Focussed May

May was the month where I had complete focus on what I am tasked up with. It had started with an awesome trek to Kumara Parvatha (a dedicated blog on this trek is available here http://goo.gl/jnv2Is) and then ended up with a visit to Dharmasthala. The trip has been a memorable one and an awesome experience to cherish. I personally had a lot of takeaways from this trek., be it the perseverance to go for it even when the my friends who had been there before had dropped off, to successfully completing the trek in a day's time. I also cherished the experience that I was going through during this trek. I wish I would do more of such trips to boost my self-confidence.

Bestowed with this awesome trekking at the start of the month, the following days had been tasked with hectic deadlines to catch up with. So I had experimented the technique of Pomarado and experienced it. I must honestly agree that I didn't have a single Pomarado without distractions. However the conscious effort of making it happen made me to go for it and cherish the outcome. By doing so, I realized that I could plan my activities and finish the tasks in a lesser time than actually planned. I utilized the time been saved on my tasks for unit testing and other project related stuffs. I also came to notice that I am able to keep up with my tasks at work and at home for personal fronts. The worst parts was the extended nights. I personally felt bad for being late to work and returning late from work. I must change this habit and cannot compromise for my personal aspirations. However the extended nights are not of any wastage, me and my friend +Mageshwaran R used to discuss about our latest Coursera course of "Pattern oriented software Architecture", philosophical thoughts that we read upon. 

The visit to my hometown had always been a pleasure and keeping up myself to be there as planned is another sense of achievement when I make it happen. This month had been special as there was the "Madurai Meenakshi Thirukalyanam (marriage) festival" followed by "Alagar festival" for about 10-12 days. These festival had always been a memorable one since childhood as we lived up in the area where the Madurai Meenakshi temple is located. Alongside with this festival was my brother's birthday on 25th of May and hence was prepared with a gift of the book "Most and More" from Infinitheism. I believe the book would be of good use for him and would help him in shaping his career.

This may had left an everlasting memory of complete focus and cherished experience of the outcome due to the same. I wish I would continue this awesome experience further.

PS: I apologize myself for the delay in the monthly blog for May due to lack of prioritization.

Kumara Parvatha - An Adventure to cherish

Kumara Parvatha had been one of such places that I missed visiting when my buddies had been. This has always been a place that I wanted to visit someday and I happend to make it at the start of this month (May) along with my friend +Arun Jeyan. I don't want to mention the very obvious facts about Kumara Parvatha which is one of the difficult trekking places around Bangalore and is about 1710 feet above sea level. You can find such information in many websites and forums. Hence am skipping off these information.

Preparation for the Trek

Our #KumaraParvatha trek journey started from Bangalore on Friday night 02nd May @ 10:45 PM from Majestic bus stand. As usual we were casual and thought there would be a lot of buses flying to #KukkeSubramanya (Yes.. #KumaraParvatha is the mountain of #KukkeSubramanya temple). To our expectation we didn't find any route buses and hence we resorted on KSRTC buses. As usual they charged an hefty amount of Rs. 450 (I still don't know what is the actual fare). The bus started at 11 PM and we were expected to reach by 5 AM on Saturday. We were ahead of time and reached the KSRTC bus stand which is 0.5 km from the temple.

Kukke Subramanya temple

As we had enquired enough from our friends about #KukkeSubramanya, we enquired about the lake #Kumaradhara situated at 2 km from the temple. If you are not planning for staying in a choultry/lodge then this is one of the places where you can do your early morning call-off-duty as it has all amenities. I heard that there are certain pay-and-use bathrooms but I haven't notice one in my journey. 

We had bath and then went straight to the temple. The temple has been maintained very well. To the right of temple you will find luggage room to drop off your luggage's (if any) before dharsan. we took about an hour for the dharsan and came out to have breakfast. we were done with our breakfast and all set for our trek by 8:30 AM.

Trek Begins...

Beginning of the trek

We enquired the nearby stores on the route to start the trek and we figured out that the last street that you hit on your right when yow you walk towards the temple is where you have to start. You have to take 2nd left from the dead end of the street. We officially started our trek by 8:45 AM.

We have crossed about 1.5 km of road and reached a V shaped road from where we have to enter the relatively dense forest., that's the entry point onto the hill. Please follow through the photos below in the sequence as it describes the milestones of the trek. We were expecting a lot of trekkers accompanying us during our trek and with that hope we started walking into the forest. We only had 2 liters of water and we were aware that there won't be any water source till #BhattraeManae.

Initial route of the trek

We started to walk as quick as possible as it was a flat track except for some steps in the form of trees and bushes. The forest was so dense as we moved forward and up-til now we didn't find any people and hence we started to question ourselves if we are trekking in the right direction. We hoped we are and continued ahead. we started to take snaps as we moved on to not just capture the scenic beauty but also to trace back our route when returning. The walk was perfect with shoes ON and the stretch was little dampened due to rain on the previous day. 

Actual entry point to the hill

Bhattrae Manae

As we were walking without any stops, we happened to meet 2 people at our first junction. One person is a worker from #BhattraeManae and the other one is the forest officer. We enquired them to understand how far we have come and how many more left for the first major junction. He told us that we have come about 5 km and in 2 km more we would hit our first junction. we were asked to move ahead and they said to follow us in succession, but they surpassed us in no time though we started 5 mins ahead of them. The looked like 6-or-8-pack aamir khan's and realized that this structure might be because of climbing up and down on a daily basis with food items from the trunk. The next 2 km was full of rocks and pebbles like stones and we move ahead and reached #BhattraeManae by 10:15 AM. 

