Ombattu GuDDa (Feb 16th - Feb 17th 2008)
Background:
After reading PJ's blog on Ombattu guDDa (http://timelessodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/01/ombattu-gudda.html)
and a few other ones, I had decided not to go to Ombattu guDDa whatever happened.
But I couldn't really help myself when the chance came about.
I had already refused Bhatta a couple of weeks ago (quite late, I might add) since I had an assignment to submit.
(That trip got cancelled and Bhatta spent the weekend climbing some arbit beTTa)
This time too when Moch and Bhatta called me, I had an assignment to submit, but in order to avoid the "ditcher" tag,
I did a few of the assignment problems earlier :D
The team:
The brave explorers who set about achieving this task were as follows:
Moi, Moch, Bhatta, Mahesh (Deal Mahesha), Aditya (Doodh-peDa-1),
Srikanth (Kaanta), Madhu and Srivatsa (Doodh-peDa-2. He hates the name)
Mahesha, Kaanta, Madhu had already attempted this a couple of weeks ago. That time they went ahead for a while,
got lost in the jungle and came back. This is very common with Ombattu GuDDa.
The smooth beginning
The Qualis reached Gundya before dawn. So, we decided to wait there till daybreak.
After a decent nap, we started off on our way at around 7:30 AM. The starting place is just after a
bridge after you cross the Gundya gate. We were equipped with PC's GPS in which Moch had managed to
not put fresh batteries as usual :-). Thankfully Srikanth had an extra pair to save the day.
Our first destination was to be the stream intersection point (The point where Kabbinale/Kabbina HoLe river and
the Adda hoLe merge). The stream intersection is a little downstream from where the path intersects the Kabbinale river.
This was around 7-8 kms of walk on flat terrain. On the way we found loads of elephant dung.
We reached there at around 10 AM and had breakfast there.
Now was the moment of decision. Mithun had suggested us to take the North-west direction from this point.
PC and Mithun had however followed the North east direction and reached the peak.
We could not find any route towards the North west and hence headed on the same route that PC had taken.
After another hour or two, we found a place where Adda hoLe was inviting us to jump in.
We happily obliged. After a refreshing bath, we decided to approach the peak by "brute-force" method.
We left the stream at 1:30 PM and I stupidly suggested that we have lunch after an hour or so since we had a
late breakfast. This turned out to be the stupidest thing we did during the trek.
Now begins the fun
Head North, North-East and keep climbing was our motto.
Soon, we were into dense forest. We shifted from one hill to another and tried to keep looking at the GPS
every five minutes or so. Moch, who had the GPS and was at the end of the bunch thus far decided that enough was
enough and went up ahead to lead the way. The going was slow. Loose mud, thorny trees and bushes, vines and god knows
what plants were slowing us down terribly. We pushed on through all this, got scratched in nearly all parts of our bodies
and finally managed to reach open grasslands by about 4- 4:30 PM.
From the grasslands, we could spot a peak exactly to our north. Checking the co-ordinates, we ascertained that it was our destination.
Ombattu GuDDa was right in front of us.. We had managed to find it, though there was a long way to go!!
We were delighted just to know that we will actually reach that place.
By now, we were all terribly hungry and our water sources were almost over. We had not encountered even a single water
source since we had left aDDa hoLe.
From the open grassland, we went to an adjacent hill in search of a route for the peak. This we thankfully found !!
Now we began the final ascent (or so we thought). It took us approximately 1.5 hrs to reach the peak from that point.
We were all thoroughly exhausted by the time we reached the peak. The lack of food and water was killing us.
(We had food, but could not eat it without having some water!!). All our bottles were empty at this point.
We watched the sunset at the peak and began the debate of whether to camp here without water or head to the estate
on the other side of the peak.
... And in the darkness bind them
We decided to head off towards the estate. PC had told us that there was a clear path to a jeep track from the peak
and a few kms walk on the track will get us to the estate.
It was getting dark and there was a forest section that we wanted to finish before dark and reach the jeep track.
By the time we reached the entrance of the forest itself it was dark.
Moch and Bhatta went ahead to find a path into the forest first and then lead us into the valley with the
plan of finding an exit on the other side somehow. This, as expected by the readers who are currently reading this
did not go according to plan.
After wandering around in the forest for a while, we had lost sense of which direction to head in.
So, we decided to find the nearest opening in order to get a GPS signal and re-align ourselves.
Well, I know what you're thinking.. Where's the nearest opening?? Here's how our attempt went:
Bhatta: Hey, I can see an opening there.. Lets head that side..
Mahesha
: Look, there's an opening there.. Lets go there.
Me
: No.. there's an opening here.. Go this side.
Moch : Bhatta, just keep going da.. Jitha, move. what are you waiting for?
After going around in circles for more than an hour, we decided to halt, relax and THINK !!
Aditya (god bless him) decided to observe the direction of the moon (which moves from east to west - I never knew this!!)
In the meantime we heard a growl of a wild animal for food which turned to be Bhatta actually.
