Ravishing Serendipity At Pushpagiri Forest; Kumara Parvatha Trek

Trekking and making journey as a hobby just happens to you, you never try hard to chase it. I had covered all the major trekking trails near Bangalore in my 4 years stay here. But the Kumar Parvatha trail was long due.

At Summit.

Kumara Parvatha also called a Pushpagiri, is one of exciting trek locations in Karnataka. Popular among trekking fans as KP, the Kumara Parvatha trail is well trodden but equally challenging. Typically takes over night stay on the mountains to finish the trail, if you start trail from Somawarpet side you could able to finish the trail end of the day unlike other side from Kukke. The trek route is fairly in an East - West Orientation across the Western Ghats. In other words you will be trekking across the Western Ghats, scaling the third highest peak in Karnataka.

Sri Shantha Mallikarjuna Temple, Heggademane Village.

The eastern end of the trek is a Beedahalli, a remote village, some 22 km from Somwarpet town in Coorg. The western end is practically the car street of temple town Kukke Subramanya temple. For those of you who haven’t heard about this quiet lesser known place Pushpagiri Wildlife Sanctuary which has Kumara Parvatha and temple town Kukke Subramanya, Subramanya is famous for the Kukke Subramanya temple.

Embraced by the Kumardhara River, this town worships the snake god. Apart from the temples, for the people who are interested in wilderness and drives, this proves to be a perfect place. There are many dirt tracks leading to small villages and mountains near by situated deep inside, but it is advisable to take those routes in winters and early in the summer as trail during monsoon makes more challenging. The place has such a thick tropical forest that if by any chance you lose way, there is no chance that you’ll be able to come out of the jungle on your own.

Just started the trail.

Between these two points Beedahalli and Kukke lies a varying stretches of terrains with, equally varying difficulty to trek. Approximately at the midway point is the Kumara Parvatha peak, hovering over 5,600 feet above sea level.

So here come the first decision you would need to make, if to trek from Subramanya side or from Beedehalli side. And still, if you would want to trek the full trail or trek up to the Kumara Parvatha peak and return back to your starting point, be it Subrahmaniya or Beedehalli.Whatever is the decision, it's about 20km of trek overall.The biggest highlights of Kukke Subrahmaniya end are its better connectivity and the relatively better facilities around the town (hotels, shops, restaurants etc).  And of course the Kukke Subrahmaniya Temple itself.

How does it fare on the Beedehalli side? This tiny village is sparsely connected with Somwarpet by the lone bus service. This is about a 22km journey. You need to get to Somwarpet for any long distance connections, like to to Bangalore (240km, 5hours) or Madikeri (40km, 1½ hours). There are about 6 direct bus services between Somwarpet or Bangalore. And quite a few to Madikeri with Somwarpet.If that lone bus service to/from Beedehalli does not gel well with your itinerary, consider hiring a local jeep service to Somwarpet, a popular means of transport in this part of the state.

Hangover Bridge near APC.

In summery, the Kukke side fares a bit well from the connectivity stand point. What about the trek itself? Which direction is more favorable? From Kukke or Beedehalli? For a couple of reasons the Beedehalli side is a shade batter to set off the trek. To understand this take a look at the topography and the nature of the trek path.The 14km trail from Kukke to Kumara Parvatha peak is all about scaling 1½km (about 1500 m/4930 feet) in elevation. From the Beedehalli you'll reach the Kumara Parvatha peak after 600 meters of elevation over a 7km long trek. That's Beedehalli is already at an elevation of 1100 meters, where as Kukke is about 140 meters.So from a difficulty scale the Beedehalli to Kumara Parvatha peak fares better or less challenging, if you're an avid climber.

Except me.

With all these pros and cons we had chosen Beedahalli APC to start the trek. This side of KP less known to the trekking fraternity of Bangalore which poses an equal amount of challenge along with comforts when compared with Kukke side.This is a trek for all of us who have been wanting to be on top of Kumara Parvatha for a long time. One of the major attractions about path from Beedahalli side is the dense forest cover more or less throughout the peak. The dense cover trail is around 7 kms from the start, last one kilo meter is less covered with forests and has some huge volcanic rock formations one has to climb.

