This plan was not entirely planned but something that just happened to happen. Three friends drove very early on a Saturday morning from Benagaluru to Kodavu.
First happy disappointment, we took a route that had no traffic and beautiful country side and awfully bad roads for a small car like our Maruti Alto K10 can handle. Yes, of-course we were wrongly recommended by experts and smart phone navigation apps, but the views were too good and we were more happy than disappointed.
We reached our pre-booked home-stay at about 1:20PM. Honey Valley, a nice hideout about 4 kms off Kabinakand bus stop on Talakavery -Virajpet main road in midst of coffee plantation.
After lunch we talked with the home-stay manager Ajeet; he gave us a brief detail about the surroundings. A kilometer towards South-east was the Dry Pond. From here you can chose from as many as six trails, including Mt. Tadiandamol. We walked up to check this place while the afternoon sun went on to hide behind low clouds.
With only about two hours of light left we picked the trail that goes to base of Chelavara water fall. Only halfway through it started to drizzle and we U-turned. Rest of the evening was uneventful, we have an early dinner and slept off.
Sunday morning was gloomy and cloudy. Something in me was not so happy about it. We got ready, had breakfast and started walking towards dry pond by 9:00 am; which was an ideal time to begin, not too early not too late.
We took the western path towards Naland palace but came back and climbed the steep trail towards south instead. A short walk through the woods brought us to a narrow slippery steep ridge ascending east wards.
From top of this small hill you can see upper Chelavara falls in front and another Yevakapadi peak a little towards left covered in clouds. We continued our ridge walk further towards a big black rock that propped out of the hill on our right. Passed the rock to enter the woods. We could hear the waterfalls clearly over shrill noise of crickets. We crossed a stream that feeds the Chelevera falls below, it was couple of meters wide; before walking into the dense acacia grove that turned sharp right along the top of the hill west wards. From here you have first look at Mt. Tadiandamol, for us it was covered with clouds.
The path ahead was not well marked and confusing; it kept on appearing and disappearing. After crossing over another small hill we were again walking a steep ridge through short shrub like flowering plants; flowering cause we were walking on a carpet of caterpillars. The condition of disappearing trails continued and we were walking all over looking for one. Until we found ourselves already walking another dense grove of wild acacia. It had already past 10:30 AM and we were hardly half way through, we were very slow and disappearing trails just added to delay.
Further up we met two local lads looking over their herd of cattle; they reconfirmed which way we should keep moving. The sky seemed to be clearing out and we were now walking through thick grass; along a steep ridge of course. I thought climbing over the hill would be more time consuming than going around the ridge as we had lost a lot of time. But soon realized that this was not a very good idea either; trails kept on disappearing and we ran into dead end like gorges.
By 1:00 PM we were still about two hours behind from reaching the peak, we decided to take a break on top this hill that was just one hilltop behind tall Tadiandamol. We recalculated our positions; it was about to rain and finally decided to return the way we came, without going any further. We were slow, kept on loosing tracks, couple of wrong decisions and a little tired too.
We eat our snacks and started back at about 2:00 PM. We had only covered about a kilometer and it started raining heavily. In midst of all this we kept hearing elephant trumpets coming from the woods now on our left. It was faint and we did not give much heed to it; we had bigger problems at hand, the down pour had covered our tracks it seemed impossible to retrace them. At this time MyTracks app that we were using to GPS mark our route came very handy. Even thought rain made it difficult to check the mobile, but we were able to trace back quite a lot.
Before we reached the wild acacia grove there was a very sharp descend to right, on an almost vertical ridge, we had lost lot of time while climbing it up. Now with rains it became more treacherous to climb down. I was afraid for my friends, they did not have any prior experience. So we took a more significantly visible game track that went left and seemed to go around the hill through the woods. The GPS tracker showed we were deviating away from our route but we kept on walking on the mud trail until a loud sound tore through the silence of the forest. The elephant must have been only 20 meters from us I only saw the thick forest moving; we panicked and started running back as fast as we could.
Funny thing was that in fearurry we had already crossed the wild acacia grove and were back on our original trail, rain had also stopped by this time. Now we were moving fast through the caterpillar carpet. We kept a watch on the GPS tracker from time to time just to be sure, it was already late into the afternoon. We reached the stream at around 4:10, there was more water and stronger current. By the time we reached the black rock it was almost evening and the wet moss covered path became very dangerous to walk.
We were at the dry pond region at about 5:35 PM and it was almost dark when we reached Honey valley. As soon I reached the home-stay I started the gruesome process of removing all leeches that were feeding on me all this time. Both my white socks had turned red in blood, I could not count their number for there were so many of them. Its still itching while I am writing this blog.
