Kumarparvatha - 1

Kumar Parvatha(translated in English, as the 'Virgin Mountain') is the third tallest peak in Karnataka. And most trekkers say, the toughest trail in Karnataka. It can be scaled from 2 sides. One side is from Kukke Subramanya and the other side is from Somwarpet in Coorg. We decided to take the Kukke route, which is about 10 kms to the peak.

So, on the 8th of March, five of us i.e. Arun, Roxana, Santosh, Vishal and I were waiting in the KBS platform no 23 for catching the bus to the temple town of Subramanya. The bus duly came around 10.45 PM and we were sitting on the last row of the Rajhamsa. Not sure about the others, but I was pretty happy to get the window seat(as I wanted to catch the fresh and cool night breeze), unmindful of what was to happen later in the night. The bus started fromKSRTC Bus Stand. I watched the bus meandering through the empty Bangalore roads illuminated by the halogen lamps, and was slowly drowsing away, wondering why the same streets look so messy in the day-time.

A little digression now to introduce my trek mates. Roxie was working in an aviation firm, had prior experience of trekking in Sar-ki pass. Vishal and Arun were doing their Bachelor's, and were on their first trek. Santosh was the leader of the trek, a veteran of many treks . As for myself, after Barai valley, I was just fully turned on :P

Around 1A.M the bus arrived at Channarayapatna. And after a 10 minute stop, we were soon past Hassan and going towards Sakleshpura. I was looking at the sky and admiring the star lit sky. At 3 A.M I got a very nasty jolt,which was the first among quite a few jolts to follow. Then I began to realize that last seat was not the best seat on these roads. For the next 3 hours, it was like playing a game of Russian Roulette. Never know when the next almost-back-breaking bump is going to come.I even tried standing for sometime. But this time my head used to knock the roof of the bus during every bump. And with the ghat roads, the KSRTC bus going at such a speed, nothing could be more approrpiate than the song "highway to hell" from AC.DC, which incidentally was playing on my mind continuously. To say that the bus journey was a torture, would be an understatement. Finally around, 6'o clock on the morning, dawn broke out and we were at the Subramanya bus stand at 6.30, unloading our rucksacks from the bus. This lack of sleep would prove to be dear to me later in the day :(

After finishing our daily ablutions at the public toilet offered by the temple authorities, we had a quick breakfast. After distributing the sleeping bags among each of us and checking up on our water stocks, soon we were on our way out to Kumara Parvatha. The initial road was a muddy one and went through some small lanes, typical of small towns in India. Soon we came across a signboard, which indicated the route upto Kumar Parvatha. That lightened up our spirits and soon we were trudging our way up the trail. In India, you will find people everywhere. KP was no exception. There were some 8-9 groups trekking on the same day. Arun and Vishal were at the lead of the pack in our group. I was huffing and puffing in the middle. I was followed by Santosh and Roxanna. That was pretty much the order till the end of the day.

I took a lot of breaks in between, stopping every 30 minutes to catch my breath. No wonder, dad asks me to goto the gym :) . We were covered by the shade of the forest for around 2 hours, the path being a little steep though. After that, we entered a huge open space, then it was just the hot blazing sun, beating upon us. I clicked quite a lot of photos in the meanwhile. Once we exited the forest, we could see the Subramanya temple in the main town.

We reached Bhatta Mane's place at around 12 for lunch. The place is known as GiriGade. Bhatta has his own farm and cows. I heard one of his relatives goes down to Subramanya town everyday to sell the milk. Bhatta's house was quite a welcome relief. For not only we found shade, but also some rather icy-cold water which was coming straight down from the mountains according to Santosh. I don't like having rice and sambar generally and that too complimented with butter milk. But that day was an exception. I was ready to eat anything which came my way. By 12.30 , I was fully loaded on the above mentioned items and even managed to
catch some sleep. By 1 PM, we were ready to start for the next leg of our journey.

After a 2min-walk from Bhatta Mane's place, we came across the forest department office, where we need to get the permission. After finishing the formalities we were on our way. But progress was slowed down quite a bit by the scorching sun. I was carrying two 4 litre bottles. One 2L bottle is enough, as you have the refilling option available at Bhatta Mane. 2 bottles add too much weight, which I realised later could hamper one's progress. The breaks became far more frequent now. All of us were losing breath. To add to my misery, whenever I stopped to take rest, I used to fell asleep only to be awakened by a passing trekker. At around 4 PM, we came across a waterhole, where we washed ourselves a bit. After around 10 minutes, we
reached the Mantapa, and carried on ahead with our journey. Soon it was 5, and sun was also lessening in intensity. We made a quick check of ourselves, and decided that going to peak in the dark was not feasible. So, we decided to return back to waterhole and find a camping place near it. Finally, at around 6, we set up camp near the waterhole.

Soon, all of us had freshened up and were ready for the dinner. A fire was setup with the help of petrol and some dead wood. We had quite a delicious helping of maggi for dinner. After some arbit chit-chat, we were inside our tents by 8 PM. The day being tiring as it was, I quickly fell asleep. At around 9, strong winds started blowing in KP and the tent was just flapping.
Initially I thought some animal might be near our tents and we were lighting our torches. But as the wind picked up, we knew that the famous winds of KP have come to welcome us. The other tent was under the greater threat of collapsing, so Santosh was doing some quick fix with that tent. I got out of our tent and came out to enjoy(?) the gutsy winds. First of all, the winds hardly allowed me to stand on the ground, and were continuously pushing me forward. So, I sat down on one of the rocks and admired the star-lit sky. There were zillions of stars. I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out the constellations. I began to thought about the universe, the big-bang and all those shit. Finally , around 11, I again went back to our tent. The rest of the night was spent between sleeping and the weird dream of being pushed down the slope along with the tent by the gutsy winds.

At around 5 A.M, I got up, and busied myself in taking some sunrise snaps. At around 6 A.M , the other tent which Santosh had managed to keep it propped up for the entire night, collapsed, leaving in its wake the poor inhabitants, woken out of their slumber.

After a quick breakfast, all of us were on our way down towards Bhatta Maane. Around 10'o clock we reached his place. After having the breakfast , we set off for the final descent around 11. The journey down was painful with my shoe torn in the middle. However, taking rests in between on the way down, we managed to be at the Subramanya bus stand by around 1.15 PM, just enough time for a quick lunch and wash ourselves to board the bus to bangalore at 3.00 PM.

The return journey had its own share of bumps and yes, we were again on the final seat :) . To add to the excitement of the last 2 days, the bus got punctured , and we had to take another bus to bangalore. We arrived at Majestic around 12 and left for our respective homes.

PS: It took me a week to recover from the bruised and battered body that I ended up with post-KP. But whenever I think of KP, I get reminded of a wonderful adventure for 2 days. And yes, I have got some unfinished business up there in those hills.

Hasta La Vista, I will be back.