La Pushpagiri

KUMARPARVATA AKA PUSHPAGIRI

  My phone rings at around 11:00AM on 3rd December 2010. He was Tuppad in need, and need of rucksack.
He knew I have rucksack to spare. I would have not slept well if I had not asked him why he needed the backpack.
Tuppad had made plan for pushpagiri summit with 4 of his friends. I soon became part of their program.
My tickets were booked and I was given some task to collect tent and one extra backpack I have for tuppad.

Friday evening and I was restless on my seat. I had many things to do. I went to GYM had nice workout of my upper body and then had nice shower after long pending haircut.
My journey started by paying 150 rs to auto guy to drop me to Majestic bus depot. we all had pre planned to meet up at KFC city market.
First one was Srini to pop up. Later after some few calls we though to assemble next to bus stand. Soon we were joined by 6' 7" super human Sachin. (do remember his name til last).
And last one to show up had gadgets all over him and Quechua brand ambassador Sandeep.
First introduction to trek mates was nice and only thing in common to talk was tuppad.
But started at 11:00PM sharp from Bust stand. Bumpy ride and last seat nearly took away sleep from me. Anyways we managed to get down at somwarpeth at 6:00Am. Tuppad had already given the hotel details to us.

DAY 1: 
we freshened up and had nice breakfast and headed to base of pushpagiri.

Assembled at the base 

Pushpagiri peak is seen from this place amidst thick vegetation

My GPS ran out of batteries and sandeep's GPS didn't have marking for the Top. There is no clear marking at this place for the start route to climb. 

Forest Check post on en route.

 Paid Rs 115/- per head to Forest office at this forest officer check post. Collected all the information from check post, And we marched towards the peak.

wooden bridge en route.

 Climb to the top from Somwarpeth side is gradual. I would say it is easier. Only issue in this path is there are tons of leeches waiting to kiss you. we were at our practical speed on our ascent to peak. Speed got slowed down when two of our team mates were attached by leeches.

this is half way mark to top

 At this moment I thought of waiting for people a I had already in lead of 15 mins. Place was good and I could see tuppad arriving. But he informed me to find suitable place without any leeches to halt.

No bits till now.

 Climb from this point onwards is quite steep and moist dense forest is nice hiding ground for blood suckers.
 I preferred to climb fast in this area as there were so many of them waiting for food. Finally I found good place with some sun light to halt for. Of course I was also tired of walking continuously.
I waited for 15 -20 mins before I spotted some guys from different group. I asked them about our group and they said, our people are just behind . Finally I could hear tuppad and Sachin.
Tuppad was bitten badly by leeches and Sachin was defeated by the tiredness. After some time Srini arrived. He too was having some live bites on his foot.
Sandeep was way behind as he stood firm to clear each and every leech feasting on his body.
Overall moral of boy's were great and there were no sign of tiredness on anyone's face.

first steep  slope you encounter from Somwarpeth side.

Second steep slope on way to top.

 Threre are altogether three steep slopes one encounter en route to pushpagiri via somwarpeth. Second one is quite steep and water flowing on rocks make it more difficult and risky.

THis ones was most dangerous as there was water flowing on most of rock face.

Wild flowers at top.

At this place route from Kukke and Somwarpeth meets. from here it's gradual climb of 10mins to Pushpagiri.

 It was 1:00PM and we had covered significant distance by now. And road to pushpagiri was showing 2 more kms. we took rest for 30 mins. This break was required for sync up. we had few chocolates and cake and then walked uphill together. We could see the top now, but still far by a km or so. 

Boys resting.

 Finally we managed to reach top of the hill. We were still not sure if it is kumaraparvata. It was written pushpagiri.

At top of Pushpagiri . Girigadde is seen in backdrop.

Tuppad, SACHIN and Srini at top

 We were tired a bit, by this time and were desperately in need of food. Sincere thanks to tuppad and sachin for getting 45 'Chapati's' and chutney. Boy it really felt great out on top. I munched around 5 and no count of others. Everyone were busy hogging.

'

At Camp site

We were not alone on the top, there was a group of people from some company and they had taken up some space next to our tents. our tents were pitched in no time and we were ready for our dinner preparation. 

For dinner we had to get water. Nearest water source was nearly a km away. Me and tuppad went out for water and rest went on the hunt for fire wood for night. I knew nights at top of the mountain can be really cold in this period of time. I had my jacket but no sleeping bag.

Night fall

Our dinner was ready by 9:00 Pm and we finished remaining chapati's with dal makni, palak paneer and hot  n sour soup. Wow what a dinner. We prepared firewood and then with lots of gadgets from Sandeep and with our expert cook sachin we managed to finish our dinner preparation on time. Thanks a lot for Sachin , srini and sandeep for getting tons of fire wood. 

Cam fire at top.

 As the night was falling, it was getting bit chiller. I could feel the chill in my jacket. After our dinner we had some friendly chat with our neighbors at camp fire.
Entire show at camp fire was stolen by sachin by his spectacular pyrotechnics. well we had half liter of petrol unused which we had got for burning wood. Sachin played with the petrol and fire like pro. Overall I had nice feel of back draft effect at universal studio. 

Sachin was unhappy as he could not fetch cigarette from buddy's.  


 DAY 2

TEA IN MORNING

After the tea

Thresh we collected from camp site

 Day two we had to descend to kukke. From top to Kukke is about 15 kms. We thought of going directly to kukke without stopping at bhattar mane(bhat's house on route to kukke).
sun was direct this time and lot of good view points slowed us down on our descend.

Towards infinity

 Sachin took unusual challenge to beat his rival "mota" black and blue on our way down. Well I can only tell mota was so much frustrated that he did't see the sight of us after that. 

Who is Mota ? 
Mota is a guy whom we interacted on top of hill. He was with one of his colleague by name murugesh. Mota had cigarettes and Sachin wanted one of them. But mota refused saying he had kept one for tomorrow morning.  
Well mota went greedy a bit and asked us if we can spare out water for heating his MTR food packs and spare some petrol for fire wood.
Answer of NO! came from sachin our prime cook.
This was the point were fire got struck.

At Bhattar Mane. 
 we reached in about 3 hours to bhattar mane. My face was burning with lots of sun burns. Tuppad gave me moisturizer.
I returned the ear ring of one of the girl who had entered my tent. Well she wanted to take pick in side my tent tent in morning with no guy being there in and around the tent. (think I made it clear). 
With some vote of thanks from little lady we headed to kukke.

Once again we spotted mota and he had a gain of 15 min from us. Me and Sachin took up the challenge to overtake mota and make him feel miserable. I went ahead and overtook him as his he is not walking he was standstill.
Sachin did the same thing followed by sandeep. By this time we all were charged up and I had already taken a lead of half an hour. I had a reason to be this far. Wanted to call meeta and signal was not there.
Once my call to better half ended I waited in anticipation for the people.

Well I could not spot people for 15mins, That time I decided to head back and check if I have not lost the way. After some 10 mins of walk back I heard some sound and was happy. Got the information that our people are far behind.
so walked slowly with some new friends which I made on top of hill.
And finally came down to kukke.
Soon after 15 mins our team arrived and there was sheer joy of everyone's face. I know how it feels to be victorious.

Took a Volvo to bangalore same night after our flopped plan of eating chicken tandoori at hotel captain.
We had nice veg food with sambar remarkably good from what you get in bangalore.
Overall nice trip and surely looking forward to repeat it from Kukke side.

end of trek.