Ramnath Kamat

Bilkal Rangaswamy Betta also known as Bilkal Ranganatha Swamy Betta is a small hill nearby Kanakapura town. The hillock is located around 75 Kms from south of Bangalore. On the summit lies a huge granite stone and a carved Ranganatha Swamy temple inside it. The summit is at 1180 m height  (as shown by my Casio).

The summit can be accessed by two approaches, one via trekking through a shrub forest and the other is a 4 wheel drive.

On the way to the summit

I came across this place on some blogs and found it interesting for a weekend off road riding. Joined with me were Sandesh and Mahesh on Royal Enfield along with Vishwa on his Yamaha. We started early in the morning at 6:30 from Banashankari bus stand. Everyone was on time at the starting spot. Just a few kms away at Adigas we stopped for breakfast. Filled our tummy with Masala dosa and tea. Our estimated time to destination was 9'o clock. We starting riding in a group keeping line of sight at all the time. By the time it felt like we were riding we reached Kanakapura. You have to take left from the Arkavathi theatre in the town which takes you to the country roads. From here the best way of getting to the betta is asking locals the way to 'Bilkal betta'. We road through the curves, ups and down before we finally reached the base village Sundaghatta from where we had to take offroad to the hill. At the village, the forest guard warned us that there are elephants in the forest and told us to be careful.

Ranganatha Swamy temple

From the base village to the top is a 4 km off road which is a rock filled mud road. It did not seem difficult for the bullets. By the time we reached the summit there was mist surrounding us. We spent some time there, went to the cliff and it was time for photography. After an hour we started heading back to Bangalore. Reached home by noon.

Sandesh riding down  to the cliff

Google Map. Stands accurate Picture courtesy: Mahesh

Kudremukha mountain range is in the Chikmaguluru district of Karnataka. The name Kudremukha refers to a particular picturesque view of a side of the mountain that resembles a horse's face. The Kudremukha national park is second largest declared wildlife protected are in the western ghats ranging from Dakshina Kannada to Chikmagaluru districts of Karnataka.

Preparation of the trek: This trek was planned well before a month by 7 of us. Tickets to the nearest town Kalasa was booked in Airawat bus. We had booked a local guy named Rajappa who takes care of food, accommodation and forest entry permisision. Jeep from Kalasa to Rajappa's house was also booked. We took Airawat bus to Kalasa from Majestic bus stand at 10:30 pm.

Trek day:

Rajappa's home

Bus had arrived Kalasa around 6 am and the jeep was waiting for us at the bus stop. Kalasa is a holy hobali town  situated on the banks of Bhadra river. Kalasa has many lodges and restaurants incase you are planning to stay in Kalasa. Distance from Kalasa to Rajappa's house is around 30 kms out of which 20 km is a tar road and the rest is a rocky mud road which climbs the hills of the range. Rajappa's house is situated right below the the Kudremukha peak from where you start the trek. We reached Rajappa's house by 7:30 in the morning and a nice cup of Coffee made from homemade seeds. After getting freshen up, hot Ambode for breakfast was waiting for us. Its kind of idli but will be litlle hard and round in shape. 

We started the trek around 9 o clock. Rajappa's nephew Arun was our guide. He was carrying Uppittu for our lunch and Rajappa's 2 dogs were following us. Trek to the peak is around 10 kms in distance and goes through vast shola grasslands and forests. You will find water streams every 2 kms till the top and as per Arun they will be flowing all 12 months. So, you need not worry about carrying lot of drinking water as these streams are pure natural water to drink. There is a well defined trail till the peak which can be followed and there are not to many diversion paths to get confused. In my opinion, you need not necessarily have a guide but its better to have one.

Lonely tree, not sure of its real name  but we named it lonely tree

Our first pitstop was a lonely tree as you can see it in the picture this tree was a picturesque and my friends has started taking photos. We started again after taking rest for 5 minutes. The route was easy from here as we just had to walk amid dry grasslands. Every 1 km of walk you encounter a small forest and stream flowing in it. This repeats for most of the trek atleast till you cover half of the distance. 

Our next pitstop was just down the hill near the lobo house. Lobo house is a an old house in ruins now. Arun said people used to stay there once upon a time and they had beetlenut farm. 

Encounter of first forest and the small stream.

Third  pistop.

Trek from here gets real as you have to climb pretty much steep hill. If you ask me, Kudremukha trek is all about climbing 3 difficult steep hills and rest is pure walk among the grasslands. This hill is the first steep hill but a short one.After climbing this hill everyone was tired and we stooped for quick drinks break cum photography session at another lonely tree. Lonely trees are markings for our navigation to know how much we have covered. This helps while climbing down as you know how much more you have to go.

