Ombattu Gudda 2 - Jan 24, 25 - 2009
Now that I have sustained another ankle injury which has spoiled my plans of going to kudremukh this weekend, I have decided
to finally blog about my second outing to Ombattu Gudda two weeks ago!
This place always gets the better of us! But we get drawn back to it again and again like bad husbands in kannada movies to
the arack shops! We have decided to make it a yearly event (even after all the suffering!!)
You can read up on my previous unforgettable experience here.
The gang:
It all started with that waste fellow Subbu cribbing about not having gone to OG.
So, a gang was prepared, maps were xeroxed, GPSs were borrowed and we were off.
Here's the list: Subbu, Bhatta, Mahesha, Sandeep, Madhu, Shyama, Jagga, Srinivas, Veeru and me.
Day 1:
After unsuccessfully searching for breakfast at Gundya, we decided to put it off till the Kabbinale junction.
After all the food was distributed and the bottles filled, we started off near the bridge after Gundya.
With breakfast in mind all of us set off on a brisk walk towards the stream intersection.
We were there in a couple of hours and we found a couple of other groups there who were attempting the same trek.
We never saw them again!
Kanta, who had been to this trek a few weeks earlier had given us the following directions:
Keep heading upstream from this junction. At the end you shall find grasslands and sight OG. Climb OG.
Simple enough?? Why don't you find out!
After having our breakfast we decided to head upstream.. The problem we were facing was the regular intervals at which we had to remove shoes, cross the stream, put on the shoes again due to the lack of path on one side or the other.
Our guides Bhatta and Subbu (never ever make these two guides again!) after looking at the map decided that we could avoid some walking if we took a shortcut through the forest!
And thus begins our saga of getting lost..
We went up some hill, got down some other hill.. We were supposed to move north, but we moved southwest..
Multiple such confusions later, we decided to somehow get back to the stream. After a brute force approach of heading in the stream's direction, we made it back with a lot of time wasted.
What followed for the rest of the day was we following the endless stream till eternity.
The whole series of shoes removals also continued.
By the end of the day, we were nowhere close to where we wanted to be.
At the beginning of the day we thought: Lets do OG today. We'll do Deepadakallu tomorrow. If people are okay for another day's leave, we'll do Yettina Buja on the third day!
After finding an abandoned camp left by god-knows-who, we decided to settle down there for the night.
Since our plans were so awesome, we had decided not to carry tents. What we also realised was although Mahesha was carrying some fancy cutlery set, and Subbu carrying some weird kukri, none of us was carrying a matchbox!
So, we had to sleep next to a stream all night without fire. And then the fear of wild animals began to dawn on us.
We did try to make some fire by using innovative engineering methods, but all in vain.
We decided to take turns to keep watch while the others slept.
I jumped in and called the first watch. Me and Bhatta then unleashed our cacophony on the forest area for the next three hours with support from Jagga. We also had a plate and stick to make more noise in case any animals don't like our singing talents.
After our three hours were up, we woke up the next bunch of watchers and went off to sleep only to find out later that 3 hours later all of us were sleeping and nobody was on watch. (That damn Subbu!)
Day 2:
We woke up the next day, finished our morning duties and started walking upstream again.
We found that there were multiple settlements such as ours as we went upstream. Some of them were much better built and were in better locations as well.
We also found a matchbox in one of these abandoned camps. (Lady luck is so against us!)
We finally decided to break off the stream path just after brunch. We had had enough of the stream walk.
We had gained no altitude and had no idea how to get to OG still.
After following a path leading into the forest for some distance we got lost again when the path disappeared.
It was just going to be the brute force method from now on. We had to go east to reach OG. Head east! That was the motto.
We climbed some hill and realised we had gone south. Climbed another and realised that we were going west. This was impossible. Then we realised that the compass of one of the GPS was conked!
Ok.. Now there would be no mistakes. Head east!
After sometime, we were out in the grasslands at the top of some hill.
We heard a distant sound and realised that it was a forest fire and it was on the same hill as ours.
This was the time for decision making and after see-sawing from abandoning our plans and heading back to going to OG, we finally decided that we would go ahead and try and reach OG. (Thanks Jagga!)