Initial route on the trek

First 2 people we met in our trek

As we approached our first milestone, me and Arun decided to hit the top and come back again on the same day but we were not sure if the trek would be same though. We had good food with sambar and curd with some vegetables. Mosquitoes were complementary offer!!. The food was good and anybody would be okay for any food at this point. We enquired about the rest of the trek and it was told that it is easy and we can return back immediately. We met 7 trekkers at #BhattraeManae and they seemed to have come down from Bangalore on a 3-day trek to this place and told us that they had been to this parvatha before as well. We were on high spirits by now that we could return on the same day against many of the experiences from other trekkers on this trek. We started to trek again at 11:45 AM.

Forest Office

Bhattrae Manae

We reached the forest office @ 12 PM and had to fill up a form (the usual procedure of You are on your own stuffs!!) and paid Rs. 200/head as a nominal fee to trek further. We received bill for it and hence I believe it is official and not any fraudulent act. We filled up our water bottles as our next water source is at #KalluMantapa. As we walk towards it, we visited 2 man-made view points (amazing as I remember even today!!) and clicked few snaps for our profile pics :-). We didn't spend much time as our plan of return from top would get impacted. The trek towards #KalluMantapa was not full of rocks but have only grasses at ground-height only. so the path was very clear and could see some cow and buffalo's wandering there. Till now, there was no one to accompany us during our trek and we noted down from the forest ledger book that we were the only 2 people who were trekking further on that day. we didn't bank much on this information and went ahead with our journey in the hot sun. 

Kallu Mantapa

KalluMantapa

We reached #KalluMantapa by 1:30 PM. We started feeling little exhausted due to the climate and boring as the trek is mostly walking on a straight road and likes without any heavy ups-and-downs. we were reaching our friend +Mageshwaran R to check on the next milestones and confirmed our route of the trek. we had few photocopy of blogs for our reference. We realized that if at the pace we go, we would reach #KumaraParvatha by 4 PM. so, we didn't stop much longer at KalluMantapa except for calling home and hence walked ahead towards #SheshaParvatha.

Shesha Parvatha

We-to Shesha parvatha :-)

We faced the first difficult part of the trek to climb a mountain from #KalluMantapa as we misunderstood a direction that Magesh told us and hence we climbed a mountain that was 60 deg steep by crawling with grasses as the only source for holding firm. It was more skidding and time-consuming as we had to watch our steps. Any false step, we would lose balance and disaster!!. Hence we climbed cautiously and reached the top from there it slid down normally again with bushes around which are at 1 feet height. we started to move forward as we reached the #SheshaParvatha by 2:30 PM. We felt we had trekked far enough to reach the top but we were tested. We stopped for 5 mins as the sun was at its peak with thin air. We anticipated 2 km more to reach the top and we trekked further. 

Kumara Parvatha

One of the scenic beauty of Parvatha

Hairline trial to the peak

This last bit of trek is the most difficult trek as we had to walk through a dense forest. At the first look we thought there is no way to get into the forest which is 70 deg falling down which you had to get down and trek further. There are 2 water sources (like small stagnant water but is actually flowing water) from which we can be fill and drink. The last trek was lot steeper with no place to hold on and we had to literally crawl. I was exhausted and didn't want to continue any further after seeing only rocks. We didn't know how to crawl further and reached the top. we figured out that there was a flag hoisted at the top and upon reaching that we hit our target altitude. But this crawling was a little hesitant and hence I wanted to stop and return back. But Arun was not ready to stop though he had cramps that gained since #KalluMantapa. We continued to crawl further cautiously and reached the #KumaraParvatha at 3:45 PM. We found 3 small cave-like structure and small lord Shiva idols inside. We shouted at the top of the voice as we considered reaching this as a biggest thing and the sense of achievement was fulfilling. We clicked few snaps and spent around 15 mins there. We visited 7 more people who had trekked from #Somwarpet. We had a brief chat with them and started back.

Entry into the last dense forest. After this is the peak

The notable part of the entire trek was the Red markings on the rocks which is a sign that we are trekking in the right direction. These marking were present till the top and we found Red and Yellow markings at the peak.

Return from the trek

Exiting from the last dense forest

With complete excitement and satisfaction, we relinquished our energy with snickers and started our return journey. By now we started to feel hungry but had nothing other than water and KachaMango candy. The return from the trek is the most difficult part of the trek as we were skidding though we had stepped at right places. so we had to slow down our pace and watch out. We filled the water again in the dense forest pond and walked back.

To of the peak. 1710 feet above sea level

The sunset was approaching and the skies started to reduce its glare. we trekked back in a hurry to see the sunset and also to reach #BhattraeManae before it becomes dark. we stopped at viewpoint for sometime to rest and reached back #BhattraeManae at 6:30 PM. We had informed for our food and night stay and rested there overnight. At around 10:30 PM, devastating rain with extremely powerful thunderstorm had happened and it lasted till 5:30 AM on the next day. We were thankful that we didn't plan to get stuck at the peak and played safe. We rested peacefully and started back for the last bit of the trunk by 8:15 AM and reached #KukkeSubramanya temple by 8:45 AM. Our successful and tiring trek came to an end with a lot of excitement and cherishing memories.

Shiva Idol at the top of the peak

We felt that we could achieve the pace due to the less baggage weight, only 2 people and no unnecessary baggage and extremely helpful gripping shoes. I was just amazed to think myself to be at a place where there was completely no signs of electronics but pleasing nature and return back to a place where it is completely happening. It was a experience to cherish and should have another opportunity, I would go forward and attempt it again to hit the peak.

Red marking to confirm your route

Kumara Parvatha is truly an adventurous beauty and one of my best trek ever and should thank Arun for being a better companion.