A date with Kudremukh in Western Ghats

Never was I so desperate for a break! Recently, I had been to the most beautiful trek (40 kilometers) in Karnataka, The Kudremukh. My friend Swamy and I joined a bunch of enthusiastic bachelors with whom we had unlimited fun throughout the trip through GHAC.

We started at 6 pm in Hyderabad and reached Udipi town by morning 7 am. Later, 11 of us hired a 20-seater to Balagal village. Our co-ordinator, Giri, came up with a couple of games through which all of us were introduced to one another. The real fun started there with the ‘Mafia’ game in which we stereotyped each person. On our way, we visited Hanumangundi water falls. Later, some of us sat on the top of a 20-seater through the ghat roads and had an adventurous journey until the police caught us.

After reaching Balagal village, we started our initial 8 kilometers trek amidst leeches at 4pm and reached Kudremukh base camp in two hours. All of us applied salt andneem oil with extra pair of socks surrounding polythene covers to protect ourselves from leech bites. At base camp, we spent around half an hour to identify leech bites on our skin and visitedthe Somawathi water falls nearby.

On day two, we started our exciting and adventurous trek from the base camp to Kudremukh peak at 6 am. The drizzle welcomed us to enjoy the scenic beauty of the trek. As we passed through the lush green vegetation, we noticed peacocks and Samba deer from a distance. Many small streams of fresh water on our way added more beauty to our trek. Oh My God! The clouds occasionally touched us and condensed to water. That feeling was simply awesome! The green mountains played hide and seek with the help of fog and created another master piece to the trek. Our journey from a muddy road to gravel uphill, from the grasslands to an uninhabited forest with fallen trees, from the slippery rocks to a fresh water steams was like a beautiful dream. Adventure awaited us in the form of leeches, mossy rocks and steep edges of the hill. On our way, we shared our food and water with our friends to unload our backpacks. We also shared a few packets of salt to get rid of leeches on our shoes and legs. Finally, it took us 4 and a half hours to reach the mighty and beautiful Kudremukh peak. All of us held our shoulders together and shouted with boisterous enthusiasm and moved in a circle.

Later, we trekked down 12 kilometres to the base camp in another 4 hours as it was very slippery throughout due to heavy rain. After reaching the base camp, we found that 8 of the 11 guys were bitten by leeches despite the heavy protective measures that we took. Later, we took bath after reaching the base camp and started walking another 8 kilometers.

It is definitely the most beautiful trek I had ever been to. Along with this trek, we also visited the Malpe beach in Udipi and the Lord Shiva temple in Murudeshwar.