|
Thadiyendamol(Kudagu : I am the tallest) : Op "I am taller" |
 |
 |
 |
|
Written by
|
|
Friday, 26 September 2008 13:26 |
|
Thadiyendamol which means "I am the tallest" in local kudagu language at 1746 meters above sea level is the highest peak in Coorg district of Karnataka, and the second highest in Karnataka, first being the Mullayanagiri in Chickamaglur district. From the sea this peak is supposed to provide a landmark to sea travelers towering majestically over the lesser peaks
This is the first trek I took after silent valley this year. Yeah long break!!
September is not the most ideal time to try trekking to Thadiyendamol. The reason being the hills can get all misty and the visiblity drops to 5-10 meters. making triangulation of your position v v difficult.
I left from my office at 6:30 PM Friday 5/9/08 and took my bike to sid's startup disco. We didn't buy tickets in advance this time. Sandy my long time trek buddy bought them at the last moment and told me the bus was at 10:45 PM. I took off to visit sid's startup disco party carrying my backpack with me. I hanged around there for a while and discussed my ideas with the other entrepreneurs and took off to majestic at 9 pm. Sandy was already there with his backpack. Bummer!! our bus got canceled. We talked to an incharge and he was helpful enough to get us on to another bus to Virajpet at 11. This bus took us to this town of Virajpet which is around 30 KM from Kakabe, the next stop. We waited for the next bus to Kakabe and took a short nap on the bus stand's cement chairs till around 6 AM Saturday. The auto guy ripped us by another 250 bucks since the next bus to Kakabe was quiet some time away. From Kakabe its a muddy jeep track all the way up to one of the estates. We started walking. After some time we saw two boards for honey valley estate(3Km and 3.5 Km). We took the 3.5 KM route and reached a crossing near a huge waterfall. There we took a left to a upwards track and continued walking till we reached honey valley.
 Honey valley estate here seems to be one of the more popular estates here( Others being King's, a little more expensive and a Home Stay) and it is usually full. It was full when we reach there too, full of firangs and yuppies. It seems they were all here since some time as they all seemed to know each other. We had some nice Coorgi coffee at the estate and a decent breakfast. I met the estate owner and asked him for directions to Thadiyendamol. He told us about the two ways to reach there. First way is supposed to be an easy way where the jeep leaves u almost at the base of the peak and u climb up. The other way is a trek through the jungles and peaks. We chose the second way. He was concerned about us taking the trek through the jungles in that weather as it is not supposed to be a usual trekker route. We asked him to draw a map for us but he said it wouldn't help much(It turned out he was wrong bout that). Then I asked him to lend us a compass, but he didn't have that either.(I broke my compass on the silent valley trek). So we decided to risk it and try just remembering the directions.
Please note that for those going further I won't be able to give actual NEWS directions to Thadiyendamol since we never carried a compass. First we hiked through the tea estate up to reach a jeep track. A short distance from there we reached a sort of U-turn where we see mud paths marked a,b,c,d,e,f. Here we took the f path. This path takes us all the way up to the first hill. At this hill we see a beautiful waterfall in the distance. It had rained the night before so the whole path was full of small puddles and was v slippery. After around 2 hours we reached the first summit, took a few pics and moved on. Soon we saw a ridge and walked all the way to the end of the ridge.at this point we saw the stream deep down in the valley. We took a left and descended into the valley( note that the path disappears at this point) and looked for a place to cross it. after some looking around we found a crossing point and went up this other hill. This is here our first problems started. We had made good time and it was a quick walk but soon the mist started to envelop the whole area, combine that with no compass or a map of any kind and u r truly lost. You see, even if u don't have a compass you can figure out the directions by looking at the hills and topography around, but in a mist that is not possible. So we lay on the hills hoping the mist would pass, but  no luck. We thought we were as screwed as screwed could get, but in a moment it started raining. there was one four letter word that formed in our minds FUCK!!. No rain-jackets or tent. So we do the best thing (or worst) we could do. We decide to carry on. since it was misty and we could only see the peak we were on, we tried to figure out a direction of some sort. Me and Sandy disagreed on directions totally, since we always go by my way in treks, we decided to trek by Sandy's direction.
half an hour later we had trekked a near vertical surface sideways just beyond the hill we were on, hanging on to grass and small trees with our hands and resting our feet on the smallest rock edges to reach a point where this huge bad ass rock stared us in our face. FUCKed again!! hanging on for dear life we go all the way sideways back to the last hill. Sandy wondered how his sense of direction could screw him so badly. He joked how he had a feminine sense of direction, and how his last GF was better than him. So it was time to try my way. Well not exactly my way cuz I had changed my mind about what could be the correct path hehe. Yeah, we were that badly screwed up!! Mist was still holding and it didn't look like it was gonna subside, so we went back the ridge we came on or at least tried to, till we came across this cattle path. This was a signal that we were wrong again(In tracing our path back) and also a signal that . .
well, we found a path. So off we go on the cattle path. Thing to be noted here is that all those path cattle can travel, men can't go all those places. We got into a dense forest with thick mud with our boots sinking allmost half length deep in. But at this point we didn't care. At two points we had to go on our hands and knees, crawling to move under the dense forest foilage. soon we came across open land, and saw a peak. mist was holding but this looked like a tall peak, in reality we didn't have a stinking clue since we could neither see the surrounding hills nor the plains/valleys below. We took a path down further from there to realize that we were on the hill we started at!!! yeah we had walked all through the forest just to find a cattle path that took us full circle. Looks like I have a feminine sense of direction too . . . :|
We removed the ton of small leeches and a few big ones sticking to our legs, hands and bodies,(courtsey crawling in the mud).
By now it was 3 PM and still raining, we knew how to get back from here, so we decided to call it a day and trekked back to the estate from where we came from.
We talked to the owner of the estate on the way going around in his jeep and told him our story. He said we had actually made it very close to the peak but just didn't touch it, he was impressed by our courage, daring and such and even offered to make arrangements for us saying again how dangerous it was to trek there in a weather like this. He let us stay in a 5 bed cottage and we dined with some firang chicks. Back here at the estate there were some yuppies playing cricket and stupid games. In the evening over some food and fluids at the estate we talked about how this was the first trek where we weren't able to make  it to the destination. We had ordered Coorgi pork at the estate and some nice stuff. Promising to ourselves to return soon. We retired for night, woke up, had some nice Coorgi coffee and took a bus to virajpet and from there back home :)
all in all a very exciting trek, i would rate it just below OG, and counting the weather in I might even rate it higher.  |
|
Last Updated on Wednesday, 14 October 2009 11:28 |
