In the second week of January I had a trip planned to Bangalore. The main goal here was to figure out some work in Bangalore and college.
However during the Sandakphu trek some of the trekkers there convinced me that Western Ghats is amazing and that I should absolutely trek the Kumarparvatha thing. Its long, its challenging, its fun.
I had another trek planned with some of my Bangalore friends. So, I had to figure out how to squeeze these two treks in a single weekend as I was traveling during the middle of the week for cheaper tickets. On top of this Richard Stallman came to India during that weekend (I got super lucky tbh) and I could attend his talk in person.
The Plan
Everyone said that Kumaraparvatha is a two day trek. Now I did not have 2 days to spare. I had to fit 2 treks in the weekend.
I had divided the weekend into two parts; Part 1, the trek to Kumaraparvatha and Part 2, the trek to Savandurga. My plan was flawless. The plan was to work from home on Friday and take an overnight bus to Kukke-Subramanya and start the trek, trek for the day and return to Kukke by Saturday eveing just in time to board a bus to Bangalore. Reach Bangalore early morning and then head off to meet the other group for the Savandurga trek. Then finish the Savandurga trek by 1800 hrs and get back home.
Things clearly did not go as planned. They never do.
So.. Kumaraparvatha ..
Friday turned out to be the day when Richard Stallman was giving the talk at RVCE. I HAD to attend it. So, did that; which got over at 15:00 hrs. The bus was at 20:00. I had 7 hours. I needed to finish some work as well. Went to a friends house and left some of my stuff (the laptop) there. I had assumed that I would leave for the trek well rested, but by the time I was in the bus, i was carrying 7 hours of extra sweat.
All said and done I met with Sonakshi and Niranjan at Majestic at the stipulated time . We had 2 idlis for dinner. I was under the impression that I would be able to get bananas from Kukke-Subramanya but I was mistaken. In the morning none of the shops would be open. So, the others made me buy the wonder fruit. We also got a bunch of peanut brittles.
The bus started on time, but it reached Kukke-Subramanya at 0430 hrs in the morning. This was almost an hour before my schedule. We decided not to waste too much time and hit the trail right away.
It was pitch dark and my head lamp was not working. We figured out a way to make it work with me walking in the middle of the group and using the torch on my powerbank. I did not want to use my phone as a torch because I was recording the entire trek in OSMAND with continuous logging.
We reached Buttaramane soon enough. We stopped there for some time for food and the loo. We also filled our water bottles. I had to brush my teeth due to peer pressure. We had some lemon rice and got three plates packed to carry with us. The forest office was nearby from here.
At the forest office we had to pay for entry and had to get our bags inspected We could also leave some stuff at the forest office so as to reduce the load that we would be carrying. I didn't leave anything behind. I was kinda-sorta training for the next trek.
The trek was amazing. It is a pretty trek. We were not trekking for the view anyway. The thing I like about Kumaraparvatha is the challenge. It is a long trek. 12kms in one direction. Generally people hike up to the forest office in a day and use the next day to trek up-to the peak and back. The forest officials do not allow anyone into the forest after 12 noon. Its almost 6 kms to the peak from the forest office, and also more technical, so if you do not start from the forest office before 12 noon, it can get dangerous.
In this photo we have Sonakshi and Niranjan far into the frame.
On the way to the top there is a section where you come across a steep rock-face which looked inviting. But Sonakshi and Niranjan being the saner members of the group stopped me from climbing via that route. I was disappointed.
The Big rock face is question. (it is Not as steep as it looks)
We reached the top in about 6 hours. We slept for a very very short time and had the packed food before starting back. By this time it was afternoon and the sun was over our heads. We did not have too much water with us as well.
We took some photos from the somewhere near the top
This is the other side from the same location
The first part of the descent was somewhat difficult because of the heat, and we ran out of water just before reaching Buttaramane but nothing too much. I got disoriented a bit and kept slippin. A banana fixed it. We waited at the forest office for some time and then headed to Buttaramane. We refilled our bottles here and started off again. From then the journey was fun. We kept descending at a faster pace, we were almost running downhill. We took a detour went to a stream nearby. Dipping our feet in the stream felt amazing. We waited for about half an hour here before leaving.
We exited the forest at about 1800 hours. Our bus was at 22:30 hrs, so we had a bunch of hours to kill. We jumped around for a bit legitimately impressed by our pace. The experienced folks told me that our pace was impressive. I trusted them.