We saw a group of Sarangs( Stags) here. This is the first time I have ever seen any animal during treks. But they ran away into the jungle as soon as they saw us coming.

View from the 3rd steep climb.

As we continued our trek we encountered our second steep hill, this hill is about 100 meters long but inclined upto 60 degree climbing. After climbing this small hill there is a small forest and you can see a small stream of water flowing on the rocks. Arun said during rainy seasons its very difficult to cross this since rocks will be slippery and the current of water is very high.

After this, you can actually see the peak but the trail to the peak doesnt go in a straight path rather it goes in a zig-zag way making you trek for some more 4 kms even though the peak is very near. Here you will encounter the 3rd and the last steep climb which is about 500 meters long. Once you climb this hill you are almost at the top of the range but still lags around 1 km of walking distance. 

Myself with the flag at the peak

On the peak there are ruins of a Bungalow. According to Arun it was built by British in early 19th century and the building is still strong. I was planning to visit it while climbing down but all plans shattered for the reason I will mention later in this blog. Almost at the peak we found a small tent made from plastic sacks, nicely built. Arun dismantled it saying they were not allowed to camp here and he made  a flag out of it. We carried that flag to the top and hoisted it on the peak. Next time you visit there if you find a white flag, remember it was hoisted by us.

It was cloudy on the peak and we couldn't see anything down. It has happened with me many times before so I didnt have any big expectations. We had Uppittu and took rest. Then it was the time for Harlem shake and photography.




After spending almost an hour at the peak, Arun warned us that it might rain. We finished our photography in hurry and started climbing down. It was just 100 meters of climb down and the rain started pouring. Well, this was unexpected for us in March. We didnt carry any rain sheet. We kept all our mobiles, wallets and cameras in waterproof backpacks and decided to climb down in the rain as you can never guess when the rain will stop on the peak. We were literally running down shouting slogans 'Vande Mataram' 'Bolo bharat mata ki jai' etc just to boost us up in that literally shivering cold rain. This is how i missed to visit that British tourist bungalow. By the time we trekked half down, rain had stopped but we were not in a mood to stop anywhere. We trekked almost 9kms without even stopping once and took our first pitstop at the lonely tree. From here Rajappa's  house is just 1 km and we covered that with almost no effort. 

At Rajappa's house hot coffee was waiting for us and Arun had boiled water for taking bath. Whats more comfortable than taking bath in hot water after trekking in storm. Every one was waiting in queue to take bath and we relaxed till night. 

WARNING:
Camping at the peak or anywhere inside the national park is strictly prohibited. We saw tiger litter on the peak, so please follow this advice, do not camp on the peak.

If you are trekking in summer then wear full pants( a formal pant will do, a track pant will be amazing). I was wearing shorts and dried up grass really turns itchy as you have to walk for a long distance amid grassland.
 
Heard from Arun that during Monsoon, even 2 hands are not enough to take out leaches from your body. So, do not plan to trek during mosnsoon.

Trekking details:
Base camp: Kalasa
Connectivity from Bangalore: Well connected by Govt buses( Airawat  and Rajahamsa)
Journey hours:  6-7 hours in bus. Airawat bus reaches Kalasa at 6 in the morning.

Trekking distance: 9-10 kms

Trekking season:
October- January(advised)
You can also visit in the 1st week of June when the pre monsoon flourishes the grass and the place is covered in clouds.


Difficulty level:
Difficult for amateur trekkers.
Moderate for frequent trekkers.

Must carry:

• Tent, sleeping bag and mat. ( Not required if you are planning to stay at some local's house)
• Good trekking shoes.
• Water(1-2lts). You can find water streams on the hills all the time.
• Leech repellent if you are going before november( Iodex spray, salt). Leech socks are the best options.
• Proper winter wear if you are going after Nov. Temp stays low in winter.
• Flashlight, First aid kit, Knife, energy drinks and food items.

 Important guidelines:

• Reserve your tickets in advance.
• Start trekking early in the morning, sooner the better.
• Stay with the crowd always.
• Woods in the forest will be wet till October sic rainfall is often in the region.
• Keep your backpack as light as possible. Dont carry too much of food. 

  Total trekking time:

• If you are a frequent trekker, you can reach the summit  in 3:30 - 4:00 hours.
• for amateur trekkers it might take 5 hours.

