9 Gudda : Changed plans

Please Read Part 1 before reading this

Being mentally prepared to what I am going to see I slowly removed my socks, there they were! Leeches! 3 blood suckers. SALT, the remedy was used to get rid of them. Though more leeches were latching to our feet, we decided to donate some blood and continue our trek, now through Jeep tracks. Moments later, time arrived where we had to make a decision. The jeep track divided into 2! Shashi suggested we have to take right track there and based on inputs by one of my friend, I wanted to take wrong track! I mean left. The left track was looking more like a walking path than a Jeep track. So it was decided that me and Shashi will walk a bit along the left track and if we see any further Jeep track will call the rest.Though path ahead looked like a Jeep track, wondered how would anyone drive Jeep along that track. With the visible Jeep track we called rest of the guys by whistle indication. Then we started walking in the Jeep track and were introduced to the dense forest. I honestly expected to see some wild animal in such dense forest. Till now we did not see anything else than leeches. Birds chirps were heard but no visual contact happened. A sweet singing bird even responded to our whistles without giving privilege for visual confrontation.

2 GPS is what we had. None were used till now ( I was checking if my Nokia GPS is working without AGPS support regularly.) as Jeep track was leading us. Our first check point was the place where 2 river streams joined. From there we had plans to start climbing a hill. Jeep track was supposed to lead us till that point and from there we were on our own. I mean with GPS. A dense forest bring quite a unique experience of its own. One such experience was, as we were walking along whenever we touch a particular kind of plant around 7 feet high, small insects whose number would be in hundreds would drop from their leaves and fly around without faring away from their group. They were like small mosquitoes. They looked harmless though. But blocked our path. I was really impressed with their ‘team work’. We had to duck below the insects to move ahead. A group of tiny flying insects forced us to bow to them brfore moving furthur. I thought NGC can have an episode on insects colony here. Still no traces of any other animals.

After taking left(wrong??) track earlier, I always had doubt if we are moving in right path. Even GPS In my Nokia was not showing our correct location. And the assumption was that we would not need the other GPS(old Garmin! Our life saver later). But soon we encountered the river junction. It was around 11 AM. Crystal clear water with shining reflection of sunlight welcomed us. Cold water from the river got rid of our thirst. Delicious breakfast was waiting. Akki rotti with Tomoto curry ( yes we carried it) with extra oil! We gulped akki rottis without keeping the count till our stomach was full with our taste buds still wanting more. As soon as we were done with our breakfast, it was time to jump into the water. After spending some 20 minutes in water, it was time to get back to our trail. As per our plan(??), that was the last water source till we complete the trek. So everyone filled ‘enough’ water and kept a separate water bottle with ‘Gatorade’ in it.

Here we did our first mistake(fortunate??)

We continued to trace the path which we found. But as per our plan we had to start climbing the steep hill as soon as we crossed the river. We thought there might be some ‘easy’ way to enter the forest and then start climbing the hill. To our delight, we saw that! When we started climbing the hill, a villager who was passing by warned us that we are taking wrong path and offered help to show us the correct path, which we ignored and continued climbing. Nitin and Shashi went ahead to check if we can actually climb the hill from the chosen path. After getting green signal from them, we followed their trail. Difficult part of trek had just started and hard part was still waiting. It was inclination of around 60 degrees and at certain places we had to make our own path through dried plans with thorns. We used to do such activity in college days in ‘Youth Club’ camps and it was called ‘bush Crafting’. But that was no way close to what we were experiencing. Suddenly my Nokia GPS started showing our location and gave us hope that we are on the right track. We were supposed to reach the peak of that hill in next 30 minutes. People were struggling to climb the hill. Thorns indicated their presence on our arms. To the utter dismay of all, we hit a road block! We had to climb over the rocks to reach the peak. Shashi broke the news to us that one cannot climb those rocks. We did not have climbing equipments as well. After brief search for any path around to reach the peak, it was decided to go back to the point from where we started climbing the hill and take the regular path. Climbing down was much more tedious task. We took more time to climb down and had more scratches on our hands. At the point , our original plan/route to reach 9 Gudda was ruled out. So we decided to take the normal route which is generally used to reach the peak and it was the same way which the villager went by. Was sure if we meet the villager again, he would burst out into laughter first. And we had to learn how to use the second GPS(Garmin). We were Engineers! And so discovered the usage of that GPS. It was small feature which gives current co-ordinates on GPS, but was enough for us.

