Amedikallu - An early monsoon trek…

It was the first week of July’10 and I was held up with a little extra work on hands. But as always, ‘The woods were calling…’ I happened to have a random check on the BMC website and found an unseen name – Amedikallu. I was not sure of a 2 day trek initially and had almost decided for a night trek on a Saturday. But eventually I could not avoid the desire to be amidst the Western Ghats. Amedikallu through BMC on the 3^rd and 4^th of July it was!

Amedikallu is a part of the thick shola forest range offered by the Charmadi Ghat section of the Western Ghats. Amedikallu has a huge monolith at the top which appears like a giant turtle and 3 huge stones which give an appearance of a stove. This peak is surrounded by many other important peaks of Western Ghats. It is considered to be one of the toughest in Karnataka and is a two day trek if one wants to make it to the peak comfortably.

All set to go, I got a call at 10:15PM on the 2^nd of July. Kiran, our super enthusiastic trek coordinator from BMC had a quick check with me on the people waiting to board the Swaraj Mazda. After a small round of introduction, we took off from the city life that night and after a super bumpy drive, we arrived at the home stay at Arasinamakki near Dharmasthala (http://streamofjoy.com). It is very simple to reach there. You can catch local buses also to reach this place. The route is (from Bangalore - 260 KM): Hassan- Sakleshpur- Gundya- Enjira (take right diversion here)- Arasiamakki. You can always contact Mr.Kashinath ( 09343206307, 08251-268225 or 09845088088) for any details of it. I can fill this blog by describing the home stay alone, but the best part which I found to be really worth is sitting on the banks of the Kapila river flowing next to the huts where we were staying.

It took us only 30 minutes to freshen up as most of us decided not to take bath that day (provided that it will rain anyway during the trek; else you will anyway sweat). This is the best part of a trek for me where you don’t give a damn about anything else! Nevertheless after a little round of loitering around and an early morning photography, it was time for nice hot ‘taTTe Idlis’ (Plate Idlis - A South Indian dish usually consumed during breakfast or as an evening snack) and amazing ‘Coconut Chutney’. We then packed our lunch and set out for the trek. The 10 of us, Saikat (the guy who can eat anything for existence), Abhijit (he looked like a nerd initially ;)), Sudhansu (the odIya babu), Pradeep (the to be IITK grad), Kiran (the tiger), Sekhar (the Chennai musketeer), Guru (the silent killer), Animesh (Animation though :D), Deepika (the joyous lon(v)ely lady) and myself were accompanied by the trek coordinator Kiran and a local guide.

It was a pretty decent start at 8:30 in the morning. One usually needs to go through the shola forest range to reach the peaks at the Western Ghats. Though we knew that leeches will be there, we were not much bothered about it until we saw them climbing our shoes. Then came the series of ‘S**ts’ and ‘F**ks’ from all of us. The forests were so damp that there were leeches falling from the wet trees, every few steps we took, we were assured of shaking legs with one leech atleast… But after a while, we got used to it and we had mastered the art of plucking them away without salt or fire.

After we crossed the forest range, the contact with the leeches came down and we were amidst the elephant leaf filled grasslands. Since it was early monsoons, the height of the grass was not much. But if a five footer visits the place post monsoons, the group will surely have a tough time locating him! The grass was sharp enough to cut your skin upon application of a little pressure. Around 12 noon we halted to have a quick lunch. After the lunch, 8 of us decided to move ahead and the remaining 4 stayed back. After climbing some distance, myself and Guru decided to stay back as the rocks were really slippery and we took a call to halt there for a while and join the group of 4 in sometime. I would love to visit the place one day to complete it though!

The wait for the 6 of them who had gone ahead almost to the summit was looking like never ending. The weather became tough. Rains, mist and breeze looked to be a deadly combo offer by the Mother Nature. A little bit of internal heat generation via ‘Pranayam’ helped me to stay without a jacket here. I realized the importance of keeping your body metabolism intact. Later we decided to descend before the others returned. As we were returning, we heard the voices of the rest of the people. So, the group of 12 again started to climb down. Except for a few places of only grass, we were able to figure out the way. A few of us decided to literally run through the forest range as we were not ready to treat the leeches after the rains. This was another amazing event where I found myself running alone amidst the thick forest range. We had the pre-historic communicators (via quick shouts) to ensure that all of us are heading the same way.

Finally, at 4 PM, we were back to the place where we started from just to discover that a few leeches are there inside our shoes! After a quick cleanup, we left to the home stay where hot ‘Mangalore bajjis’ (A Mangalore special evening savory) was waiting for us! A good round of talk and dinner saw us through the time before we slept peacefully.

‘Get us guys!’ was the call at sharp 6:30AM in the morning. It was Deepika waking us all up in the morning to ensure that the next day’s itenary is not affected. ‘is badmaash ko flush out karo!’ was the next set of phrase I remember where Abhijit and Animesh were on a mission to kill the leeches inside the room! Before we set out for the day’s activities we had a very good breakfast of Dosas where Mr.Kashinath informed me that the previous night a snake just went behind me while I was having dinner. I was like damn, I missed it again. Till date I have not seen a snake in its natural habitat…

A quick visit to the Shishileshwara temple (Fish temple) and the lovely stream of the kapila river leading to Dharmasthala made our morning on the day 2. We left for the day heading out to the city thinking that the activities are done for two days. But the TT driver proved us to be wrong when a Tata Sumo banged the bumper in the heavy traffic of Bangalore. A 20 minute negotiation and we were done with it. It was time for me to take leave from this amazing set of people with whom I had another memorable weekend!

Cheers,

Shreyas