In order to avoid the forest fire, we traversed from hill to hill laterally inside the tree cover in the hope that one of the hills would not have the grasslands on fire. After traversing three hills we found one such hill from which we could sight some other peaks and OG. But the fire was approaching this hill as well.
After drawing up rough route to head to the OG from here, we finally left the forest fire behind us with it reaching within 10 metres of us.
It was a drab affair from here. My previous hectic trek was OG itself a year ago and my bad fitness was showing.
After a few hours of gruelling climb of around 800 metres through that scorching sun and no food, I made it to the peak just after sunset as one of the last people to reach there. The lack of food had made every step extremely difficult for me.
A few others seemed at ease (kudos to them!) and a couple of people were nearly as exhausted as I was.
But reaching the OG peak has a magical effect! For the second time running I had reached the peak after sunset. There was no time to spend there. We had to leave. It was dark and we had to get to the estate which was 3 hrs away! (And it involved more climbing)
I somehow got a second wind from here and headed off to the estate with renewed spirit.
This time I knew what to expect. There would be no getting lost in the forest. There would be no surprise over the amount of climbing that goddamn winding jeep track would make us do! So, we headed off towards the estate.
After 2.5 hrs of reasonably quick walking, me and Veeru reached the estate leaving the others a considerable distance behind.
We thankfully had water with us throughout this trek until the last 1 hr of the trek. We had clearly learned some lessons from last time.
We refreshed ourselves with some water at the estate. And then shamelessly asked them for food.
They said that there was food only for two people and not for 10!
What an opportunity! The others weren't here yet. We ate that wonderful food like a bunch of greedy pigs.
We thought we might be interrupted by the arrival of the others, but they just didn't turn up. :D
The others turned up 30 mins later and we learned that we had to go another 3 kms to reach our vehicle.
So, we continued walking and reached the TT finally by 11 PM.
It was late and everyone was really tired.
Instantly everyone slept off and most of us woke up only when we were close to bangalore.
There was no break for dinner on the way. Nobody had thought about it!
We finally stopped near Bangalore at some tea shop and had some biscuits.
I was dropped off back to my hostel at around 5:30 in the morning!
And so ended another Ombattu Gudda trek.
I will go there again. It nearly defeated my morale.
I shall keep going there till it no longer surprises me.
to finally blog about my second outing to Ombattu Gudda two weeks ago!
This place always gets the better of us! But we get drawn back to it again and again like bad husbands in kannada movies to
the arack shops! We have decided to make it a yearly event (even after all the suffering!!)
You can read up on my previous unforgettable experience here.
The gang:
It all started with that waste fellow Subbu cribbing about not having gone to OG.
So, a gang was prepared, maps were xeroxed, GPSs were borrowed and we were off.
Here's the list: Subbu, Bhatta, Mahesha, Sandeep, Madhu, Shyama, Jagga, Srinivas, Veeru and me.
Day 1:
After unsuccessfully searching for breakfast at Gundya, we decided to put it off till the Kabbinale junction.
After all the food was distributed and the bottles filled, we started off near the bridge after Gundya.
With breakfast in mind all of us set off on a brisk walk towards the stream intersection.
We were there in a couple of hours and we found a couple of other groups there who were attempting the same trek.
We never saw them again!
Kanta, who had been to this trek a few weeks earlier had given us the following directions:
Keep heading upstream from this junction. At the end you shall find grasslands and sight OG. Climb OG.
Simple enough?? Why don't you find out!
After having our breakfast we decided to head upstream.. The problem we were facing was the regular intervals at which we had to remove shoes, cross the stream, put on the shoes again due to the lack of path on one side or the other.
Our guides Bhatta and Subbu (never ever make these two guides again!) after looking at the map decided that we could avoid some walking if we took a shortcut through the forest!
And thus begins our saga of getting lost..
We went up some hill, got down some other hill.. We were supposed to move north, but we moved southwest..
Multiple such confusions later, we decided to somehow get back to the stream. After a brute force approach of heading in the stream's direction, we made it back with a lot of time wasted.
What followed for the rest of the day was we following the endless stream till eternity.
The whole series of shoes removals also continued.
By the end of the day, we were nowhere close to where we wanted to be.
At the beginning of the day we thought: Lets do OG today. We'll do Deepadakallu tomorrow. If people are okay for another day's leave, we'll do Yettina Buja on the third day!
