The monsoon trek into Sharavathi Valley

Prologue

With the eminent danger of monsoon failing, I was really hoping that it rains torrentially in july. Otherwise, there would be acute shortage for electricity, food crops would fail and create a major crisis, something that Karnataka has not seen in quite a few years. And just 3 days before our planned trek, it rained, and it rained in all the monsoon fury.

It was a nice get together for the trekking team. Fully aware that this trek was the last that we all would go together, we wanted to choose the best possible trekking route. A couple of weeks back, when I had been to Sagar, I got in touch with Mr. Sampath Kumar who organizes treks in the Sharavathi valley. So after reading about the trekking trail in 2-3 blogs written about it, we decided to give it a go.

The Trail - Bangalore -> Kargal -> Kattinakaru -> Basavana Baayi -> Belligundi Falls View -> Goodana Gundi Falls -> Kattinakaru -> Jog Falls -> Bangalore.

The Team - Vineeth Kashyap, Suman Shivashankar, Shayan Chandrashekar, Sathyaprakash, Shreyas Subramanya, Darshan, Amarnath Kanagali, Sri Balaji, Hemanth UB, Manoj Bableshwar.

The trekking team

Chapter 1 – The day we all got drenched

Starting from Majestic in a KSRTC bus on a friday night was totally normal – the bus came late, left late, we saw some buses bruising each other and breaking glasses, people pushing each other for no apparent reason. In a rain hit night, the bus journey was reasonably comfortable, and it did not break down anywhere in between. We got down at Kargal, a small town with 15-20 shops and a police station very close to the famous Jog falls, getting a feel of the early morning rain. Once we had a jeep arranged for us, and couple of us improved the economy of the small town by spending 500 INR each on raincoats and caps, we left to Kattinakaru, the 10 of us barely fitting into the vehicle. Feeling nauseated already, getting into a house and eating carrot idlis and chutney was welcome relief for me.

Throughout the morning, the rain barely took rest. So did we. Dharma, our cook and guide for day 1, took us to his house, our base camp for the trek. We were already pretty late, so we tried to hurry, through the lush green grasslands and rainforests of the Sharavathi valley. In vain. Our team could barely resist clicking photos, and I was in no mood for stopping them. We crossed like 10s of streams, few of them thigh deep, and mystiqued by the white mist that was there all day. We made fun of Sathya, our trek manager, as our routine in any trek. And he got back at us by walking slower and slower!!

After walking for like two and half hours of medium toughness level terrain, that was mostly paths alternating between mist kissed grasslands with water streams and thick jungles where sun never reached, we reached Basavana Baayi. Here, water falls out of the mouth of Basava, established infront of a temple, and into a tub of water, the region around which is extremely slippery and could cause you to fall head on (Which Hemanth, to his personal misery found out a bit later). Just behind this temple is the falls, which can be reached by walking and climbing up into smaller water falls, catching hold of strong branches that leap all over the river. This region was pretty dangerous, because of the sheer power with which the water was flowing down, and it seemed that it would pull you away along with it and throw you into the gushing white rock hitting water below. But filled with josh, we climbed along the river and reached this falls, which was one of the best falls in terms of overall rating (the way we approach it, the surroundings, the looks etc) that I have visited. We unsuccessfully tried getting under it, and the closer we got to it, the faster it pushed us away. I stood looking at it for sometime, trying to capture it forever in my mind.

After getting back to the temple, which was an equally difficult task, we realized how hungry we were. The fire wood logs had gotten wet, causing a delay in lunch. Unable to resist hunger, few of us ate Mango pickles that were at our disposal, only to realize, they were very tasty but even more hot and spicy. Sometime later, we were served really tasty rice-sambar, but the food review could be biased, as I was ready to eat almost anything at that time.

We took a slightly different route back to the base camp house, and most of us were very exhausted and everyone of us were completely drenched. We changed into dry clothes, had tea served to us, along with spicy and tasty bhajjis and bondas. We had so much of it that we were rarely hungry for the sumptuous dinner that lay ahead of us – paayasam, pulao and chapathi baaji.

Chapter 2 – The day we all got leeched

Into the second day of our trek, we tried leaving early to cover more ground. And we partially succeeded. This day was even more foggy and had all signs of cloud bursting and falling into us. Walking through streams were more dangerous as the water had risen up and and looked more furious. Walking through similar trails as the previous day, but more junglee ones, we opened up into this edge of the mountain that had almost a 500 ft drop. For half an hour, we couldnt see anything but mist all around us, except for a split second when mist cleared partially, giving us a spectacular view of the valley.

Just as people got restless and were thinking of moving on to the next place, the mist magically started clearing. It was like a stage drama performed by nature, where it built up the moment by covering it in the purdah of mist, and opening up the covers after making us wait enough. And what a view it was!! We could see a vast valley with fields, rivers, mountains and sea (yeah, the Arabian sea), the colors of the day were green, blue and white. But the most stunning view was Belligundi (literally means Silver falls), the royal looking water falls which stood out amongst other small falls, fell from around 850 ft as the guide informed us. We captured one of the rare images of the waterfall, one that is very less frequented, and hence even more precious. After giving us glimpses of it, the mist covered the nature’s beauty again, probably waiting for new set people to appreciate it, who would come only the next week.

Belligundi Falls Zoomed In

We continued from there into the jungles of Sharavathi valley, and as the rain poured less vigorously, we fell prey to the leech attack. They were unrelenting and cruel all thoughout, sucking blood out of each one of us. We had taken kilograms of salt, and despite all the precaution, we all got bit and lost blood. The more one gets bit, the easier it is for the leeches to detect blood, and the more desirable one becomes for the leech bite.

Delusioned and waiting to finish off the trek, we were spellbound when we had a close view of Goodana Gundi falls, from midst of the jungle, standing on a trail that never existed, that slipped all the way into the ferocious falls. Aptly called the Niagara of the state, the water fall was downright breathtaking. We caught a couple of brilliant shots of the falls, and the roaring of the waterfall was so loud that we were barely audible to each other. The water took steps to fall down, and throughout maintained a white rage, splashing dews and sprinkling water into all of us. We were forced to forget the leech trouble we were having all along, infact forget everything else and enjoy the sheer beauty of the falls. I have decided to put a picture of it, which hardly describes how it felt to be there and see it, but could do more justice than me telling it.

Goodana Gundi Falls

We had a worse leech attack that never seemed to end till we left the base camp, and its best explained by telling we would have preferred not having those creatures creeping up our legs. We made a quick visit to the world famed Jog falls, which looked half filled and the rain had lot of covering up to do. Taking a shuttle bus from Jog to Sagar put us through over an hour and half of trauma while we covered just around 30 kms. There was a fight inside the bus which made me listen to abuses that I have never heard a woman speak of before, physical pulling that involved women and the one which had all chances of sparking a communal clash. Hoping we would make it to the train on time, we had to skip dinner, but the physical exhaustion took priority over hunger and put us through deep sleep on the train’s way back.

More pictures available here, courtesy Suman S.