My Odyssey with Nature-1 (Trek to Kudremukh)

This was my first trek in the year 2013. I had been to many treks before but none of them lasted for more than a day. Of course even kudremukh is a one day trek but we had to camp at the base and then visit a nearby falls the next day. So, I would rather call this a 2 day trek.

 

Note to the people who are looking for directions for their trek: I am very sorry to disappoint you. You are at the wrong place. There are many travel bloggers who give you minutest details about the trek. I am here to share my experience during the trek and not to provide any guidance.

 

The name Kuduremukha literally means 'horse-face' (in the local language Kannada) and refers to a particular picturesque view of a side of the mountain that resembles a horse's face.

 

 

Well, moving ahead. The trek was started on 25/01/13 (Friday night) and ended on 27/01/13 (Sunday morning). I have never been to any treks with a private trekking club before. This was my first experience with an outside club and also first time I went without my friends. It was with a bunch of unknown people I had decided to go with. There were three vehicles to take us.
 

 Before I came to the pickup point, I had spoken to an old friend (Girl :-P) of mine. We were, of late, talking more often and I was scared to make the first move. After the disastrous experiences before, I was now not in a position to get into any kind of relationship. This was a perfect getaway to relax and decide my next move carefully.

  

I got into the bus and found people chit chatting in groups. It didn’t take much time to find out that these people were colleagues/friends. I decided to occupy a single seat; well that was the only one left. And someone called me from behind. I turned around to see a foreign guy. I soon found out he was just like me, feeling like a lone drop in an unknown ocean. He introduced himself and we started a conversation. He was from Czech Republic.

 We started discussing about each other’s countries and we decided to use Wikipedia to aid our conversation. He explained me about his country and I realized there were lot of similarities between our countries and most of the words sounded like Sanskrit, maybe there was some distant connection sometime in the history.

I woke up very frequently while travelling and couldn’t catch a decent sleep. We reached early morning and jeeps were waiting for us to be ferried to the base camp.

 

 It was very cold and I was wearing a sleeveless sweater. It took a toll on me and after this trek I ensured to cover myself completely in the following treks.

 

 

I just washed myself up and saw around 30 people there. Breakfast was being served; it didn’t look good but tasted fine.

 

 

There was a self introduction and most of them were working in MNC’s. There were just four girls, well I was at the wrong place but had no choice. We were divided into 2 groups; I was part of the first group. We were given instructions about the trek, 16km up and down and other safety measures to be followed.

 I met a guy who had left his work and become an Entrepreneur. He was really irritating me with some senseless questions related to work. I told him we use normal excel sheet to make production plans, which shocked him. He spoke at length about the software’s which he develops. I wasn’t keen on his offers. Why pay millions of rupees for software whose job can be done on a priceless excel. He saw a girl and walked towards her. I was happy for her to take the burden of me.

The sun had just risen and the weather was good.

 

 

In no time, it started burning us. There were many amateurs who took breaks very often. I was instructed not to move and just wait for everyone. In a while, everyone split and walked at their pace. Clearly, the instructions were violated. After a while, sun took a toll on me.

 

 I was left with little water and it got over in no time. After a while, I couldn’t bear the heat. I was lucky to find some water flowing down. It was very fresh and I almost had a bath in there. One group was already resting there, like forever. It made me wonder whether this point was the end point for them. I moved on.

 

 

Now, people were scattered everywhere. In another 20 minutes, I was hungry. I was lucky to have no one around me. I ate an apple. It felt like bliss, it made me realize the value of food and thanked god for everything.

 

  I was back on track. It almost felt like I was in the oven. I was going to a trek after nearly 2 years and my work life had taken a toll on my body. I felt to have lost stamina. This was more of a “where I stand” trek as I had planned to conquer Kumara Parvata (Third tallest peak in Karnataka) the following week with my colleagues. I could no longer withstand the cramps and had to rest.

 

 

 I had a tough task. In no time, I stood up and started walking. A few villagers were sitting and enjoying the fun. One of them shouted, “Are you tired, maybe you should go back?” and it was followed by laughter riot from others. I just smiled and continued my ordeal.

In some time, I reached the peak but found a guy still walking further without realizing it was the end. Of course it’s a mad world we live in. He returned after few minutes. Anyway, mission accomplished.
 

It took another thirty minutes for others to come over. Well, I wasn’t bad as I was just the second person to climb up. This made me happy. So my stamina is still good. I heard people couldn’t bear the sun and rested often and a group of people had returned as they couldn’t bear the heat.

 

 

All of us had lunch together. Most of them went to the shades and rested for a while. There was an old ruined church, I went there and explored for a while. I couldn’t find anything worth mentioning, just the picture below.

 

As the rules were being violated by everyone, I didn’t have to tell anyone to get down. Four of them joined me. The downward trek was in the evening and the weather was normal. We just rested once, at a place where water was flowing. We had a water massage (Term given by one of the fellow trekkers) for our legs.
 

 

 The return journey was almost eventless till we found two different paths.

 I analyzed for a while, I could see shoe marks in the opposite direction. So, it had to be the way. It was just common sense. Soon, my entrepreneur friend joined us and told he was very sure that the other path was the right path. Some of them joined him and started walking that way. The foreign guy and the girl (Who had earlier helped me from him) followed me. We reached in twenty minutes and had hot snacks which were awaiting us.

Soon, people started gathering but still there was no sign of the guy. I was too tempted to crack jokes on him but had to control myself. After exactly two hours, his group came. Well, he never spoke to me after this incident. There was a camp fire and a few people played games and some of them were narrating their previous trek experiences.

 

 

 We camped in there, had dinner before sleeping and woke up early morning. We had the same breakfast as the previous day.

 

We were informed that we would be taken to a nearby falls, after we which we would be taken back to our city.

This was the first time I ever entered into waters at a water fall (Well, I don’t know swimming). I was told the depth was not more than 4 feet. I thoroughly enjoyed the time there.

 

 

 After which, we returned back as was told.

 

This was probably the only trek I felt hostile. I don’t blame others but probably the organizers could have handled things better. I was charged probably four times higher than the actual cost. This is when I decided not to go with a private club. It is the journey that matters and not the end result. Overall, it was a nice experience. Well, the only trek I didn’t talk much.