Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Tadiyandamol

Tadiyandamol

What a wonderfully cryptic name, when I heard it for the first time, I couldn’t make out anything out of it. I couldn’t even remember it till i reached there. It literally means the tallest peak. At 1750 mts, it is second tallest peak in Karnataka and the tallest in Coorg region.
Once visited, I am very sure one will never forget its name. It is indeed majestic, standing tallest among the bunch of similar sized hills. From the base camp it looks like this.

Tadiyandamol_Peak
Tadiyandamol

Before reaching there, something about its whereabouts, it is located near Virajpet, around 300 kms from Bangalore in South West Karnataka. Comfortable road journey is very much possible on this route. The route to be followed is Bangalore – Mysore – Hunsur – Virajpet. There is good short cut available near Srirangapatanam, which will reduce the distance by atleast 20kms and hassle of entering the Mysore city. Effectively 45mins of travel.

Virajpet_Morning
Virajpet Good Morning

From Virajpet, it would be around 20kms to the place of start of the trek. A primary school is located at this site and parking is also available. A security guard too.

Primary_School
School kids

A motorable narrow road goes uphill for the next 2kms. Vehicle can be taken till the end of the road, but there is no security guard, so one poor chap might end up staying in the vehicle itself. Have pitty on him, start from the Primary school :D


The initial 2kms is the little tiring; it is considerably steep, with less shade. And if one has to carry stuff like tents/utensils/vegetables, then it becomes a pretty difficult walk. But anyways, there is nothing impossible and nothing is easy.

Tadiyandamol_On_The_Way
On the way

After a good walk of around 5 kms from the school, we reached the base camp location. Why base camp, because it is the only place where water is available. After that there is no water till the top. Here a nice little stream runs downhill, with the most tasty water we had ever tasted and it was even more pleasant after a long walk.

Tadiyandamol_BaseCamp_Stream
Stream at Base camp

It was only beginning of March and the stream was reduced to a very thin stream of water. I wonder what will happen in summers, but I am very sure, during rainy season, it is so bubbly that even taking bath under the running stream is possible.

After almost 3 hrs of walk, it was time for the lunch. We had full arrangement for a fulfilling meal. Rice + Sambhar + Eggs + Salad + Pickel. It did take a while to prepare it on the firewood, but it’s a wonderful experience.

Tadiyandamol_BaseCamp_Lunch
Men at work

The peak is still around 2kms from the base camp. We started at around 3PM with a good shade of clouds but soon it became very sunny. Wait and soon it became shady again. A proper trail is available to be followed. Last 300mts stretch is the most difficult one, almost at 60 degrees. But once we reached the top, it was amazing sight. Almost 1 km before reaching the top, clouds begin to lap the mighty ascenders. It feels very nice. The top of the hill is big and wide enough for any overnight camp, only if sufficient water is carried.

Tadiyandamol_Peak_From_BaseCamp
Peak from our tent

Tadiyandamol_Peak_Cloudy
Cloudy Top

Tadiyandamol_Heavenly_Beautiful_Flower
Evening glory

After spending good 30mins at the top, we returned by 6PM to the base camp. It was the time for preparing the dinner. It was yet another feast and then we retired to our tents.

Next morning, we trailblazers decided to go in search of another stream, so that may be we can camp there next time. This base camp is already very crowded. I like places where you are all alone in the jungle. By the way we did find a small stream a little downhill towards the right of the peak.

Tadiyandamol_Another_Stream
Another stream

After the breakfast we started the downhill trek. In around 1 hr we were back at the primary school. Before returning to Bangalore, a not so known place Dubare can be visited. It has a elephant training camp, rather an elephant torture camp. Well, this is pretty debatable, it someone is to be trained, then it takes effort to train a wild elephant. But then why to train them at all when they can be themselves in the forest. Here again, the rogue ones should be trained. This is more from the humanistic point of view.

Dubare_Elephant_Cage
Mighty cages to hold might creatures.

Dubare_Elephant_Under_Torture_Training
Under training elephants were put in very small cages. An ugly sight.

Dubare_Elephant_Vijay
Vijay

All of them were caught very recently, one was Vijay, caught in January 2009 and has been trained pretty well. It had a decent spacious cage compared to the others who were still being trained.

Dubare_Elephant_Bathing
In the end a beautiful sight.