Wednesday 24 October, 2007

Yedakumeri to Gundya

Trek to Gundya 19th to 21st October 2007
Explorative trek which we went on the 1st and 2nd of October didn’t go according to our plan. With great difficulty we reached Dodkalbetta . But from there we couldn’t locate the trail to Katte. In fact we thought we were on the right path, but to our surprise the trail took us back to Kaginahare.

Trek to kaginahare was again planned on the 19th of October with a different team with me and Deepak leading a 7 member team

Members: Lakshminarayan, Deepak, Dipayan, Murali, Ramesh , Mahesh and Eshwar

The Route

After our first trek we had a fair idea of what went wrong. This time we changed our route

First Day

Reached Hongadahalla by Qualis
Hongadahalla to Yedakumeri village 3 Kms
Yedakumeri village to railway track 3 kms (61 kms milestone)
Railway track to Yedakumeri Railway Staion 6 kms (67 kms milestone)
Yedakumeri R.S to Kaginhare village 3 kms

Second Day

Kaginahare village to Railway track 12 kms (88 kms milestone, 3 kms after shrivagilu)
R T to Gundiya gate 6 kms

Day One

As per our plan we reached Hongadahalla village by 7.00 am and started our trek to the track after enquiring the route with a localite. The trail initially is on the jeep track and afterwards the trail takes a turn towards left. We were on the right track sighting the trail which is not very clear in most of the places for nearly a hour. We were happy to sight the bridge down and were satisfied that we are on the right track.

Suddenly the trail vanishes and we enter into a deep valley. With no trail visible and the track is seen we head right down in to the valley wading through the thorny bushes and finally we reach the track with lots of bruises on our hands. Here we meet at the 61st km milestone and we trekked on the track to reach Yedakumeri Railway station at 1.30. yedakumeri Railway station is at 67th km milestone.

After resting for while we start again towards kaginahare. The trek deviates from the track to the jungle at 68.5 kms milestone to the left. It is a steep climb for nearly 2 hours on a water path initially and a regular trail thereafter. We reach the grassland after a tiring climb for 2 hours and were greeted by lovely view of the surrounding valley. An other 1 hour climb leads us to Kaginahare village.

Day Two

After an early breakfast we left kaginahare at 7.45 am and spent some time at the Fort taking pictures. From the Fort we get down towards the temple and enter the forest heading towards south west direction initially. The trail is missing in most of the places and only by the direction of our destination, we were able to sight the trail. We reached the top of an hill straight opposite to Dodakall Betta. From there the trail is on the ridge towards West. At the end of the ridge we could see the village Katte and started descending into the shola forest.

The problem starts from here. The trail which is clear till now does not exist. We had to simply walk towards west direction without deviating much cutting those thorny bushes, avoiding those relentless leeches which always wins over you how much ever you try to avoid biting.
AT around 11.30 pm we reached the stream. From here it was supposed to be an hour’s trek to the railway track. After crossing the river, we followed the jeep track which was clear for quite a distance. Since the path is not used regularly, thorny trees and grass have covered the path making it difficult to locate the trail. At 1.30 we could see the Dodkall betta and we were sure that the trek was almost over. We could feel that the railway track is very much closer. But we were not able to find the path.

Deepak and I left other members near the stream and went in search of the path. After searching for ½ hour we could find the trail. We had come on to the other side of the stream. Dipayan started having problem with his knee. He had a ligament tear because of an accident and wanted to test how fit he is now.

Pace was very slow due to his knee problem. Having found the path we reached the railway track (88.5 km milestone) at 2.00 pm. This is 3 kms after Shrivagilu railway station. Intermittent rains also added to the weight of our rucksacks. We were all drenched and were stinking. There was a sigh of relief in every ones face. We stopped for some time to have bath and to have lunch. It started raining again. We started trekking again at 4.00 pm in the rain for 1 hr reaching the 93.3 km milestone from where we can see the subramanya road.

Here we got down to the road. Our driver was waiting for us from 4.00pm and was happy seeing us. The road to sakleshpur, 40 kms from Gundiya is horrible which took us 2 hours. Had our dinner at Hassan and reached home at 4.00 am.

Note:
01) Trek on the railway track is not allowed. You can’t start from the beginning. One has to enter the track in the middle and deviate before reaching the next station.
02) The trail from Kaginahare is not frequented and is not advisable during rainy seasons.
03) The tree canopy helps in not getting wet even in pouring rains.
04) Its better to take a guide or have a map / GPS / Compass if you want to venture on your own.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice and lovely write up.

Unknown said...

Could you pls let me know how to reach the village from Sakaleshpura. We are going by bus.? please let me know ur contact details. my details are pratap.sikdar@gmail.com

Unknown said...

Thank you for this blog. We went for this trek its awesome and beautiful.