We had some food, sat on the road, and got kicked out of a restaurant. Then we boarded the bus and slept.
We reached Bangalore quite early. I was trying to convince Sonakshi and Niranjan to come to the Savandurga trek with me but I was not successful. Niranjan said he would come. Then Sonakshi went her way, while me and Niranjan headed to his place. We were planning to freshen up (no showering) and then head to the meetup location for Savandurga. In the end Niranjan also ditched me. I removed the base layer I was wearing. That improved the smell a tiny bit. I left Niranjans place and then had a friend pick me up on the rental car that we booked for Savandurga. I got lucky logistically.
Let's end this section with a picture of team Kumaraparvatha.
TEAM Kumaraparvatha!!
Part 2 .. Savandurga..
My friend and I met with the rest of the group at 10:00 hrs which was 1 hours later than our plan. Anyway, we said our hellos and started. The drive wasn't that bad. We stopped on the middle for some food and stuff to pack.
The road to Savandurga (via Magdi Road) is just beautiful. This was a familiar route since I had cycled through the same road about a year back. We could see the hill as we started to approach it. Some of the team members expressed their concerns over the difficulty of what awaited them.
This is how Savndurga looks from the road.
We reached Savandurga in about 90 minutes.The team was quite worried when we saw the monolith. We were making good time, however we wasted a decent amount of time eating stuff before we started trekking.
The thing that makes Savandurga challenging is the gradient and the feature. It's steep. It's a short but a very steep climb. It's also just a rock. You are climbing on a rock. Which means that it heats up really fast and finding traction is quite difficult. On top of that there are not many trees on the rock, so shade is really hard to find as well. Finding a place to sit is also a challenge since once you are on the rock, there is a constant gradient. You are always tilted somewhere, so even if you decide to sit down, you have to make sure you do not slide down. Considering all this I really wanted to avoid the afternoon sun, but by the time we started it was almost 12 when we started.
Look at the gradient.
A friend got really exhausted during the climb and she decided that she would not continue. The plan was that she would wait at a resting spot and we would pick her up on the way down.
As we continued up, a lot of the kids wanted to give up but they kept at it. There is a place on top of Savandurga which is just blow the peak (we will call this the 'spot'). The entire group decided to call it a day there and not continue till the peak itself, except Rohit and Nikhil and I. The three of us were quite pumped about the idea and decided to sprint to the top and come back ASAP.
In my honest opinion the trek to the top from the spot is the most trickiest part since it has some of the more challenging terrain. Until now we were trekking on the rock itself, but the monolith plateaus at the spot and after that there is a section where you walk between huge boulders, a section where you have to squeeze between two boulders and a section just before the peak where you have to climb a very steep boulder. It's not too tough, just challenging.
The top of Savandurga is where the temple is. The view from the top is just amazing. You can see the Manchanabele reservoir nearby and an all round view from the top of the largest monolith. We took a bunch of pics here.
The view from the top. That is the temple below that we can see. That is the Manchanbele reservoir that we can see in the back
On our way back we met the friend who decided to stay back just below the spot. She started feeling better so she decided to trek to the top herself. It was super awesome to see her so unexpectedly. She also had some food with her, which was very much needed. Needless to say, all of us were very much impressed by her.
Descending was fun. I did something that I have always wanted to do. Run down the hill. Do not do this unless you know what you are doing. Its very very very dangerous to run down a hill which is as steep as Savandurga.
This is how descending looks.
We had a mini celebration after descending from the hill. It was fun. These folks had completed their very first trek.
This is the team.
We returned to Bangalore soon enough. I took an hour long nap for the major part of the journey back home. The others I believe took some embarrassing photos of me sleeping.
GPX tracks and Analysis
I was recording both of these treks just for the heck of it. Here are screenshots.
Kumaraparvatha
As we can see, the total time for the recording is 11 hours and 25 minutes and the total distance recorded is 23.7 kms. Here is the GPX-track for Kumaraparvatha.
Savandurga
In this trek we covered 5.9 kms in about 4 hours and 9 minutes. Here is the GPX file.
The End
Overall this was a fun trek. I do think I will return to Kumaraparvatha once again after monsoon. This is the time when the Western Ghats is in its full glory. :-)
Until then!
Oh! BTW;
This is me sleeping. Open mouth for better breathing.
