Trek to Kumara Parvatha (05 & 06 Dec 2009). Posting this one very late, but this one was memorable for several events that were really frustrating but always had fun when we remembered those incidents.Myself, Ravi & Nagendra planned this trek. We had lot of advise from lot many other trekkers from their trek experience. Few things that drew our interest are the leaches, no source of water & food and at least two days requirement to complete the trek.
So with these things majorly on our minds we started our preparation. Ravi arranged for the snuff powder & cutting pliers to tackle with the leaches, I arranged for a portable LPG stove of around 2 Lt's capacity, thought that we would cook some food on the peak of Kumaraparvatha. Also arranged for some rice and soup packets. Ravi gathered some utensils to cook. Along with that some other eatables like chocolates, bread, plum cakes and some fruits-grapes & oranges. In overall we made prep for a picnic not for a trek. We did not realize that we are just adding up the weight.
We woke up when the bus reached the Subramanya bustand. It was a very beautiful morning. The whole town covered with mist. I was feeling if I could get a very nice place to sleep. We walked into a restaurant, had our breakfast and picked up a 5 Lt's big bottle of water and two 2 Lt's bottle and started towards the Kumaraparvatha. As you reach near to the trek starting point a big board with the trek route information embraced us.
By then Ravi was already cribbing about the weight of his bag and plus a water bottle in his hand. He was carrying most of the food items. To avoid the risk of overweight on one person we were sharing the gas stove which was heavy.
We started walking slowly and on the way all our concentration was on the leaches. We tucked the cuffs of our pants into the socks and poured the snuff powder all over the shoes and socks. For our surprise we found that snuff powder will put the leaches to sleep (Not sure whether they are dead or unconscious)
Since it was early morning, the path was little wet. It's a very narrow path with huge trees all around. we were moving along the silent path. The only company to us were the chirping of the birds. Other wise it was just a quiet walk. Our eyes were more concentrated on the path and the roots and stems of the plants, trees on either side, just were trying to be away from leaches if we find any. To be frank one has to be very careful while walking this path, there are countless leaches and you never know from where and when they will stick on to the body. We found them on our bags, shirts, pants, shoes, caps...Woof..very very blood sucking leaches. After walking sometime we reached a big stone and stopped for resting there. We could pluck out many leaches from our dress and bags sitting there.
Think we were tired too much by then, so we stayed for a long time there. By then three more trekkers came to that point and started to rest there. There we found leaches on one boys neck, face and hands. They were swollen sucking the blood and the poor chap do not even have any feeling of them being on his face/neck/hand.
Slowly we started to move along. The climb is also little steep, that makes it difficult to walk. Ravi was the most worst affected fellow. He started to get cramps, he was finding it difficult to walk. By the time we came out of this dense forest area and reached the plane lands of the hill, the sun was on our head. Coping with Ravi I had to walk slowly with him. Nagendra had little josh and he kept on walking and reached the Girigadde Bhatta's house earlier than us.
Walking as slowly as possible we reached Bhatta's house and ordered our food there (in fact one call him up earlier and inform him about the arrival so that he will keep the food ready- his numbers are 9448647947/9480230191). Another mistake that we did was - we ate too much here. May be because of too much tiredness. We should have had light food to keep ourselves lighter and active.
Ravi started to complain about the weight and thought of dropping down some stuff at that place. But we were not in a position to drop anything there. Everything was essential and required for the night. We had forgotten to bring some oil to cook the food. So we borrowed some oil from the Bhattru and started walking.
What is good to see is that the Forest officials have kept the view points very clean with some benches to relax. It is from here we start to enter the secured area. So we have to pay the entry fees (I think 115 Rs per head) and declare what we are carrying. We had to leave our machete here (bought that one to collect some wood during the night).
Due to lot of thoughtless decisions and mistakes we made we were carrying too much of weight and our stomach was very heavy. Over that even in December we found that the sun is too hot to walk in the afternoon. It may be around 3 PM but we were very slow and soon realized that we cannot make it to the peak. The path and the mountains were full of grass, not with the forests like in the beginning of the trek, It was great if we could make it up to Battada rasi gudda after the kallu mantapa. Ravi stopped at one point of time due to heavy leg pain. Slowly and slowly keeping step after step, we reached battada rasi gudda. By then it was almost dark and we thought we will pitch our tent here. On the way just before the kallu mantapa we could find some water stream and no water signs after that.
After battada rasi gudda we have to reach Shesha Parvatha the next peak and then walk again in the forests a little bit and finally reach the peak of Kumara Parvatha. It was another 2 to 3 hours walk with our pace. I was willing to do that though it was dark but my friends were already tired and were not ready to move further.
There was huge mist covering the mountains and we in the middle of that. The cold breeze with mist was very good to enjoy. I loved it. Ravi preferred to stay inside because of the cold. Sooner we had to prepare our supper. This is when we became more frustrated and pissed off. The stove which we had carried all along, the one which was the heavy and difficult to carry did not ignite at all. We had put all the soup ingredients into the vessel and there is no fire to prepare that. Finally we collected some dry pieces of small woods and lit up the fire. With that fire we tried to prepare the soup. Thought if that works then we could even prepare the rice. To our bad luck we could not prepare anything with that fire because of too much of cold breeze and mist. We had thought that we would at least reduce the weights of our bags by morning and that will help us to walk further. But no, all our weights (Rice/Stove/Vessels/Oil...etc) remained with us and we had to manage that night with just bread & jam.
Next day early morning I woke up by around 5 AM. The other two were deep in sleep. As I came outside I felt I am in gods abode. My soul was bursting out with joy when I saw all the mountains covered with silver coloured mist. Just walked all around the place. Early in the morning there was dead silence and the just started chirping of the birds were trying to break that silence. After sometime Nagendra also woke up. We walked around the place enjoying the nature, the beautiful western ghats. 
Late in the afternoon we started to climb down the hill very very slowly. We had taken away most of the weight from Ravi, but still he was not finding it comfortable. Very slowly we reached down the hill, went straight to the kumaradhara river. It was very very nice to swim in the water after two days of hectic trekking activity. Later we visited the temple and got into the late night bus to reach Bangalore.
Link for any general information on Kumaraparvatha Trek: http://trekwiki.wetpaint.com/page/Kumara+Parvatha
