Unplanned trips are the best of all - The Tadiandamol
Tadiandamol is the fourth highest peak in Karnataka. It is located in the Western ghats and reaches the elevation of 1,748 m.
Dussehra was round the corner and every year I would be at my hometown Mangalore. But this year, I decided to spend time with my friends as I had a commitment with them to be on the trip. Therefore Dussehra at home had to be sacrificed. It’s always family and friends that form the most of one’s life.
An unplanned trip, I seriously don’t know what an unplanned trip is all about but according to me the trip itself is filled with uncertainties. In the first place, is it really happening, what are the places to visit, where to stay, what to carry, when to return. I hope you got what I meant by an unplanned trip. But ultimately I enjoyed it and I say unplanned trips are the best of all and it also turned out to be a budget trip.
It was a gang of bachelors Rakesh, Sanath, Sandesh, Kiran, Raghu, Aditya and me set out to explore life, chill out and some bird watching, though Ranganathittu, Mysore hopefully was not included in the plan!
This time we decided to explore the Tadiandamol. All arrangements on the camping — tents, sleeping bag, utensils, eatables were taken care.
I felt as though the army of bachelors from Thubarahalli, Bangalore set off with all the weapons headed to conquer the Tadiandamol, Coorg.
The below info-graphic shows how the unplanned trip turned out.
Trekking
It was around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, we got down from the bus at a wrong stop. We were fortunate to spot a jeep which took us to the base camp.The localities in Kakabe told us that camping at the peak was not allowed from the past few months. But this did not bother us and we decided to try our luck or else we thought we could camp somewhere else. There was no resistance to our mission, we carried on with our plan without any issues. It was a nice trail with moderate difficulty we could see people descending down whereas we were the only group ascending.
Suddenly it started to drizzle, then heavy rains set off we took shelter under the trees. Soon after the rain stopped we resumed our journey, the wet surface was little slippery which made us walk with caution. At around 7 o’clock we were at the peak. It was timed perfectly, soon tents were set up not wasting much time so that we could harness the fading light before it goes pitch dark. There was one more group which had already set up their tents.
As, with my other trek experiences usually a temple sits at the peak. But there is no temple here except a board by the forest department which says “Tadiandamol peak is at a height of 1748 m from the sea level and protect the forest from the forest fire”.
At around 8 0'clock, the forest officers visited the peak and asked the other group to extinguish the fire as it may lead to the forest fire. They left after some time, though we were scared for a moment that they may not allow us to camp but it was alright. All is well, we were preparing ourselves for the night. It was showering lightly, with the strong breeze, which made the tent to sway here and there.
To satisfy our stomach, we cooked Maggi. I wonder how we managed to cook in a pan. We had carried cards, to spend time around, but playing cards inside a tent were painful as it was congested. Imagine 4 people tent being occupied by 7 people it was all jam packed. Still, we could play few rounds of cards and it was showering outside heavily.
The picture of the elephant dung, that was spotted by Raghu while setting up the tents had a stamp on every bodies mind. The sound of the winds, the grass always invoked the picture of the elephant!
Around 12 o’clock, we could hear a group of people talking in Kannada. We knew the peak was occupied by only two groups, one was ours and the other group had two people and they spoke in English, as I knew it because I had borrowed spoons from them.
The fear grew up again, the fear of the elephants was already there and on top of it thinking that the Tadiandamol was haunted. All sorts of images of ghost went through everyone’s mind. Though, I personally don’t believe in supernatural beings.
Nobody went out from the tent to even look what is happening as it was drizzling, cold and pitch dark outside. Soon everybody felt asleep because of the series of activities all day long. Sandy was the only one who could pick all sorts of sound from all around, I felt like he being the soldier on guard when all others were deep asleep.
Everybody woke up at around 6:00 a.m. and Kiran was gracious enough to prepare tea in a pan, needs a workaround in such a constrained environment. We were desperately wanting for it and some Parathas were also served to keep the hunger under control. It was cold, moist, fog covered environment with the clouds zooming past us and the sun was barely visible till around 8:00 a.m. It was a very pleasant weather and Raghu started playing some songs, which was an add-on to the delightfulness.
We were back to the base at around 11 o’clock. Then continued our trip, went to Virajpet took some rest. A visit to the Nagarahole, Krishnarajasagar Dam and Mysore Dasara were all part of the trip.
So all in all, Tadiandamol trekking was filled with lot 0f emotions happy, sad, fear. The rains, the camping, cooking, playing cards, the pitch dark, cold windy nights, the fear of the elephants and the ghosts.
Photography — Rakesh Rao,
Infographic Design — Sanath Ali