Don't ask what I was thinking of!!

To begin with, this trek was planned one month back. Although I wanted to make this trek happen, it was difficult to get people to confirm and also arrange for a tent and sleeping bags.I spoke to Yathiraj a freelance Well-known travel guide(Organised our Brahmagiri trek) who works closely with KMA and YHAI. We confirmed our interest with Raj and we went to get a sore foot.I was longing to go to this place ever since, so decided to trek the hill Kumara Parvatha as I committed , early in the winter with my colleagues Nagesh, Pramod, Hemanth, Thilak, Guru, Yuvraj, Prakash, Sagar, Sanjay, Sandesh and my cousin Deekshith.

Posing like ..!

Reached Shanta Mallikarjuna temple at Heggademane village after over night journey by 5:30 in the morning. After a break of about 2 hours which included freshen up near the temple, finishing morning daily routines and also having breakfast.This was at 8:00 am, Started off towards the hills. The road became thinned, people density reduced to zero and finally we found a small camp Bedahalli APC. Yathiraj managed to get permission to get into the forest from the forest department, Madikeri range.

Near Second stream.

We left all our extra baggage,tents we carried at APC and started the climbing.Now the actual trekking starts into the thick forest, our plan to come back to the APC to stay in the tents we had for the night and try to visit the beauteous Mookanamane water falls.We had come well stocked as far as food was concerned, Carried almost 70 rotis and Chutney Powder, lot of Curd and Vegetable Salad for munching.We stopped for water at a couple of small streams flowing down across.The tree cover cast a pale green shadow over everything and the recent rains had put that cool, semi wet tropical touch on the trail. Walking along it, it was easy to ignore the leeches pushing for space in my shoes and simply get lost in the wilderness around me.

Leechy Deekshith.

While climbing up the rock face which was pretty easy by the way, since it was mostly dry and my shoes gave me good grip on them, I was wondering how it would be like in the rains.I could see water channels all over them and thought about how cool it would be to climb it in the rains! After that, the gradient continued to be high. Every one starting to feel tired and had to take a couple of breaks in between.The initial part of the trail was very easy and I soon got ahead of the others as I was walking at a pretty brisk pace.  Soon, we came to a pretty steep(about 50 to 60 degree I guess) rock face and from then on the climb was pretty tough.This stretch is more like a rock climbing experience as there is a monolithic stone formation which you have to cross.

Diversion sign board to Peak and Girigadde.

Monkey Skills.

Small rock patch.

Finally, by about 1’o clock we broke out of the tree cover and to the stretch of rock just below the peak. From here you could able to reach the top of KP just in matter of time.The weather atop the peak had absolutely no relation to the conditions below it. It was little hazy and clear continually following, by the time we reach peak we were all very hungry. To add more amusement for sometime Thilak, Pramod, Yuvraj became just like African hunger victims literally attacking me to take away and pulling the vegetables while I am preparing the vegetable salad. Took out the food we had Chapathi and Chutney powder we had, finished it just in matter of time. Once we done with our lunch Photography as usual started off with a bang. All of us clicking pictures, admiring the beauty of Pushpagiri Wildlife Sanctuary.

Just after first rock patch.

Pammi n Hemu.

We were out of the peak and into the ridge adjacent to the peak lush green grass land was visible all around you up to at least 30 kms.The sight was just an elevated feeling of how wonderful nature is. You could see two peaks other from the peak namely Shesha Parvatha and actual Kumara Parvatha hill(We were on Pushpagiri Hill by now).Around 2:30 we started back, the descent was little steep as conquered, unfortunately Sagar suffered with muscular contraction while getting down. No matter what he took his time and got down in company with us which made a very good time throughout. A dog accompanied us on our way down for me and Sanjay all along.