Tips for photographers:

• Dont  forget to capture the macro beauties of the jungle.
• View from the mountain gives a perfect landscape.
• Kudremukha is home to amazing wildlife especially birds and butterflies. I saw atleast 30 types of different birds and butterflies. You can see some of the birds below:

Trekking rules:

• Do not carry alcohol. Do not smoke in the jungle
• Do not throw anything during the trek.  Keep the trekking place clean for the following trekkers.

 Happy Trekking :)

    Valley of Flowers National Park is located at  west Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. The trek to the valley is a long one and requires pre planning and preparation. There are lot of tourist packages which provide affordable service few of which are YHAI and GMVNL.

Our tour was planned for 15 days including travelling from Bangalore.

Day 1: 
    We took Rajdhani Express from Bangalore. Train provides 1AC,2AC and 3AC classes. Total journey duration is  36 hours.Train leaves Bangalore Central at 8pm.

Day 2: 
    Second day of the tour goes in the train journey, Rajdhani express passes through AP, Maharashta, MP before reaching Delhi. Food is served on the train and the service is pretty good.

Day 3: 
    We reached Nizamudin station in Delhi at 5am. Our next catch was Shatabdi Express from Nizamuddin to Haridwar. Train was scheduled at 7am and it was on time. I was standing at the train door during this entire journey, train doors always give you picturesque landscapes. Shatabdi is supposed to be fastest between Delhi and Haridwar, so it is advised to take this one and avoid rest. Train reached haridwar station by 1pm. We were hungry and tired of the continuous journey. Outside of Haridwar station, waiting was hotel 'Pavitra Bhojanalaya'. We had our lunch here. Lunch was yummy.

Ganga pooja at Ram jhula

    Our Check in place was GMVNL resort in Rishikesh. Haridwar to Rishikesh is around 25kms and there are lot of buses running between them. There are ricks also available and they charge around 300-400rs depending on your bargaining skills. We reached GMVNL hotel by 4pm, freshened up and were out of the hotel to explore Rishikesh.
 
  Rishikesh is a holy town situated across Ganges. Main attractions in Rishikesh are the Ram Jhula, Laxman Jhula and Ganga Pooja which is done every evening during twilight time. We made it to Ram Jhula and Ganga Pooja. Ganga Pooja was blissfull. We had famous Aloo tikki  and made back to our hotel by 9pm.


Day 4: 
    The actually journey to valley of flowers starts from day 4. Our bus left Rishikesh at 7 am . We had to travel 250kms from Rishikesh to Joshimath. The road is narrow and passes through west himalayan mountains. Landslides are very common here on the road during rainy season and dont be surprised if you get yourself stuck in traffic jam for hours. Entire journey Ganges will be flowing on your right side, so make sure that you take right side window seat in your vehicle.

Dev Prayag

    You will meet three Prayags(means confluence) on your journey. These are
     1. Devprayag: Here Alaknanda and Bhagirathi river meet to form Ganges. This is the actual birthplace of Ganges
     2. Rudraprayag: Here Alaknanda meets Mandakini river.
     3. Karnaprayag: Here Alkananda meets Pindar river.

Travelling 250kms takes 8-9 hours since avg speed of the vehicle is 40kmph. GMVNL has resorts in all major towns in Garhwal region. We reached Joshimath by 8pm.

Day 5: 
    We had to goto Govindghat, trekking starts from here. Govindghat is around 22kms from Joshimath. On the way you meet Vishnu prayag which is one of the panch prayag. Here Alaknanda meets Dhauliganga river.

On the way to Ghanghria

    Govindghat is located at the confluence of Alaknanda and Laxman ganga rivers. Trek to both Valley of flowers and Hemkund Saheb starts from here. You can find hundreds of Sikhs here who come to the holy shrine of Hemkund saheb.  We had to trek for 15kms this day from Govindghat to the hill town of Ghanghria. One can take horse to goto Ghangria and luggage can be given to porters who carry your luggage till the top. They charge around 500rs for it. There is a well built pavement from Govindghat to Ghanghria, so there is not much of tiring. You can find many hotels and shops on the way. MRP of all food items increases as you hike up. Entire trek you find Pushpavati river flowing next to you. It takes around 6-7 hours to reach Ghanghria by walk. We reached Ghanghria by 4pm. This town has recently got electricity so you wil not find geysers in hotels and they charge 50rs for a bucket of hot water. All food items are sold at thrice the MRP price. You can find only Idea network here, there are PCOs which charge 10rs/1min of call.
Documentary about Valley of Flowers is shown at the tourist center in the evening, We had nice dinner in the evening and went off to bed early.

