Virgin beauty (:as told by Guru Dakshina)

3,4 Oct 2007
Junta : Ravi,Suchi,Raghu,Guru,Shivaji and Dakshina
This weekend,we set out to explore Karnataka's
most beautiful ,yet less explored hills based out of the simple town of chickmagluru. The 2 highest peaks in Karnataka , Mullyanagiri hills and Bababudanagiri range of hills are a trekker's paradise.The sounds of the winds,the streams flowing through,water gushing down from remote waterfalls,the sound of insects,the wish-washing as went walked against the grass,the sound of trees swaying to the music of the winds as against the motors honking in the concrete jungles that we have created,was such a wonderful change...


We , a group of 6 friends,rented a Qualis and started out from Bangalore on a Friday evening,halting at Hassan and moving on to Chickmagluru,visiting the historical ChennaKesava temple at Beluru and hitting Sarpadari at around 10.am .

Photo Caption: Raghu,Ravi,Suchi,Guru and Shivaji in front of the Beluru temple

We asked the driver to meet us up at the top of the Mullyanagiri hills,near the temple.
We were all scared that the trail would be teeming with leeches and were all fully armed for the same : Dettol,salt powder,tiger balm ,2 pairs of stockings (Never under-estimate thy enemy):It looked like we were more on a battle against leeches ...I had done a thorough study on the net the prev day on leeches and so was most scared --believe me sometimes ignorance is really bliss ..I wish i hadnt...The funny part is that for all the preparation we did we didnt encounter anything close to a leech in the mullayanagiri hills :They would strike us when least expected and let me defer it for the timebeing !!!

Actually, our plan was to halt at Chikkamagaluru but some of us got stuck in office on Fri evening and we left Blore very late and hence plan was changed to make an halt at Hasan itself.
We stayed in hotel Shrikrishna, they charged us around Rs 1600 (for a family suite with 6-7 beds).
We messed a bit in locating Sarpanadari but locals helped us to figure it out. There is an arc from where this Sarpanadari (trek route) to Mullayanagiri starts .

The climb up to the Mullyanagiri peak took us almost 2.5 hrs .From Sarpadari,the climb is very steep and every 15 mins that we walked and stopped to look back at the valley below,we were presented with a different breathtaking view of the place..At some places we missed the regular trail and took the harder way ,but it was fun nevertheless ...We stopped by to have some oranges that we carried along .

We heard/read it from expert trekkers that it will be very windy and cloudy but it was not the case at least when we visited. But, it really didn't matter when the trek was offering us splendid views of the hill range...

There is a priest's house on top of Mullayanagiri. He prepares decent food (rice-sambar) to be honest not so good food but he serves it hot.
Many of us hesitated to trek from Mullayanagiri to Bababhudangiri and hence we took our qualis till AtthiGundi and from there we started to trek towards BBGiri. As we went up, sunset was nearing and we shared some wonderful moments. Two of us (Shivaji and
Guru) lost the track and contributed some thrill/pain for rest of our group members esp. to Ravi who tried to trace these guyz by backtracking to certain extent.
By the time we saw BBGiri dargah and had hajji-tea, it was already 6.30-7.00pm. Then we took our qualis and headed towards KemmanGundi. The road is bit scary to ride since it was dark but the driver handled it with ease. We halted in forest dept cottages which are very economical and well maintained (we were charged around 600-700). the fares are fixed by the govt and are displayed in the reception/office. Shivaji had booked booked it in advance (Tel no.: 08261 237126)
In the morning, all of us were ready by 6.30 to head towards Z-point, one of the amazing view point in KemmanGundi as couple of friends had told us. We started walking and without preparing for leeches (no shoes, no salt, no tiger balm). It was nice misty morning offering wonderful view of KemmanGundi hills/forest. On the way to Z-point, we find Rock Garden and Shanti falls. We decided to go to Rock Garden later since we wanted to reach Z-point as early as possible. After some time, we reached Shanti falls where we met people (coming back from Z-point) whose blood circulation was better than ours due to leeches.
All of us were asking them about leeches and they told there are leeches on the way to Z-point and few of us got very scared. By that time, my leg was very dirty and i decided to wash my leg in Shanti Falls. myself and Suchi decided to skip Z-point and started heading towards our hotel. Guru who was the most scared of all the boys about leeches after a lot of hesitation decided to join the rest of boyz gang to reach Z-point.Ravi, Raghu, Shivaji and Guru managed to reach Z-point and had great time as they claim :) Two to three leeches managed to suck some blood from shivaji, others were lucky.