Second rock patch.

Sesha Parvatha.

By 6’o clock everybody was there at APC, we split into random groups while descending down had an opportunity to explore the stunning scenery of Pushpagiri forest. Even though we were tired we maintained our grit and tenacity.It became dark, temperature fallen down to 15c at the time which made bit uneasy. It took about two hours to prepare dinner comprised of Rasam, Rice, Pickle, Papad and Butter milk. It is normal in routine life but being trekked whole day made us tired enough, since everyone hungry it became sumptuous meal for us.

He He...,

Prakash and Yuvi.

When everybody was ready to sleep, Pramod started his relentless chat session with Yuvraj and Hemanth. They were discussing about ranging from least to most happening things in boys life and made sure that nobody got a good sleep. I was snoring all night(Thilak and Deekshith was prey for this whole night)... but I am damn sure that I didn't!! That morning when we woke up the temperature would have been somewhere around 10 degree Celcius or so and we were shivering. Myself and Yathiraj prepared poha for Breakfast meanwhile everyone got freshen up at near by stream flowing down to the valley. Soon finished our Breakfast, with full tummies our day of exploration continued from Beedahalli APC bidding adieu to forest staff.

Early in the morning.

It is around 30 kms from Beedahalli to reach Mookanamane falls. On a brighter day we got to drive around some lonely roads with lovely views.The Mookanamane falls is located 35 km from Taluk headquarters Sakaleshpura, 12 km from Vanagur and hardly 3 km from Attihalli village.By the time we reach Mookanamane falls it was around 11:30. To reach the waterfalls one has to follow the Jeep track by parking the vehicles half a kilometer from the falls. Small vehicles like cars could go further down almost near to falls upstream. A small and wider Nagarahole stream flows down all the way from Bisle Ghat range of hills. The mesmerizing waterfalls located amid the forest makes it almost a private waterfall due to less holidaymakers. The water falls from around 10 to 15 feet height and spread across about 20 mts.

Mookamana Abbey Falls.

It was adventurous walk along the upstream to reach down the falls. The rocks are very slippery and one should be very cautious when they do adventures on the rocks. We managed to reach down the falls with Trees, roots and rocks to our rescue.Few sat on the wet rocks, remaining had nice shower under the huge falls. We thoroughly enjoyed the glory of Mookanamane waterfalls and beauty of nature at its best.I was busy planning and dreaming about my next trek(trip) meanwhile everyone enjoying the movie our way back. Overall the visit to this place is worth and if you are planning to go there, you will get to see some of the virgin beauty. Pushpagiri and Bisle reserve forest are the perfect choice for a attraction that lets you experience the mesmerizing quality of being pleasant.

Bidding Adieu to APC.

Amedikallu Trek, an Unsuccessful Attempt

Sometime abortive voyages also remembered long time; the effort we put to get achieve whereas it turned opposite, which makes you more exasperate; later the failure make you to think of more and more the attempted moments; inspire you again to agree challenges to venture again. Yes this fruitless – unsuccessful journey to Amedikallu trek which is near Dharmastala in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka, between 27 – 29th January 2017.

Dharmastala temple Complex!!

Amedikallu is considered to be one of the toughest in Karnataka which is the height around 1200 to 1300mt above the sea level & it is one of the biggest & significant peaks in Charmadi range and is a two day trek if one wants to make it to the top comfortably. For trekkers, who love adventure and challenges, this is their ultimate paradise because there is no short cut and easy route to reach this peak. 

The Majestic Amedikallu.

Difficulty Level: Moderate to very difficult depending on:
1. whether it’s sunny or not which makes it quite exasperating since there is no source of water until reach the peak (Dry Season).
2. Whether there is long grass or not which makes the path difficult to find and hidden rocks will hurt if stepped wrongly.
3. Whether it’s raining or not which makes the entire trail slippery and risky and infested with leeches.

