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.

Moment in Nainbaug

Nainbaug, is least known highway pass-by town on the way to uttarkashi. But this small town came to very spot light with nature playing game with us with land slide and rain.
On our way to rupin pass we got struck in this small town with no way on either side.

Picturesque mountain with over 10 waterfalls. 

Nainbaug is just 45kms away from mussoorie and just 40 odd kms from bigger town parola.

our journey to this town started from Bangalore and boarding the flight late after arriving early to airport. Well many a thanks to our smoking partners. Delhi was hot and humid as ever and we had to rush to Delhi nizzamuddin railway station to board Dehradun express.
Our dinner was waiting for us at karai Gate of Railway station.

People enjoying heavy dinner at sai baba veg restaurant

Spot the paneer and Aloo items. 

Well most of the items in menu had paneer(cottage cheese) or aloo(potato) in it, we were left with no choice but to gulp it.

Train journey was cool till early morning when we were greeted with heavy showers and news of landslide flashing all over the news channels. Yes there was bit of dilemma initially but our guide and cab driver told it would clear soon. 

Road on the way to mussoorie

   our journey to mussoorie was quite memorable as we were charged up for the trek. Stopped at light tea and biscuit at roadside stall every time we got a chance.

stop for Chai!

Next few hours proved to be bit scarry as we saw lots of landslides being cleared and vehicles are returning with the message that road ahead is blocked woul not clear for another day or so. 

we still thought to take a chance and go ahead. 

Landslide

First sight of land slide was heart breaking and was enough to get our spirits low. But our driver kept on telling us that it will get clear soon. May be he is true. 

JCB at Work

An of course he was true. What seem like impossible task to me was done in hours by JCB.

JCB clearing Road  side boulders. 

NainBaug still 11kms long

Struck oh highway:(

It took us entire day to reach Nainbaug which is just 11kms away.

We managed to reach nainbaug at night 10 O clock and halted due to landslide ahead. We got one hotel or so called lodge in nainbaug. Hotel was on demand for that night and he hiked the prices of the room. and made some new laws in renting the room. His deluxe rooms had television facility with 10 years old cot and equally prehistoric era bedsheets. After all it was luxury in middle of nowhere.

HOTEL DESCENT!

One can have practical test of kirchoff law on this busy network.

Bull eye! hot movie in cold place.

View from hotel common balcony.

  our food was arranged at nearby dhaba. our breakfast menu was roti + eggplant sabji , our lunch menu was repeat of breakfast menu and dinner menu was repeat of lunch menu.
with rain creating havoc and chilly breeze hitting your face with cold nose, food was awesome. we Always got food hot. Thanks to the cook.

Nothing to do on first day, some of the folks had divine feelings with  marijuana aka bhang. while some got confused more then the normal and rest were more than quite. I had some suspicion as one of our mate could not differentiate between tomato ketchup and Jam.
Split personality exists! and I saw the real life demo in room from a guy intoxicated with marijuana. He was talking to his inner voice with pillow in his hand representing his inner voice. 

Nainbaug was all over with vehicles piling up for uttarkashi. with no hope of road opening we got one dry day and it did't rain that day. we decided to take small hike to nearby place. we crossed the river using military bridge and went to other side of village. It was nice walk.
Next day we decided to head back to mussorrie.  

road being created by excavator

Finally walking through the road and crossing the landslides we reached proper road. then we got a cab to drop us to mussorrie

Mussoorie road with large cloud cover.

Guruorasad will not be allowed at near sight of this lodge.

Hackmans hotel where we stayed in mussoorie.

did you guys notice the cream he is selling ?

hotel in morning.

Took cable car ride to top of mussoorie.

Night fall at mussoorie.

we took flight from delhradun to bangalore due to land slide on road to delhi. Overall good experience and some learning to plan the next trip in june july.

twin peaks conquered :)

We did it!


Managed to climb both the peaks in a day. Thanks to raghunandan for driving us around.

twin peaks

17th September is nearing and from now it's no turning back.
Me along with few trekkers put up a plan to climb two peaks in one day.
Well I never did it before but great. Let's see how it works out


PLAN:-

5:15 AM from my place to Hebbal drive
6:00 AM start to Skandagiri and be at the base by 7:00 AM
7:15 Start the climb to skandagiri

Skandagiri Peak

Assuming it take 2 hours to climb the peak and takes another 1 hour to descend should take us approximately 4 hours for return journey with 1 hour as rest period.

11:45 AM start to tumkur via bypass.

on the way have light lunch and proceed to madhugiri.

Madhugiri Peak

travel time including lunch will be 2 hours 30 mins

start at 2:30 to climb madhugiri.

takes two hours to reach on top and return will be 1 hour 30 mins. half an hour rest at top and start down.

if we start at 5:00 from top then we should be back by 6:15 to 6:30 PM.


hmm.. still sound cool.


I'll keep my fingers crossed for rain no to spoil our sport.

RUPIN PASS

Here is the itinerary...
                          Date 17 : Arrive Delhi
                                         On arrival met at the airport and transfer to the hotel for dinner.Overnight journey by train to dehradun.

                          Date 18 : Drive from Dehradun - Netwar .Dstce 180 kms.Halt.
                          Date 19: Mori - Dhula - Sewa (2000 M).
                                       We drive 40 km from our camp to reach Dhula (road head). Our trek starts from here; we will trek about 8 km in about 4 hrs time. At Sewa there is a                                          impressive wooden temple dedicated to Mahasu Devta (Local deity).
                                       Overnight: Tent

                          Date 20: Sewa - Jiskon (2320 M)
                                       After Sewa we continue trek to Jiskon. The trail and surroundings is extremely picturesque.
                                       Overnight: Tent

                          Date 21: Jiskon - Jakha (2650 m)
                                      After breakfast we will trek to Jakha, which is 08 km from Jiskon.
                                      Overnight: Tent

                          Date 22: Jakha - Saruwas Thach (3450 M)
                                      Today's trek is of 8 km and we will take about 5 - 6 hrs to reach Saruwas thach camping ground, moving at a leisurely pace so as to enjoy the beauty of the place.
                                      Overnight: Tent

                          Date 23: Saruwas Thach - Nuru (3600 M) Via Rupin Pass (4625 M)
                                      Early morning we set out towards Rupin pass. From the pass enjoy fantastic views of the Kinnaur Kailash range. From here we will descend to the grazing grounds at Nuru. To reach here we would have trekked for about 6 hrs covering 12 km.
                                 Overnight tents.

                          Date 24: Nuru - Sangla (2650 M)
                                     We will trek 12 km (3-4 hrs) to reach Sangla.If possible we can plan for a relax day.
                                     Overnight: Camp

                          Date 25: Sangla - Shimla.
                                     After breakfast drive to Shimla (237 km, 10 hrs). Upon arrival check into hotel.
                                     Overnight: Hotel

                          Date26: Shimla - Kalka.
                                     Drive to Kalka ..overnight journey to Delhi by train..

                          Date 27: Reach Delhi.