horlicks nutribar.. I donno if it was because of the bar or the rain which had started during the break, but suddenly Prasanna was full of energy..

The trek was really simple till this time.. But there were some 2 huge rocks which we had to climb.. They were inclined at around 20 - 30 degrees and it was slippery which was made even worse by the rains.. Somehow we managed to climb and reach the top of the peak at around 4.30 PM completely drenched and happy to have finished 7 kms trek.. And the view was simply wow..

Since it was raining continuously we wanted to put up the tents as early as possible.. But one of the tents was not proper, so we hatched a plan and made harsha, praveen and harish to sleep in that one :P..

The right side tent was perfect..

We went inside the tent which was too small for 4 of us to fit :(.. Somehow we went inside and had something to eat and took rest.. And the timing was also perfect, we viewed this amazing sunset.. It was really worth all the pain..

Prasanna was boasting till then that he never had a leech bite.. And just inside the tent he had 5 leech bites and we 3 were not even disturbed by the leeches :P.. We played UNO for some time and slept off at around 7.30 PM.. The tent and sleeping bags were not water proof, so we all were sleeping while getting soaked.. And the tent was not big enough to accommodate us all, so we could not stretch our legs :(.. Somehow we managed to sleep and i had a sound one..

The next morning we woke up to see the sunrise.. But this is all we could see due to dense fog cover..

We packed the tents and all our things and started the trek down.. This is where we made the first and only mistake.. We didn't know the way down and went some 1 km in the wrong way.. We had to come back and after some exploring we found a rock with a sign pointing the way down.. There was a steep rock just in the beginning of the way down.. At first we thought this is not possible as it was too steep.. But some how we managed to climb down the rock and after that it was very simple..

After 7kms of down trekking we reached Girigadhe where there is this bhatra mane who arranged lunch for us.. We had to tell him 2 days in advance for that..

Waiting hungrily for the food at Bhatra Mane.

The food was ok.. But for us who were deprived of good food for 1 complete day, it was tasting very good.. It costed 60Rs per person which was ok as it was in no man's land and it was around 5 to 6 kms trek to reach the town..

From there it was a simple 5 kms trek down.. But Prasanna got injured in-between and it took more than a hour to cover the last 1 km of the trek.. By the time we backmarkers reached Kukke town at around 4.30 PM, Nithin and Raghav had already booked a room.. We went to the room and freshened up..

We went to the Kukke Subramanya temple and thanked god(not me :)) for successfully completing the trek..

Had our dinner and got into the 8.45 PM bus to Bangalore..

Thus ended my first successful trip in a long long time..

A Jobless Trekker..

PS: Haha i myself could not read the complete post and slept in between.. Kudos to all those are reading this :D