After finding an abandoned camp left by god-knows-who, we decided to settle down there for the night.
Since our plans were so awesome, we had decided not to carry tents. What we also realised was although Mahesha was carrying some fancy cutlery set, and Subbu carrying some weird kukri, none of us was carrying a matchbox!
So, we had to sleep next to a stream all night without fire. And then the fear of wild animals began to dawn on us.
We did try to make some fire by using innovative engineering methods, but all in vain.
We decided to take turns to keep watch while the others slept.
I jumped in and called the first watch. Me and Bhatta then unleashed our cacophony on the forest area for the next three hours with support from Jagga. We also had a plate and stick to make more noise in case any animals don't like our singing talents.
After our three hours were up, we woke up the next bunch of watchers and went off to sleep only to find out later that 3 hours later all of us were sleeping and nobody was on watch. (That damn Subbu!)
Day 2:
We woke up the next day, finished our morning duties and started walking upstream again.
We found that there were multiple settlements such as ours as we went upstream. Some of them were much better built and were in better locations as well.
We also found a matchbox in one of these abandoned camps. (Lady luck is so against us!)
We finally decided to break off the stream path just after brunch. We had had enough of the stream walk.
We had gained no altitude and had no idea how to get to OG still.
After following a path leading into the forest for some distance we got lost again when the path disappeared.
It was just going to be the brute force method from now on. We had to go east to reach OG. Head east! That was the motto.
We climbed some hill and realised we had gone south. Climbed another and realised that we were going west. This was impossible. Then we realised that the compass of one of the GPS was conked!
Ok.. Now there would be no mistakes. Head east!
After sometime, we were out in the grasslands at the top of some hill.
We heard a distant sound and realised that it was a forest fire and it was on the same hill as ours.
This was the time for decision making and after see-sawing from abandoning our plans and heading back to going to OG, we finally decided that we would go ahead and try and reach OG. (Thanks Jagga!)
In order to avoid the forest fire, we traversed from hill to hill laterally inside the tree cover in the hope that one of the hills would not have the grasslands on fire. After traversing three hills we found one such hill from which we could sight some other peaks and OG. But the fire was approaching this hill as well.
After drawing up rough route to head to the OG from here, we finally left the forest fire behind us with it reaching within 10 metres of us.
It was a drab affair from here. My previous hectic trek was OG itself a year ago and my bad fitness was showing.
After a few hours of gruelling climb of around 800 metres through that scorching sun and no food, I made it to the peak just after sunset as one of the last people to reach there. The lack of food had made every step extremely difficult for me.
A few others seemed at ease (kudos to them!) and a couple of people were nearly as exhausted as I was.
But reaching the OG peak has a magical effect! For the second time running I had reached the peak after sunset. There was no time to spend there. We had to leave. It was dark and we had to get to the estate which was 3 hrs away! (And it involved more climbing)
I somehow got a second wind from here and headed off to the estate with renewed spirit.
This time I knew what to expect. There would be no getting lost in the forest. There would be no surprise over the amount of climbing that goddamn winding jeep track would make us do! So, we headed off towards the estate.
After 2.5 hrs of reasonably quick walking, me and Veeru reached the estate leaving the others a considerable distance behind.
We thankfully had water with us throughout this trek until the last 1 hr of the trek. We had clearly learned some lessons from last time.
We refreshed ourselves with some water at the estate. And then shamelessly asked them for food.
They said that there was food only for two people and not for 10!
What an opportunity! The others weren't here yet. We ate that wonderful food like a bunch of greedy pigs.
We thought we might be interrupted by the arrival of the others, but they just didn't turn up. :D
The others turned up 30 mins later and we learned that we had to go another 3 kms to reach our vehicle.
So, we continued walking and reached the TT finally by 11 PM.
It was late and everyone was really tired.
Instantly everyone slept off and most of us woke up only when we were close to bangalore.
There was no break for dinner on the way. Nobody had thought about it!
We finally stopped near Bangalore at some tea shop and had some biscuits.
I was dropped off back to my hostel at around 5:30 in the morning!
And so ended another Ombattu Gudda trek.
I will go there again. It nearly defeated my morale.
I shall keep going there till it no longer surprises me.