Visible path which was made by people who walked along that path soon became invisible and we had no idea where we were. Tree canopy was such that GPS were not detecting any satellites. So we thought our safe bet is to walk along the river and find a place to camp and since we would come out in open, our GPS can detect some satellites.. With sun showing signs of coming down, smiles also started fading on our faces slowly. Now we know only one path properly. The path to go back from where we started. I thought a silver lining was due for us and was waiting for it each and every moment. The map we took used to come out regularly and we tried to mark our location with co-ordinates we got from Garmin GPS(second one. Thank god we took it). But exact position was not found properly even once. At one point Shashi thought he saw a path and started climbing a small hill only to reach a point from where we could move no further. Then again we came back towards river and started walking by the river over boulders. We were now doing valley trekking. While we were moving ahead, at a particular place, Nitin came to me and told “ This looks like the place where wild animals come @ night to drink water”. And I thought he watches too much of ‘Animal Planet’. We were happy for one thing though. Water was right next to us and we carried good amount of food.

And just when we thought we will camp at the next place we find where we can pitch the tent , we saw the ‘silver lining’. It was whitish and it was flowing. It was a water fall which can be seen at a distance. And above all, there was some movement above the falls. Felt like a man standing and looking at the falls. Since couple others also saw it, it was clear I was not hallucinating. Shashi and Sunil decided to go towards the falls to check if they can find the place where Shashi and group had camped before (Shashi’s earlier trek), while I waited for the rest and gave them the god news. We had discovered the falls! And there came the whistle from Shashi , which was some positive sign. We had to cross the river once to reach the waterfall, which took some time. And 5 min later we were standing right in front of the falls. For a moment I forgot all the worries and enjoyed the beauty of this amazing water fall, which hardly had any human interference. And then Shashi was ready with the good news. The camp site we were looking for was near, but still was 30 – 40 min away. The person whom we saw from the distance was still there was ready to take us to that camping spot. While Shashi and Sunil went towards that camp site, rest of us took some rest near the water fall. We had accidentally discovered a water fall. It was not huge, but it was very refreshing sight. Since this falls was not mentioned in any of the 9 Gudda blogs earlier, we found it safe to assume that we have discovered it J.I was so excited to see that falls that I forgot to ask the name of the person who agreed to help us reach the camp site.

Sun was about to come down and we set towards the camp site hoping for more rest there. Me, Nitin and Kummi were left behind as we were taking more snaps. And the journey towards camp site from there was one of its kind. We climbed rocks, jumped over rocks, ducked under tree branches, hugged rocks to cross it, found a natural swing, found places where one small mistake could have tossed us to the river. All these were on the banks of that river. And finally we crossed the river(yes again!) over boulders to reach our camp site. Chandra had some fears initially to cross the river over boulder. Finally he also crossed and we made use of the rope there for the first time in our trek.

Nitin and Deesu fetched some dry wood for camp fire. I with couple more pitched the tents. In no time we were ready for both camp fire and sleep J. Camp fire took the priority over sleep then and finally we realized, we had only 1 meal that day till then. And then food came out and a shocker was waiting for us. Rotti(jola) which we had bought was stale due to heat and humidity. This was not alarming then as we had surplus amount of chapathi for the night and next day. Ate food peacefully and few guys went inside tent to sleep. Me,Shashi,Chandra,Nitin,Sunil and Kummi slept around camp fire gazing at the sky. Millions of stars were visible that night which would reduce to few thousands in Bangalore. Under the stars, next to the river, with a known place(to shashi) found at last, we decided to drop the idea of going back and start towards our original destination of 9 Gudda Peak. We had new hope in our heart with ample food and water in our stomach. Unfortunately there was no song and dance session and everyone went into their tents to sleep. We carried only 3 tents with the idea that couple of us will give watch for the rest in turns. Even that went for a toss and everyone occupied their places in their tents with their sleeping bags.

We were never able to get our correct location on map as GPS sometimes used to give co-ordinates with some correction. So next day we had to consider that also. Plan was to wake up early next day and reach the 9 Gudda peak by noon. With the hope of getting good sleep and expecting dream of finding ourselves on 9 Gudda, I closed my eyes and thought sleep will sweep me. A more dreadful day was waiting for us.

Coming up in Part 3 : sleeping bags!, sleepless night, late start, missed path, lost path, lost map, lost hope,more Thorns, deadly creepers, Bear!, GPS ,mobile calls, low on water,so near yet so far, night trek, Chopper rescue?