Getting ready for the trail👈😇

The initiative begun by Vasu, we ticked off one more place to escape busy town and enjoy the vigilant beauty of Western Ghats. We total were eight people (Shiva,Shivu,Vasu,Bhargava S,Bhargava P,Srinivasa Murthy N S,Madhu and I) in the group and embarked our journey in two cars (Bhargava P and Bhargava S’s) from Kumaraswamy Layout late night in two four wheelers. The curly roads, the gentle elevation and the sweet serenity of the hills makes it an amazing road to drive in south India and will fetch a permanent place in your heart for an eternity.

Bhargava and Srini sir!

Hello Brothers💕

Though the trail have yet not renowned like other treks and remains deserted on most of the days but it makes for an ideal trail from Bangalore to escape from the daily grind.We reached Dharmastala morning by 6AM took holy bath in Nethravathi River and followed traditional ritual of visiting the temple. Started towards Kokkada, a small town 16km before Dharmastala on Bangalore – Dharmastala road. We had to travel further 20 km to reach Shishila. The base point to Amedikallu trek is from a village near Shishila called ‘Kombaru’. There is another peak one could attempt from Shishila is ‘Ethina Bhuja’. The name derives from its appearance which looks like an OX shoulder.

Ethina Bhuja Lurking..

Reached Shishila by 10’o clock and stopped near lone house, a local person guided us to the Amedikallu and camping during night at top of the peak. Our plan was to camp at the night. A stranger passing by said that without permission you couldn’t go to the peak and asked us to talk to one of the forest officials (His name was Ananda that’s what he told) to take approval. He said trek is allowed only during the day time along with guide. However we are not convinced and planned to move on to stay back over night at the summit, later realized that we have to obey the laws and decided to trek by 11:30am, Not an ideal time to start the trek in these hot and humid conditions. 

A stop and quick nourishment before getting the grassland...

We were not aware of camping at peak not allowed during the months February, March and April the reason being possibility of fire catching the reserved forests from the camp fire and other activities of the camp. With this confusion and update we had loss of time and this is where we slip-up our momentum.

Posing to Amedikallu😎👊

We started ascending in slow phase, It was almost 1'o clock and very hot by then. The path was very dry, with the floor covered with dry leaves and trees / vegetation on both sides. In spite of the shade cover, all started sweating plentifully and a break was required quickly - by a less than an hour's time. Soon after this break, we came out of the thick forest and were now at the slopes of one of the midway hills, going around it. 

Skyline of Charmadi Range hills.❤

The valley was visible to our right side along with layers of hills, one could see the majestic Ettina Bhuja. By about 2pm, we came out of the forest around the hill, into an open grassland. There we had our first nearby view of Amedikallu. Amedikallu name derived from 'Ame' (meaning tortoise in Kannada) and 'Dikallu' (a trivet stove in Tulu). The left portion of the peak is three rocks making a 'Dikallu' and the middle of the peak is a massive uniform rock approximating the top of a tortoise. 

Golden capped peak tops under the deep blue sky....Just mesmerizing!

We progressed on the savannah for some more time before making in to another small stretch of shola jungle. There we had break in proceedings and decided to open the lunch packs. We quickly finished our lunch and it was homemade chapathi and delicious chutney packed from the Vasu’s home. Almost every one feeling charged up after delicious lunch and decent rest for some time. Later all started ascending towards the peak, since the distance between the clearing and the peak was not much as per the measuring scale of a trekker and looked clear enough from far. The rocks embedded beneath the clusters of grass and some being wobbly made it difficult for us to get a proper foothold as the ascent became steeper.

 

The place where we halted.

Srinivasa Murthy sir said that he was feeling a little dehydrated and  after walking in the open under the hot sun and the halt became a little longer than what we wanted. Till here we reached almost 60- 70 % of the trail. We were facing a different challenge and that was the dry heat. When the weather is brutally (I guess it was around 35c to 36c with lot of Humidity) hot and your body sweats profusely, water by itself is not enough. The rate at which we were losing water via sweat seemed to be more than the intake rate. Later some time others also started feeling uncomfortable and step back moving towards the top. However Vasu, Bhargava S and myself decided not to give up and started ascending from the break point. I really don’t know what happened to me I came back after climbing some distance, However Bhargava completed 75% of the trail and Vasu tried his best to reach summit. 

