Trekker's Heaven - Kumara Parvatha

     This was the trek, that we were postponing from long time. We are totally 7 memeber team Me, Revant, Ravindra, Jnanesh, Shivu, shivu and Chinthan.

We started from bangalore on friday night in a private bus to Kukke subrahmanya. We reached there by 4:30am in the morning. Unfortunately it wasn't going near the temple.
So we had to walk 2 miles or so to the river, where we had bath and finished all the activities. Even though the it was January, the water was not cold. We easily had bath and
and there was no much water also.

A view of Kumara Parvatha.

From there we took autorikshaw and entered the temple. After all the darshana, Revant had one sarpa samkaara to do. As he told his mother as he's going for only visit the temple.
she didn't know about the trekking part of our trip. :P
then we came out of the temple and had break fast in a hotel near the temple.
packed all the things we needed.

we already had 100 chapathis, 2 bottles of pickle, and 2 packets of chutneypowder and apples. We bought the bananas and water bottles of 2 litres, The bad part was each one
of us had to carry 2 bottles of water along with what we had in the bag plus the tent or sleeping bag. I had camera also, which was adding to total weight of the bag.

Then we asked the nearby shop keeper for the road to the Kumara parvatha. he showed one.


Kumara Parvatha peak is in the Pushpagiri wildlife sanctuary, Western ghats. It's the border between Dakshina Kannada and Coorg Districts.  We need to take permission to trek here from the forest office on the way.


We started from there and it was almost 2kms to reach the base of the kumara parvatha. It was the tar road where vehicles were moving. We called our parents as where we are
and also told them we will not be reachable on phone for 24+ hours, as we thought there will not be any network in the peak.

Phase 1:

Kumara Parvatha mountain range distant view

There it started, a Diversion from the main road directly into the what it looks like forest with big trees and steady steep the narrow path.
We knew it will be there for next 5kms. The trees were protecting us from the sun. but the steady steep was tiring both for legs and heart, as we were carrying more luggage.
We took the break near the fallen tree and drank enough water. we saw the path forward, it was showing up as if that steep path going endlessly.
On the way we saw some people who are coming down, who had gone there the previous day. We asked them how far is our planned lunch destination (Bhatra mane in Kannada) Bhtta's house

they said it is around 1hr hike from there. We were happy, but actually it took them 1hr of down hill to reach there.
We started again, then  walked for another 1/2 hr. (though I had lots of  small breaks in between) there was a banayan tree with and actually that was the first stop
for all others.:P, but it wasn't our first) there we had energizer apples and water. we clicked some photos giving different poses with banyan tree.

then We resumed, walked all over, inbetween I used to take lots of breaks :P, then after 1hr of walk we reached place which was open. direct to the sunlight. there were no trees

Bhatta's Gaden

only the open grass land. initially it looked nice as there was no steep, after some time we felt more tiring as sun was eating up all our energy.

We saw backwards, And we couldn't believe what we saw. the subramanya with all the building were visible like match boxes kept in a sequential order.

We reached Bhatra mane, where we had lunch.. As we were very hungrym, we ate like never before. Took some power nap @ bhatta's garden.

Then we started again,

Phase 2: Most difficult part of the trek in the afternoon.

That is open steep grassland, with sun right above our head. We started that stretch with refreshed feeling. With ease we reached 1st stop after the lunch,
that had view point with the seating arrengements. We sat there for sometime. but this sun made us get going.
From that point onwards it was like hell. Hiking in scorching sun is very difficult. Then we stopped for every 50 steps we walked. There was absolute void except for the scorching sun
and the dried up grass. The food we had for lunch was digested before 1/2 an hour.So we were trekking using the reserve energy of the body.It was so tiring.

After some time, we had to take out the apples and eat it. Actually apples are good instant energy agents. We felt little better. Then we started again.
We started to spot one high peak, we were happy that we were able to spot the peak. After almost 2 and 1/2 hrs of the hiking,
we reached a place called mantapa. Normally people camp there for night. We took some rest.Initially we were under the impression that the mantapa is the actual last point.
But when we reached mantapa we spotted another peak in front of us. We were very tired.


Phase 3:

then we started towards that peak, It was 4 1/2pm and we were moving in the opposite direction of the sun. so, this time we didn't face much issues. After one hour or so people in our
group started to feel hungry, we all gathered on the connecting path between the 2 peaks. we started to eat chapathis that we brought so that we can reduce the weight of our
bag, meanwhile we were running out of water.

Our group splitted into two, 1 group was in hurry to reach the peak before the sunset. So I chose to be in the second one, since I was already tired.
Then started to climb the peak ahead of us captured some amazing scenaries on my camera.It was simply awesome, As we continued we got to see very good view of the landscape.

We were definitely lucky enough to watch the sunset. After that everything cold breeze everywhere, temperature suddenly started to drop.
After the sunset we climbed the peak and were very happy that we conqured the quest, but we didn't see our other group there. then some group from the behind told us that, this is
not the Kumara Parvatha, instead it is Shesha Parvatha and showed us another peak infront of us which was little far and to go there we have to go down in the jungle and climb it.

The sunset captured at Shesha Parvatha

We had no clue what was going on. Since all the tent ,food and water were with other group.And this is certainly a most adventurous part of the trek. We entered into the jungle like
narnia land without a torch and there is no clue about where we were heading in the little dark trail.

After about 30mins of walk we spotted our group searching for the water near some little water source in the same narnia land.

then we started again. and it was already 7pm.
This was the most steepest and dengerous part of the trek, where we had to climb what it looks like the seasonal water falls which was very steep. If you miss 1 step there, that's it.

It took another 45mins to reach the peak.
And that was the true feeling of satisfaction. A true quest we conquered in a day.

We opened our tent and called home. We put some camp fire, to keep us warm from cold breeze.
had chapathis again and had enough water. Sat and discussed about the uphill trek and fell asleep.
Because of the chilly weather I couldn't fall asleep so easily. The air was blowing as if some storm will come and take our tent along with it.

Sunrise @ Kumara Parvatha

Next day morning we woke up early and marched towards the end point(view point) to see the sunrise. Waited for almost 30mins for sun to come online for us! And were spell bound to
after watching the sunrise. We were able to see the shadow of the Kumara Parvatha falling on the near by villages.
Watching the sunrise is one of the purest and refresing moments, after all effort we had put to reach that point.

had break fast and packed the rest of the food and water started downhill trekking. Down hill trek was comparitively easy considering that we had started early, as we had a good learning
from the previous day's trek.By 10:30am we reached Bhatra mane, ate whatever they cooked, started again. Reached the base by 2:30pm


Kumara Parvatha trek is one of the difficult treks. It took us almost 11hr for uphill trek, nevertheless we had a great experience of camping near the summit and witnessing both sunrise and sunsets.
I could proudly mark this event in my Resume :D