First happy disappointment, we took a route that had no traffic and beautiful country side and awfully bad roads for a small car like our Maruti Alto K10 can handle. Yes, of-course we were wrongly recommended by experts and smart phone navigation apps, but the views were too good and we were more happy than disappointed.
We reached our pre-booked home-stay at about 1:20PM. Honey Valley, a nice hideout about 4 kms off Kabinakand bus stop on Talakavery -Virajpet main road in midst of coffee plantation.
After lunch we talked with the home-stay manager Ajeet; he gave us a brief detail about the surroundings. A kilometer towards South-east was the Dry Pond. From here you can chose from as many as six trails, including Mt. Tadiandamol. We walked up to check this place while the afternoon sun went on to hide behind low clouds.
With only about two hours of light left we picked the trail that goes to base of Chelavara water fall. Only halfway through it started to drizzle and we U-turned. Rest of the evening was uneventful, we have an early dinner and slept off.
Sunday morning was gloomy and cloudy. Something in me was not so happy about it. We got ready, had breakfast and started walking towards dry pond by 9:00 am; which was an ideal time to begin, not too early not too late.
We took the western path towards Naland palace but came back and climbed the steep trail towards south instead. A short walk through the woods brought us to a narrow slippery steep ridge ascending east wards.
From top of this small hill you can see upper Chelavara falls in front and another Yevakapadi peak a little towards left covered in clouds. We continued our ridge walk further towards a big black rock that propped out of the hill on our right. Passed the rock to enter the woods. We could hear the waterfalls clearly over shrill noise of crickets. We crossed a stream that feeds the Chelevera falls below, it was couple of meters wide; before walking into the dense acacia grove that turned sharp right along the top of the hill west wards. From here you have first look at Mt. Tadiandamol, for us it was covered with clouds.
The path ahead was not well marked and confusing; it kept on appearing and disappearing. After crossing over another small hill we were again walking a steep ridge through short shrub like flowering plants; flowering cause we were walking on a carpet of caterpillars. The condition of disappearing trails continued and we were walking all over looking for one. Until we found ourselves already walking another dense grove of wild acacia. It had already past 10:30 AM and we were hardly half way through, we were very slow and disappearing trails just added to delay.
Further up we met two local lads looking over their herd of cattle; they reconfirmed which way we should keep moving. The sky seemed to be clearing out and we were now walking through thick grass; along a steep ridge of course. I thought climbing over the hill would be more time consuming than going around the ridge as we had lost a lot of time. But soon realized that this was not a very good idea either; trails kept on disappearing and we ran into dead end like gorges.
By 1:00 PM we were still about two hours behind from reaching the peak, we decided to take a break on top this hill that was just one hilltop behind tall Tadiandamol. We recalculated our positions; it was about to rain and finally decided to return the way we came, without going any further. We were slow, kept on loosing tracks, couple of wrong decisions and a little tired too.
We eat our snacks and started back at about 2:00 PM. We had only covered about a kilometer and it started raining heavily. In midst of all this we kept hearing elephant trumpets coming from the woods now on our left. It was faint and we did not give much heed to it; we had bigger problems at hand, the down pour had covered our tracks it seemed impossible to retrace them. At this time MyTracks app that we were using to GPS mark our route came very handy. Even thought rain made it difficult to check the mobile, but we were able to trace back quite a lot.
Before we reached the wild acacia grove there was a very sharp descend to right, on an almost vertical ridge, we had lost lot of time while climbing it up. Now with rains it became more treacherous to climb down. I was afraid for my friends, they did not have any prior experience. So we took a more significantly visible game track that went left and seemed to go around the hill through the woods. The GPS tracker showed we were deviating away from our route but we kept on walking on the mud trail until a loud sound tore through the silence of the forest. The elephant must have been only 20 meters from us I only saw the thick forest moving; we panicked and started running back as fast as we could.
Funny thing was that in fearurry we had already crossed the wild acacia grove and were back on our original trail, rain had also stopped by this time. Now we were moving fast through the caterpillar carpet. We kept a watch on the GPS tracker from time to time just to be sure, it was already late into the afternoon. We reached the stream at around 4:10, there was more water and stronger current. By the time we reached the black rock it was almost evening and the wet moss covered path became very dangerous to walk.
We were at the dry pond region at about 5:35 PM and it was almost dark when we reached Honey valley. As soon I reached the home-stay I started the gruesome process of removing all leeches that were feeding on me all this time. Both my white socks had turned red in blood, I could not count their number for there were so many of them. Its still itching while I am writing this blog.
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