Narasimha parvatha Trek

Writing a treklogue after two years of gap and speaking about a trek done an year before can be time taking task. But here I go, trying to recollect the memories of the most adventurous, scary treks I’ve done till day.

It was November 2013, the grasslands was still green after a good rainy season. Me and my cousins decided to do a post-rainy season trek. After a lot of brainstorming and taking help of Google, we short listed two treks, EttinaBhuja – Ombattu Gudda – Hosakere trek and Amedikallu trek. Aim was to get rid of all fatigue, keep a check on our physical strength after break of nearly 3 months. And my cousins were about to trek Himalayas in November, so It was a get-in-line trek for them.

We were about to book tickets to Mudigere and suddenly Harsha read about Narasimha Parvatha – Manipura kote trek in one of the blogs, he was impressed. He told me lets do this one for now.

I knew about this trek from long time and was on my to-do list ever since. I told him, there are two approaches, we’ll take the toughest and longest one, if yes we’ll do this. He instantly agreed.

Without second thought, we called Venkatest of Mallandur, a guide who helps people conquer NP. He readily agreed and it was finalized to do the treks in the coming weekend.

Team: Me, Harsha, Jyothi, Varsha, Jagadish.

Approaches:

        Agumbe – Mallandur – NP – Kigga – Sringeri.

2      Sringeri – Kigga – NP – Kigga – Sringeri.

We reached Kammardi on Saturday morning in Jagadish’s Amaze, Kammardi is where we hail from. Had an awesome akki-rotti with lumps of Butter breakfast, thanks to Jagadish’s mother. Hired a car to drop us to mallandur, 27km from Kammardi (take left a km before Agumbe town), reached Mallandur by 8:30.

Drama Unfolds:

Filled our bottles at Venkatesh’s house, had an formal introduction with the guide. Guide made us clear with these things.

1)     Distance to NP is 17km from his house.

2)     We are not stopping for first 6kms as the forests are inhabited by Naxalites and the battle between naxalites and STF is an evergoing thing here. After 6kms, we’ll be out of danger of sighting both of them.

3)     Even if we sight any of them, it’ll be difficult to answer them, because they’ll shoot if they doubt us.

4)     Stay together, Agumbe forests are the thickest in Karnataka, once you are lost, you are lost forever.

5)     Danger of King Cobras, most venomous snake found in India, grows up to 20ft long, found only in western ghats of Agumbe region.

6)     No or very little stops as we have to reach NP before sunset, its too dangerous to trek in night there.

We listened to everything carefully, agreed to whatever he said.

The path starts right in front his house, initial altitude, 600mts MSL.Plan was to reach Barkana falls for lunch and rest. Barkana was midway in to the trek with an altitude of 500MSL.

Initial climb for an hour took us to 700mts MSL and we started a gradual descent in the forest. Not even a single ray of light was falling on earth, Grass, Plants grown up-to 10ft, if the person behind us missed a turn, it was all over, we stayed together all the time. We started pleading for a break after 2hours in to trek, guide was not convinced. He kept saying, “not until 6kms” .

After he was sure we are out of danger zone, he gave us a break for 15min. it was 650mts MSL. We had chocolate bars, Apples, Soy Milk to re-energize ourselves and get ready for the tough climb ahead.

Started walking towards Barkana (500mts MSL) descent went on and on, I started fearing we are going to hit 0mts MSL if we continue our descent and it will be too much to climb to 1200mts MSL for NP.

We were 9kms from our base and we crossed our 1^st stream, yes it was Barkana stream, before making a 250mts mighty fall. If you are wondering, yes we were on top of the Barkana falls, not in front of it. Took a round about to reach the tip of the falls.

Lunch break! It was 12:30 and we were very hungry. Walking 9kms in 3 and half hours without breaks in not a small task. Harsha went to the tip of the falls, he couldn’t take any pictures. It was very tough negotiating all the rocks, trees, speeding stream, gravity ready to act on to it to take a dip of 250mts.

We finished Packed Chapathi in no time, filled our water bottles, took a rest for 30 odd minutes. We started our walk towards NP at around 1:30.

A waterfall overlooking Barkana. 

efforts to rech Tip of Barkana.

The climb started as soon as we left Barkana. Forest was not thick as before but climb was consistent. We started asking for breaks but guide was in state of no mercy. We kept on ascending for next 2 hours with 2 small breaks to take our breath. It was almost 4 when we hit grasslands at 900mts MSL and clouds all around. We still had 3 hours climb on the grasslands/forests to reach NP. We took at 20min break to cherish some musambi / oranges and gain the lost salt from our body.

By then Jyothi started cramping and our pace reduced to very little. Once I lost hold of the tent I was holding and it went down running through the slope of grasslands in a flash. Jagadish came to rescue to run behind it and got hold of it. We had one steep climb left and later it was a flat surface walk for a km to reach NP Peak. We took a break of 15 min to let Jyo gain her strength back, ate lots of chocolate bars, Fruits.

Resumed the climb to find out later that, the steep hike is never ending. Even though we wanted to break, we didn’t. sun was setting fast, we had to reach our Camping point, a small old house build by forest department, had to collect firewood, water for cooking, setting up tents before it was dark.

We pushed ourselves to our limits yet the peak was nowhere to be found. By 5:30 we reached the base of peak and decided to hike to peak next morning. A little descent took us to the old house. View was panoramic!

Once we reached our camp site, we realized why guide pushed us so hard and never let us take breaks. If we had taken the climb lightly, we wouldn’t have reached NP before dark.

Harsha, Varsha, Jagadish went to collect water from a nearby waterhole which has water throughout the year. We again went to collect firewood for cooking. 

Jyothi and varsha started preparing dinner for the night, me and Jagadish put up our tents.

It was too cold and we were too tired to do anything. Yet the spirits were up, Jyothi prepared an awesome “Pindimirium”, her own special Sambar . I cooked rice, Varsha made the best Corn Cucumber Salad.

Guide slept inside the house and we in our tents. Night was eventless. Had a sound sleep to wake up at 6 next morning for sunrise. But it was all mist and couldn’t see sun till 8.

NP Peak.

Same procedures followed to collect Water and firewood for breakfast. Avarekalu Uppittu was our breakfast. Finished breakfast, packed our bags and went to climb the peak. Climb was tiring yet we enjoyed the cool breeze on the peak.

Descent was fast and easy, a 6km walk to reach Kigga, a small temple village 10kms from Sringeri.

We decided to go to famous Sirimane falls, took an auto to drop us a to Sirimane, 4kms from Kigga.

Played in the falls for almost 2 hours, by then our car was waiting for us to take back to Kammardi. An eventful, adventurous trek ended!!