Day 6:

@ the heart of the valley

    We got up early in the morning and packed our lunch. Around 1 kms from Ghangria is the entrance gate to the Valley. You have to pay trekking fees of 150rs here. Valley of flower trek from Ghanghria is quite easy one and you dont  get tired as you feel like you are walking in the heaven. As you enter the park you can see flowers around getting denser as you move ahead. The trek to the park depends on how much you want to trek. If you want to cover the entire valley then the valley stretches upto 10ks otherwise you can visit Mrgaret Legge's memorial which is around 7 kms from Ghanghria.  Throughout the valley you can see Pushpavathi river flowing adjacent to you. Sometimes you need to cross small streams of water over logs or small bridges. We had our packed lunch here. I went till the end of the Valley where you find the glacier.

Valley of flowers

     It is adviced that you should start trek early in the morning. After 1pm clouds cover the park and it starts raining. Same happened with us while coming back. We were drenched inspite of wearing raincotas and the temperature was very low, freezing cold you can say.

    We reached back to Ghanghria by 5pm, had hot tea which gave us our life back.


Day 7: 

On the way to Hemkund

 Our today's destination was Hemkund Saheb , a holy Sikh shrine. It is about 6kms from Ghanghria and the trek is a difficult one. You can take Horses or porters. Two of us took Horses. Me and Pradeep started walking. The trek was steep and tiring. It took us 4 hours to cover 6kms. On the way we had some amazing landscape views. At the Hemkund there is a Gurudwara and a Laxman temple. You get Khichdi and Tea in Gurudwara which is very refreshing in the cold weather. We stayed here for 2 hours and took some pictures and started climbing down. It took us 3 hours to climb down. We came back to Ghanghria and rested here.

Hemkund

Day 8:
    We started climbing down early in the morning. We were at Govindghat by 12pm. We took bus to Badrinath and had lunch there. Evening time we visited the temple and did some shopping. Bath in the hot water spring at Badrinath was amazing.

Day 9:
     We visited last village of India, Mana. The village is on the border with Tibet/china. In the village are the Vyaas gufa nd Ganesh gufa where the Saint Vyasa narrated Mahabharatha to Lord Ganesha. We started our journey back to DevPrayag. It took us arond 5 hours to reach Rudraprayag.

Day 10: 
    We started journey from Rudraprayag to Rishikesh. We reached Rishikesh by 1pm. We booked our train tickets to Delhi and went back on that day itself.

Day 11,12, 13: 
    We visited India gate, Qutub Minar, Jantar Mantar, Red fort in Delhi.

Day 14, 15: Travel back to Bangalore in Rajdhani Express.


   

         At a height of 2100m, Chembra peak is the highest peak in Waynad, Kerala. The peak is located near the town of Meppady and is 8kms away from Kalpetta. Permission from the forest office in Meppady is required for trekking up to Chembra Peak. 


Preparation of the trek:

Soochipara falls.

Heart shaped lake

A barn with Chembra peak in the backround

Trekking details:
Base camp: Kalpetta or Meppady 
Connectivity from Bangalore: Well connected by Govt buses.
Journey hours:  7-8 hours in bus.

Trekking distance: 3-4 kms

Trekking season:
October- March.

Difficulty level:

Sakaleshpura is a small town in the Hasan district of Karnataka. It lies on NH-48 which connects Bangalore with Mangalore. Im not sure how this trek idea occured but it was Naveen who planned this trek. We were a group of 16 from bangalore, only guys.

Preparation of the trek:
It was the month of Feb 2011, and the college had just started after vacation. Naveen came up with this idea of trekking to Sakaleshpura. The green route tunnel trek soon attracted 16 guys from our class. We didnt reserve any tickets in the train. Stuffs we carried was basic, food, clothes and torch.We reached Yeshwantpur Railway station from where the train starts with a hope of getting seat in the general compartment since we didnt have booked tickets. We got seats as we hoped and the journey was full of fun. No one slept in the night and we were having the one of the best moments.

