Trekking in monsoon is always difficult and challenging one. Leeches, Heavy rain, Extreme wind on top of the Hill, Misty weather & lots more that will give you a special experience. I wanted to experience it so as soon as I saw the event registration page in BASC website I registered for the event. Here is my experience of this trek with BASC.
7th June 2013:
Our event organizer Niranjan along with 20 members of BASC started from “Shantala silk house (Majestic)" around 10:50 PM on a mini bus. I joined them at R.V.College of Engg and we started off towards our destination, Bhagamandala.
We knew that it would rain heavily as it being peak of a monsoon season and the place which we decided to trek is famous for its heavy rains. We were well prepared to face the challenges during the trek. I had done enough preparations as per my capabilities and kept my luggage as minimal as possible so that trekking goes smooth.
8th June 2013
We reached Bhagamandala around 5:30 AM in the morning. We freshened up while it was too early for the city to wake up and so had to wait for another hour & half for hotels to open. Our breakfast was Idly & vada at Kaveri darshini hotel in front of Sri Bhagandeshwara temple where we also packed Pulav for lunch.
Forest office opens at 9:00 AM so we got into introducing ourselves to the rest of the group & this way we could also kill some time. Meanwhile all of us geared up to face leech bites. By the time we said Hello to each other, our guide Jayaprakash joined us. After all the formalities of forest department, we started in the same bus towards Talacauvery which was our starting point of the trek. It was now around 9:30 AM.
Main intention of this trek was to enjoy every bit of monsoon rather than breath-taking views. It was mist everywhere and we couldn’t see anything at all. It was raining heavily and to add to the trouble there were leeches in plenty 
waiting to suck our blood. We started trekking to Nishani betta around 10:00 AM and it was joy of walk. Forest is full of leeches and trying to escape leech bite is always the most funniest part of a monsoon trek. Blood donation was happening in full swing!!! Everyone was donating blood.
On the way we found a stream. It was also noon by this time and a perfect spot for lunch. We had half an hour time to relish our lunch. It was around 1:45PM we started our trekking again. The factor which troubled most of us specially girls were the leech bite than the rain. It was 4:00 PM when we reached flag point which is the Nishani betta summit.
Extreme wind pushing us and heavy rain on top of the hill made weather more pleasant. I felt it is one of best moments of my life :) Loved the weather!!! that's why I always tell “Trekking is an experience" and one should be ready to face any challenges during the trek.
We relaxed for half an hour and started to descend towards camping site around 4:30 PM. Reached camping site around 5:30 PM which was at a small distance of 2 kms. It was raining badly and once reaching camping site all of had a proud feeling of achieving something BIG in our lives.
We relaxed at camping site while few played Mafia games. Niranjan, Ram and Govind were busy preparing dinner for us. They prepared Tomato rice for dinner. Around 8:30 PM it was time for dinner and we surrendered to sleep by 9:30 PM. It was a big group and the space was small to accommodate all of us but we managed to find some place to stretch.
Our second day plan was to trek till kerala border via Kurudi which was 22 kms from the campsite. Jayaprakash, our guide suggested us to drop the day’s plan and return back to Bangalore as there were heavy rains which would make the rivers crossing difficult and the danger from leeches always persisted.
9th June 2013:
All of us woke up around 6:00 AM and few o
f them slept till 8:00 AM. After freshening up, everyone shared whatever they brought for breakfast. Niranjan & team prepared yummy Maggie for all of us..:). After breakfast at around 9:30AM, we started towards the main road to catch mini bus. It was jeep trail and 6 kms of walk took us to main road. Endless photography all the way while we reached the main road. Around 11:30 AM, we started back to Bangalore. On the way we stopped for lunch at Hotel Neel sagar, Madikeri. Around 2:30 PM we started from Madikeri and reached Bangalore around 9:00 PM.
I want to thank Niranjan Kumar for organizing the event and also appreciate his efforts to accommodate us on this trek in spite of the extreme weather conditions. Hats off to him...:).
Keep exploring and enjoy the mother nature!
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Written by: Gautham Baliga
Date: June 8th & 9th
Composed by: Sana & Vinay
Event organized by: Niranjan
Image Gallery: Niranjan
The Crew: Niranjan, Girish NL, Deepak HK, Ramkumar U.N, Govind, Pradeep GK, Sunil Kumar O.G, Surendra, Anshul , Chaurasia, Samarth, Gurva Reddy, Shivakumar S, Supraja M, Vishwanath, Krutika, P.Padmavathi, T.G.Shilpa, Gautham Baliga, Navneet, Vijay, Darpan, Pallavi H.G.
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