Trek to Kumaraparvatha

Stating of first experiences, this is my first experience (first experience of posting a blog, as well as the first trekking experience). Please feel free to correct me and give suggestions on improving this blog.

I’ll try to express the nostalgic moments and happiness that we experienced in this adventure (I’m mentioning the word “adventure”, as the experience that we had will be helpful to the readers of this blog).

We were 5 in number; I along with 4 neighboring friends planned this expedition and executed it. We planned this trip on account of 2 occasions; first one being there were birthdays of 2 group members coinciding around the same time, second and the most important reason was that we needed a break from our monotonous routine. Thus, we planned this escapade that made us secluded from April 1^st 2016 to April 4^th 2016.

CHAPTER I: THE PLANNING

I’ll try to keep it simple and make the narration more user friendly by using bulletins’ instead of long paragraphs, as it might bore you halfway. These are the procedure that we followed on planning this trek.

• We visited the websites and went through many blogs to get complete detail on how to proceed without any hassles. We started this phase in January itself. I know we started way too early, but we had to reschedule our trip due to some unavoidable circumstances.
• We reserved our train tickets in fag end of February (since April 3^rd was Sunday, we were scared that the tickets might be unavailable). We reserved the tickets for the train from Yashwantpur(Bangalore) to Subrahmanyapura Main Road on Friday morning. The train starts at 6:30am in the morning. Also reserved for the return tickets from Subrahmanyapura Main Road to Kengeri(Bangalore) for Sunday night. The train departs at 11:00pm from Subrahmanyapura Main Road.

CHAPTER II: EXECUTION

Following are the proceedings that happened on our trip.

We left our home at 5:45am to reach the railway station; reached there by 6:15am and boarded the train that was already on the platform. Since the train stopped at Tumkur railway station for a longtime we had our breakfast there (the food wasn’t good.)

We reached Subrahmanyapura Main Road station at 3 in the noon. We had our lunch at the railway station and then hired a taxi to reach Kukke Subramanya Temple. The cost of the jeep ride was Rs.300.

We started our trek at around 4:45pm. We reached the point “BHATTARA MANE” at 7:15pm. We spent our night over there, ate dinner (costs 110 per person), took rest and got ready to continue the mountaineering early morning. (please refer CHAPTER III: the night trek experience)

Within a kilometer from Bhattara mane we’ll get the forest office, to continue the trek we must produce our proof of identity. It costs 200 per head.

While heading to the peak we came across a point called “KALLU MANTAPA”. We had our breakfast over there (ate bakery items that we had in our luggage).

We reached the peak at around 11:30am on April 2^nd 2016. We spent half an hour on the peak and made our move towards the starting point.

By the time we reached the starting point it was 5.30 in the evening. We rented a room for the night near the temple.

We visited the temple on the Sunday morning. Later in the night we made our move back towards Bangalore, with the fond memories of the trip that was well accomplished.

CHAPTER III: THE NIGHT TREK

While trekking in the evening we were supposed to reach either of the two places, Bhattara mane or the forest office.

On our way, it started becoming dark. We were lost, we dint know where we were, we were lost in such a way that we couldn’t even decide whether we were going in the right direction. The panicking sensation started. Even though we had light from our torch, we were finding ourselves helpless.

To add to our miseries we found a sign board after some moments of panic struck adventure, it was rusty thus it wasn’t legible. We somehow distinguished the way we came from and started moving in the opposite direction to that. After nearly half a mile we came across a sound of a falling wood on our left. We tried throwing the light towards it, it was too hazy so we couldn't make out anything. We were hesitant to check what was happening since it was steep on our left.

Fortunately we started hearing some more noises again, this time it was chopping of a wood, this is how we understood that it was no accident and somebody lived there. We began to shout out for help, a reply came in a stern voice “yes, we are here”. The voice told us to the follow the narrow trail that was on our left; it led us to be in front of BHATTARA MANE.

SUGGESTIONS

• If you are going for a night trek, please make sure that you have adequate resources of light with you (torch, mobiles, power banks, etc.,)
• You can stay at Bhattara Mane or at the forest office. If you want to stay at the Forest Office then you can carry your sleeping bags and spend the night over.
• Do carry odomos to stay away from mosquitoes. Carry first aid kits, you'll find many different insects; so, do not take any risks.

This is open to all, do not panic if you are lost. Keep moving forward you’ll find one of the two places i.e., either Bhattara Mane or the Forest Office.