Monsoon expedition to the peak of kudremukh

The undampening spirit of the team was all set for the monsoon expedition to the Peak of Kudremukh, popularly known as Amazon of Karnataka. Kudremukh is located in the chickmagalur district of Karnataka and stands next to Agumbe for receiving heavy rainfalls.
A Team of ten people which included Sandeep, Sandhya Bhagya, Vivek, Vishnu, Gani, Agni, Raghu and me stepped into this adventurous trek. A tempo traveler with 10 seat capacity was hired from Bangalore on Friday.
The plan was to leave Bangalore on Friday, trek to the peak of kudremukh on Saturday and visit nearby places on Sunday morning and return to Bangalore in the evening. The journey from Bangalore -> Hassan -> Chikmagalur -> to Kudremukh was lengthy because of the continuous downpour and the bumpy pot holed roads. In couple of places, the streams were overflowing and the roads were clogged and unusable. Unexpectedly team reached kudremukh late in the saturday morning and trek was postponed to the very next day.
Team decided to visit the nearby places on saturday. The famous "Annaporneshwari" temple is located in horanadu and its very close to kudremukh, we visited the temple and spent rest of the day. The crowd was very less and after the darshan the lunch served in the temple was the ultimate feast for our bellies.
Our official guide to the kudremuka peak was Mr. Uday who is working for Kudremukha reserved forest department. He joined us in kudremukh and accompanied for the rest of our journey. We reached Samse in the evening which is the base of Kudremukha and took a short break for evening snacks. The stay was arranged in satheesh's house at mullodi which is probably 8KMs from Samse. Since Tempo Traveller could not make it to that place we hired two Mahindra jeeps from samse to reach Sateesh's house. The Trail from Samse to Mullodi was very bad, the four wheelers drive vehicle had put all of its effort over the slippery mud roads and uprooted trees along with the overflowing streams. It took us nearly an hour to reach sateesh's house. It was already dark by the time we reached Sateesh's house. After having decent dinner we went to bed. The whole night was spent with the lullabys of heavy downpour and roaring winds.

The breezy wind and heavy downpour awakened us in the morning, after having good breakfast, the team geared up to start the expedition at 8.30PM. We were supposed to return by 3PM as per the plan. The entire stretch had 16 KM in distance, so we did not carry any lunch boxes. Common salt and lemons were packed in Sandy's bag. None of them carried any water bottles either. Finally we took off from mullodi, the initial trail was bit slippery and the downpour was steady. The whole atmosphere looked very misty, the visibility started to fade off as we moved further into the deep woods.

After decent trail of 3KM, we reached Ontimara (Standalone tree) and took a break for a while. Further ahead we had challenges of crossing three mighty streams. The streams were overflowing with heavy water current. The first one was quite narrow and was a kind of doable task however, because of heavy downpour overnight, the water was gushing out heavily. We formed a human chain and managed to cross one by one however while crossing I couldn’t control myself against the water current and slipped but escaped unhurt.

The second one was even more threatening since it was wide and the water current was very heavy, while crossing the stream I was literally carried away by the flow and lost my control however i was managed to survive but in the hurdle i lost my pair of slippers.

This was kind of a shocking to me, since i had to trek barefooted for rest of the stretch, however with much enthusiasm and spirit i continued with barefooted. The third one was bit deep, however there was no problem in crossing that and the team moved further into the deep jungle. All the way we were the target of tiger leaches and gusty wind. We reached lobo's house which is deserted now, took a little break for snacks and removed the leaches that were firmly struck to our body with salts and lemons.

Further ahead weather started to show its ugly face, while we ascending the cliff, the rough weather had other plans. The wind was so heavy that it literally pushed us away and couple of times we had to sit on the ground holding it affirm until the wind subdued. The visibility was very minimal and downpour was heavy as we approached the cliff. I was hardly seeing anything, We managed to reach the peak at around 3 PM. The downpour and wind so heavy that we could not breathe for a while, Questions of taking groups snaps and having snacks was a unthinkable.
Somehow we managed to stay for 5 min at the peak and started to descend

The gusty wind was so powerful that we literally start to crawl on our feet to descend the cliff. By the time many folks were victims of muscle cramp, numbness, and tiredness. The most worsening part was that we were not able to take a break for having snacks and the starving stomach added more misery to our agony. The weather started to turn even colder as the time ticked. I had to bear the leach bites all the way and the thorny bushes were mercilessly piercing my feet.
Descending the cliff was a mammoth task as the visibility was very low and trail was more slippery. We were under the mercy of gusty wind and downpour. Slowly and carefully we descended the peak and reached lobo's house at 6.30 PM by that time it was getting darker, the sound of the water gushing out from the falls and water flowing in the streams could be heard from the very distance. Folks were hurrying to cross the streams. Couple of them was trying to pick up the speed few of them were left behind. Raghu, Vishnu, and I were limping, we tried to catch the phase with rest of our folks however we could not. I was barefooted while Vishnu and Raghu had a muscle cramp and heavy downpour discouraged our efforts. The deep jungle was so thick that sometimes we felt that we had lost the trail and heading towards unknown place.
.We whistled, shouted and couple of times we tried clapping with our numb hands but there was no response from anywhere. With faith in us we just kept walking. The kudremukh forest is a house for many wild animals like bison, snakes, Wild dogs, bears and cheetahs. It was totally dark and literally nothing was visible. None of us were carrying the torch except sandy, but he was ahead of us. I started to get a weird feeling of crossing the stream would be an impossible task. Hopes of reaching sateesh's place now seemed to be a mere dream. Leaches sucked our blood to the maximum, while the gusty winds and heavy downpour crippled us. With hands and feet completely frozen everyone had lost the hope of crossing the streams. With great difficulties in the dark we managed to reach the stream. It was that point of time, we could see torch light and few folks waving at us. It was sateesh's and his brothers waiting for us at the other end. The lost hopes were regained, the agony and pain started to vanish. The plight of us seemed to be answered, finally we were rescued from the deep mess. Sateesh and his brother helped us to cross all the streams and everyone managed to reach sateesh's house with a sigh of relief and excitement. Gratitude and love showered on sateesh's family. We had never estimated this adventures trek would take such a turn. But everything seemed to be survival for the fittest, there is a famous kannada saying "Isabeku idu jaisabeku"