After fifteen minutes of moon observation and recalling that we had to head in the northwest direction,
we started moving again. Lo, we were out of the forest in 10 mins!! Still 750m from the jeep track though.
After finding a neat path through another small forest section that we encountered, we managed to hit the jeep track at 9:15 PM
We were overjoyed!! This was the end of all our sufferings. We could live again. We would reach the estate and find water.
WATER.. Precious WATER!! Lets walk, shall we..
The jeep track
This was the most frustrating part of the whole trek. The damn jeep track was ascending all the time.
This is not allowed. Against the rules. Once the trek is over, and the peak is reached, there must be no climbing.
Only descent. Damn Jeep Track !! I was feeling so sleepy, that i dozed off on the breaks we took on the road sides.
At every opportunity thrown at us, we used to throw ourselves to ground and grab rest. I was finding it difficult to
lift my legs in order to take the next step. Absolutely exhausted as we were, the damn jeep track would not end.
It was winding round and round that inspite of walking what seemed to be a very large distance on the track, the
distance to the estate as indicated by the GPS would go down only tens of metres..
It took us till 11PM to find some trace of civilization. A couple of houses. And a HOSE WITH WATER!!
Run.. Run.. Fill the water bottles..
After drinking our fill, we decided that we must also eat a little.
(Whatever happened to Bhatta's and my plan of eating at 10AM, 1PM, 4PM, 7PM and 10PM on that day)
The estate workers there let us use a large room for our overnight halt. Very nice people.
While, a few of us went inside to sleep, Mahesha and Kaanta were least bothered about moving from their
current locations outside the houses. They slept there throughout the night.
The next day (A very small section)
We dropped all plans of going to deepada-kallu which was initially on the agenda. None of us were upto it.
We got a jeep from the estate to Mudigere. Had breakfast, got hold of our qualis and headed off to Mulyangiri.
After Mulyangiri, as per tradition, had a heavy meal at Hassan, ice cream at Kamat and Doodh-peDa at Channarayana patna.
After this we decided to stop at Nelamangala for tea. At this point our driver decided that we had not had enough adventure today so he kept the qualis keys inside and locked the door. After multiple attempts of using hacksaw, long iron rods, screwdrivers, we were beginning to give up. Me and Bhatta borrowed Kaanta/Vatsa's iPod and started listening to Tridev songs! It had been such a long time.
Meanwhile Mahesha and Aditya got hold of some mechanics from some nearby place and either them or the driver managed to open the door somehow. We missed all the action.
And thus ended our saga of Ombattu guDDa..
Learnings:
After reading PJ's blog on Ombattu guDDa (http://timelessodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/01/ombattu-gudda.html)
and a few other ones, I had decided not to go to Ombattu guDDa whatever happened.
But I couldn't really help myself when the chance came about.
I had already refused Bhatta a couple of weeks ago (quite late, I might add) since I had an assignment to submit.
(That trip got cancelled and Bhatta spent the weekend climbing some arbit beTTa)
This time too when Moch and Bhatta called me, I had an assignment to submit, but in order to avoid the "ditcher" tag,
I did a few of the assignment problems earlier :D
The team:
The brave explorers who set about achieving this task were as follows:
Moi, Moch, Bhatta, Mahesh (Deal Mahesha), Aditya (Doodh-peDa-1),
Srikanth (Kaanta), Madhu and Srivatsa (Doodh-peDa-2. He hates the name)
Mahesha, Kaanta, Madhu had already attempted this a couple of weeks ago. That time they went ahead for a while,
got lost in the jungle and came back. This is very common with Ombattu GuDDa.
The smooth beginning
The Qualis reached Gundya before dawn. So, we decided to wait there till daybreak.
After a decent nap, we started off on our way at around 7:30 AM. The starting place is just after a
bridge after you cross the Gundya gate. We were equipped with PC's GPS in which Moch had managed to
not put fresh batteries as usual :-). Thankfully Srikanth had an extra pair to save the day.
Our first destination was to be the stream intersection point (The point where Kabbinale/Kabbina HoLe river and
the Adda hoLe merge). The stream intersection is a little downstream from where the path intersects the Kabbinale river.
This was around 7-8 kms of walk on flat terrain. On the way we found loads of elephant dung.
We reached there at around 10 AM and had breakfast there.
Now was the moment of decision. Mithun had suggested us to take the North-west direction from this point.
PC and Mithun had however followed the North east direction and reached the peak.
We could not find any route towards the North west and hence headed on the same route that PC had taken.
After another hour or two, we found a place where Adda hoLe was inviting us to jump in.
We happily obliged. After a refreshing bath, we decided to approach the peak by "brute-force" method.
We left the stream at 1:30 PM and I stupidly suggested that we have lunch after an hour or so since we had a
late breakfast. This turned out to be the stupidest thing we did during the trek.
Now begins the fun
Head North, North-East and keep climbing was our motto.