Posing in front of the mountain.

He almost ascended most point of the Dikallu in our absence, he might have felt unaccompanied and came back as soon as he reached the summit. Meanwhile I with others spent time here (At 60 % of ascending at the trail) admiring the views around us and clicking pictures. We noticed that there was a nice rock shelter, this rock shelter would be idle for camping in the night or for lunch breaks (good shelter during midday’s) and apparently a lot of people had camped there as we could see signs of campsite fires there.

Vasu and Bhargava S desceding down from the top.

Taking rest at rock shelter.

There were in fact too many breaks and it was getting difficult for us to get warmed up every time after a break. The lack of water in the entire trail made the trek a bit more difficult. We started the descent from middle of the peak. The descent was mostly steep with dry leaves on the forest floor making the descent a bit more challenging.  

From the Green to the Golden beauty.

We lost altitude quickly and hit a road track at 6 pm, took us less than 3 hours to reach the starting point of the trek. From there we reached Shishila and quickly all of us took a dip in the Kapila River. And it was really refreshing. We had a great time there. Most of us was into the water for long time like as long as we can.

Lonely guy Bhargava P✌👆

Somehow we managed to arrange a campsite near the temple at Shishila in the dark night with our torch and sleeping bags. Then I started preparing upma for our dinner with others help, the hot upma seemed like heaven!! Almost a whole day of climb and descent, after conquering nearly 18 KM of a tough stretch across the Western Ghats, this dinner along with other folks was so yummy and so pleasing.No matter how you are carry lots of water, very light luggage, preferably individual tents and not heavy ones, someone experienced with you, a small first aid kit, fully charged mobile phones (some areas you get signal) and a refreshed & well hydrated body! 

Kapila River.

Folks posing on Hanging bridge at Shishila.

Super maasss !!

We got up early in the morning and went back near starting point of trek where there is a small rivulet flowing. Vasu and Shiva prepared tasty Maggi Noodles for breakfast at banks of small stream. After having breakfast we visited Shishila temple which is famous for the Matsya Theertha (Kapila River that flows near the temple). The Mahashir fish is found in huge numbers in the Kapila River.

Laughing times at cooking😆😆

@Shishila

The fishes in this river are believed to be sacred and Prasadam is offered to these fishes after puja every day. It is also believed that worshipping at Shishileshwara temple, fishes and feeding the fishes in Kapila River, one can get rid of all types of skin disease. On our way back to Bangalore we had been to Southadka Ganesha temple and Kukke Subramanya temple.

On our way to Kukke !!

Kumara Dhara River,Kumara Parvatha at right behind.

It would take several weekends to cover some of the prominent places in the Charmadi area and there will be some more trips to this beautiful place.Certainly the Amedikallu trek was unsuccessful, nevertheless the inspiring trek, habitation, fun, and we absolutely once again organize the Amedikallu trek and venture without fail.

I captured this on my way to Kukke and this guy was struggling to cross the road When the weather is brutally hot.

Information about Amedikallu

• Gopu Gokhale (local contact in Shisila who will arrange for guide, food) – 08251269246,9483211246
• Purushottam Rao (Hotel Owner near Shishila temple will arrange for guide, food for both Ethina Bhuja and Amedikallu) – 8762921154, 8762920606
• Distance Covered – 24 kms Approx
• Water Source - After November one need to carry lots of water as there are no major water sources all along the trail (I suggest at least 5 lts per head).
• Essential Time needed – 2 Days(If u are a regular trekker could complete the trail by end of the day starting the trek very early in the morning)
• Camping Options - Either at Rock Shelter or the peak if you have tents.