Except first photo, all others were taken by Nidhi...
First trek was a one day or i should say one night adventure.
We left king's cottage at somewhere around 6PM, reached there by 8:30PM - 9PM and stayed their for abt 40-45 min and came down by 11PM. It was pretty cold and windy. We had a guide with us.
I am not a good writer of travelogue... all i can say is we went, ate, slept, came back......
Date:- 26-27 April 2008
Team: - Apart from me, poonach, sandeep, seeni, basanna, we had gouda, satish, nidhi joining us this time.
Reason: - Gouda was here from singapore and we were planning for a get together and a nice place for boozing ;), i was the only non-boozer in the team
Items carried :- 2 4-man tents( each weighing 4kgs), 10 2lts(approx 2kgs each) drinking water, Johhny walker BL, Alize Bleu, chapathis, one sickle medical kit, etc etc...
We all met at king's cottage on 26th before noon. Weather was cool as it rained slightly after noon. After lunch and small nap we started our trek at exactly 5PM. At 5.30, after covering a distance of 1-2km satish backed off citing tireness, so 7 of us continued.
We had encounters with leeches on the way as it had rained that week.
The good part of the trek is the 10min passthrough in shola forest. Its pretty dark and scary in this part.
We reached the peak at 8PM, not bad considering we were carrying heavy luggages. By 8.45 the tents were ready, thanks to nidhi for his prior experience.
Surprisingly there was calm at the top of mountain and it wasnt much cold either. We expected it to be pretty chilled and windy but luckily the weather was calm for as long as we were there. one jacket was more than enough to keep us warm.
For sandeep one shorts and Johnny walker was enough to keep him warm.
Our effor to put camp fire went in vain as the ground was wet and we couldnt find dry wood. Even johnny walker couldnt help us to lit the fire. So we had a candle lit booze/dinner inside tent. We slept at around 12AM after having a good time in the breeze. The mountain was fully covered with clouds and visibility was less.
Me and nidhi got up at 5AM and were eager to see the sunrise. I should say it was awesome weather with breeze and clouds around. Visibility was good because of moonlight.
But our eagerness to see sunrise was dampened by coulds and we could see a distant pink hue only by 6.30. The morning view of clouds was spectacular and will stay in our minds for ever.
Nidhi and pooni managed to lit morning camp fire thanks to johnny walker and paper plates.
We packed everthing and unwillingly left the place at 7AM. Only while getting down we realised how steep the climb is. We were back in cottage by 8.45AM.
Thank God for the safe trip and calm weather.
