On a trail of novel beginnings...

A youngster smitten by the splendor of nature’s bounty, sky piercing mighty mountains, crazy photographers, a resolve to reach and kiss the pure water laden cloud at the top, and perseverance of a newbie who just refused to give up…

We spice up the story with…compassion, métier, resolve, friendships, having our meals sitting in the lap of mother earth, from her immense cooking pots directly to our taste buds, a sky full of thousand times the number of stars any of we city kids had ever seen and a creepy red viper snake…And what we get, is perfect foretelling of the story “Kudremukha” - The Horse Headed Hill…

And so we 6 started on a beautiful trekking adventure, roughly 6 hours away from the jostling city of Bengaluru, in a Toyota Innova at the dead of the Bengaluru city Friday party night...And off we went, through the beautiful highways, followed by swirling and stomach turning roads of the Ghats section and finally followed by a Jeep ride through the most difficult swampy road till our homestay (Mahindra, Take a Bow!!!)..

And thus commencing the trek… 18.4 miles… scorching sunny, then shady, and then rainy, uphill and downhill, sweaty, then breezy, stony, then muddy… quenching our thirst directly from the sweetest and purest spring waters, taking our strength from the mesmerizing views of the fog laden hills and running our way through the damp trails from leech attack!!!

Nobody trips over mountains…It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble…Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find, you have crossed the mountain…

And so we crossed it, only to revive our strength with yummazing food and star studded new moon’s night sky, complete with millions of twinkling stars, clear and complete with all astronomical patterns, to be forever imprinted on our memories… 

After local sightseeing next day from the water-falls and dams and feeling blessed at various famous temples of the region, as we were nearing our city life, we found ourselves not quite ready to believe that it’s over… 

But then the best realization was still yet to come… 

“We crossed the mountains of apprehensions, bathed in the pool of waters shimmering with novel beginnings…” And it’s surely an end of one story, but a beginning of MANY… 

  

Perfect Planning, Management, Modesty, Kannada Translations and Enthusiasm credits: Vijaya Srikara

Perseverance, resolve, determination and exemplary sportiness of a first time trekker credits: Nikita Jain 

Display of friendship, compassion and selfless support to the group and true true awesomeness credits: Sushant Vernekar 

Route guidance, bypassed Chickmagaluru sightseeing, creepy survival story of red viper snake attack, persistence of trekking barefoot and management support credits: Vinay Shivanna

Perfect Photography even without a professional camera, identification of red viper snake and willpower credits: Sai Chaitanya

And finally, Memories Preservation Credits: Shivani Shastri

P.S. I wrote another blog with same title, back in Pune...

So these are called phases for a reasons, they repeat themselves...