Trek Day:

Donigal Station

The train reached near Sakaleshpur station by 4am. we took a bus from the busstand, the driver stopped the bus near some tea stalls somewhere 2-3kms behind Donigal station and told us this is Donigal. We got down and started walking after enquiring route to some localites. The first mission of finding the tracks was quite adventurous as it took us through some tea estates, a graveyard , a small stream of water. We had finally reached the tracks. It was not our day. Here we had our second mystery of finding the direction of walk. Lot of arguements were exchanged among the crowd and finally using GPS we started walking towards our left side. It was just one km of walk and everyone started having the heat of walking on Railway tracks. Reason was quite simple, railway tracks have bars uniformly distributed which are little smaller in width than your foot. So whenever you step on a the cement bar pressure is put on your toe muscle. Little ahead was our first encounter with the bridge and it was an amazing experience for all of us to walk on the railway bridge. After walking for 3-4 kms we finally  saw the Donigal station board and we were as happy as reaching our destination. There was a small stream flowing down amid rocks, the water was freezing cool but it was refreshing for us.

We 16 infront of small stream near Donigal station

 Soon after Donigal station, we found a place to have our breakfast. We started walking again, our next anxious moment was to find a tunnel since we were excited a lot to walk through the tunnel. And the group had already split up. People walking in the front were signalling whether they see a tunnel or not. Soon, we heard the train whistle and we were excited to see the forst train moving next to us. It was a photographic moment. Finally, after walking for some time around 9:30 in the morning, the moment had arrived when we saw the first tunnel. The moment was priceless and it was quite an experience to walk through the dark tunnel. You could feel the water dropping through narrow gaps of the tunnel.

Trek Warning

                                                  

View of mountain

The next few hours went walking on the track with the paining toes and ofcourse, enjoying the scenery n both sides, we crossed numerous bridges and tunnels, met many workers repairing the railway lines. It was 1 in the noon and we were tired, we asked some workers for the water souce near by and they mentioned one stream 3kms away. We took bath in the river and had our lunch there, the bath was refreshing ad the water was crystal clear.

Bridge over a river where we took bath

Yedakumari station

All of us were tired and exhausted. The sun was playing his role.We started walking again crossing numerous tunnels and bridges It was tunnel #18 when we crossed we encountered a split track indicating a station ahead, and soon we saw the board Yedakumari. We were delighted to reach there. We lied down on the platform as if we had never slept before in our life. There was a tea stall in the station where we had tea in he evening. We convinced a localite to take us to the highway. He agreed for 800 bucks. He said the highway is just 3kms away and we have to cross a river, he agreed upon showing us the way to reach the highway. We started following him. He took us down through a very steep mud slide and we encountered a small stream of water. After crossing that, he should us a path that will take us to the riven upon crossing whch we will encounter the highway. He told us that he cannot come with us till the end of the road since it will be dark by the time he reaches back to the station. We started walking through that way and the way never seemed ending. We had split up again, me and Bharatish were leading in the front. We heard some animal sound and we started running without seeing anything till we encountered river. We waited near the river for sometime and we saw 6 of our friends coming. We crossed the river which had a current but it was not deep and started waiting for other 8 people. They were not in the visinity. We waited till 7:30pm and it was pitch dark. We were scared as we didnt know what had happened to them. There was no network in the mobile. Finally we thought of going to Sakleshpur and thought of getting help from there.We stopped 2 jeeps on the highway and when asked the driver he scared us a lot. After driving for some time we found network in the cell and we were keep on trying to call them. Luckily my call got connected to Nikhil and we came to know that they are safe and taking rest at the Yedakumari station.While following us they saw a elephant and they ran back to the station.

We were glad that everyone is safe. If booked a hotel room in sakaleshpura and we rested that night. Next day we got up late, had breakfast and caught rajahamsa bus from Sakaleshpura Bus stand.  Bus reached Bangalore by 6pm. The other group came back in other bus from kukke as they got an early train from Yedakumari to Kukke.


Trekking Details:
Starting point: Donigal
End point: Yedakumari(1day), Kukke Subramanya(2days)
Connectivity from Bangalore: Well connected by bus and train
Journey hours: 7-8 hours
Trekking Distance: 30+ kms

Trekking season:
October-March (adviced)

Difficulty level:
Diffiicult (Just because of the hurting toe after walking on tracks)

Must carry:

• Water
• Good trekking shoes
• Food
• Sleeping bag if you are planning to trek till kukke
• flashlight, forst aid kit and knife

Important guidelines:

• Dont trust locals as these people actually dont know the correct distance they will always misguide you saying its nearby
• Start trekking early in the morning and reach Yedakumari before 4pm
• If you are going in rainy season the current in the river will be high and you will not able to  cross it to goto Highway. So better camp at the Yeadakumari station and request station master to stop early morning train.

Total trekking time:
8 hours to reach yedakumari

Trekking rules:

• Do not carry alcohol. Do not smoke in the jungle
• Do not throw anything during the trek. Keep the trekking place clean for the following trekkers.

Happy Trekking :)