Soon, we were into dense forest. We shifted from one hill to another and tried to keep looking at the GPS
every five minutes or so. Moch, who had the GPS and was at the end of the bunch thus far decided that enough was
enough and went up ahead to lead the way. The going was slow. Loose mud, thorny trees and bushes, vines and god knows
what plants were slowing us down terribly. We pushed on through all this, got scratched in nearly all parts of our bodies
and finally managed to reach open grasslands by about 4- 4:30 PM.
From the grasslands, we could spot a peak exactly to our north. Checking the co-ordinates, we ascertained that it was our destination.
Ombattu GuDDa was right in front of us.. We had managed to find it, though there was a long way to go!!
We were delighted just to know that we will actually reach that place.
By now, we were all terribly hungry and our water sources were almost over. We had not encountered even a single water
source since we had left aDDa hoLe.
From the open grassland, we went to an adjacent hill in search of a route for the peak. This we thankfully found !!
Now we began the final ascent (or so we thought). It took us approximately 1.5 hrs to reach the peak from that point.
We were all thoroughly exhausted by the time we reached the peak. The lack of food and water was killing us.
(We had food, but could not eat it without having some water!!). All our bottles were empty at this point.
We watched the sunset at the peak and began the debate of whether to camp here without water or head to the estate
on the other side of the peak.
... And in the darkness bind them
We decided to head off towards the estate. PC had told us that there was a clear path to a jeep track from the peak
and a few kms walk on the track will get us to the estate.
It was getting dark and there was a forest section that we wanted to finish before dark and reach the jeep track.
By the time we reached the entrance of the forest itself it was dark.
Moch and Bhatta went ahead to find a path into the forest first and then lead us into the valley with the
plan of finding an exit on the other side somehow. This, as expected by the readers who are currently reading this
did not go according to plan.
After wandering around in the forest for a while, we had lost sense of which direction to head in.
So, we decided to find the nearest opening in order to get a GPS signal and re-align ourselves.
Well, I know what you're thinking.. Where's the nearest opening?? Here's how our attempt went:
Bhatta: Hey, I can see an opening there.. Lets head that side..
Mahesha
: Look, there's an opening there.. Lets go there.
Me
: No.. there's an opening here.. Go this side.
Moch : Bhatta, just keep going da.. Jitha, move. what are you waiting for?
After going around in circles for more than an hour, we decided to halt, relax and THINK !!
Aditya (god bless him) decided to observe the direction of the moon (which moves from east to west - I never knew this!!)
In the meantime we heard a growl of a wild animal for food which turned to be Bhatta actually.
After fifteen minutes of moon observation and recalling that we had to head in the northwest direction,
we started moving again. Lo, we were out of the forest in 10 mins!! Still 750m from the jeep track though.
After finding a neat path through another small forest section that we encountered, we managed to hit the jeep track at 9:15 PM
We were overjoyed!! This was the end of all our sufferings. We could live again. We would reach the estate and find water.
WATER.. Precious WATER!! Lets walk, shall we..
The jeep track
This was the most frustrating part of the whole trek. The damn jeep track was ascending all the time.
This is not allowed. Against the rules. Once the trek is over, and the peak is reached, there must be no climbing.
Only descent. Damn Jeep Track !! I was feeling so sleepy, that i dozed off on the breaks we took on the road sides.
At every opportunity thrown at us, we used to throw ourselves to ground and grab rest. I was finding it difficult to
lift my legs in order to take the next step. Absolutely exhausted as we were, the damn jeep track would not end.
It was winding round and round that inspite of walking what seemed to be a very large distance on the track, the
distance to the estate as indicated by the GPS would go down only tens of metres..
It took us till 11PM to find some trace of civilization. A couple of houses. And a HOSE WITH WATER!!
Run.. Run.. Fill the water bottles..
After drinking our fill, we decided that we must also eat a little.
(Whatever happened to Bhatta's and my plan of eating at 10AM, 1PM, 4PM, 7PM and 10PM on that day)
The estate workers there let us use a large room for our overnight halt. Very nice people.
While, a few of us went inside to sleep, Mahesha and Kaanta were least bothered about moving from their
current locations outside the houses. They slept there throughout the night.
The next day (A very small section)
We dropped all plans of going to deepada-kallu which was initially on the agenda. None of us were upto it.
We got a jeep from the estate to Mudigere. Had breakfast, got hold of our qualis and headed off to Mulyangiri.
After Mulyangiri, as per tradition, had a heavy meal at Hassan, ice cream at Kamat and Doodh-peDa at Channarayana patna.
After this we decided to stop at Nelamangala for tea. At this point our driver decided that we had not had enough adventure today so he kept the qualis keys inside and locked the door. After multiple attempts of using hacksaw, long iron rods, screwdrivers, we were beginning to give up. Me and Bhatta borrowed Kaanta/Vatsa's iPod and started listening to Tridev songs! It had been such a long time.
Meanwhile Mahesha and Aditya got hold of some mechanics from some nearby place and either them or the driver managed to open the door somehow. We missed all the action.
And thus ended our saga of Ombattu guDDa..
Learnings:
- Always carry LOADS of water with you.
- Never put off eating
- Moon moves from the east to the west.
- Leeches are poor thirsty creatures. Feed them.