The Chennai Trekking Club

Mid Sea Diving - Into the Bay of Bengal

2012-01-25T10:38:00.001+05:30

Write up by Bhaskar:

Mid Sea Dive: 21-Jan-2012

Splash!!! Before I knew it, I was in a blue world, among hundreds of multi-colored fish swimming around the coral reefs. There was the Clown fish from “Finding Nemo”, Angel fish, Sea Horses and… wait a minute, there is a big bad Shark out there. I started to swim as fast as I could, but could not move. Suddenly there was a shrill noise that got louder n louder… until it scared away the shark. I found myself jump out of the water with a start - only to realize that it was 5:30 AM. Time to wake up and get ready for the real mid sea dive.

I caught up with some of the participants in Guindy @ 6:30. It was good to know that some old CTC friends were coming along. Two brave Agarwals, Prateek and Rajan, had come in a bike all the way from Guduvanchery. I’m calling them brave as the Chennai weather was unusually cold and it must have been one numbing ride. We proceeded to the final assembly point at Thiruvanmiyur, only to meet more friends and other friends-to-be.

After a round of hot tea and some refreshments, we started the journey. I think ECR looks all the more scenic, early in the morning. You can see the sun rising over a gleaming sea and the traffic is less, allowing you a relaxing ride. After a regrouping stop at Crocodile Park, we took a left turn to enter a small fishing hamlet. Here we parked our vehicles and changed to comfortable clothes that will allow us freedom in water. ;-)

The fisher folk gave us a warm welcome and soon we were all strapped up in life jackets, all set to enter the water. The sea seemed to play the perfect host - there were almost no waves and the serene turquoise water looked inviting. We grouped ourselves into batches of 8 and each group was put in a boat. I think there were 5-6 boats. So that must give you an idea of the number of people taking this adventure. Along with the fishermen, we too offered our prayers to the sea goddess and off we go… in a fishing boat.

We sailed about 2 km from the shore and our boatman said that this is the spot. One by one, all of us jumped in - some with enthusiasm and some with trepidation. Luckily, the water was not cold and we had a great time swimming, splashing and floating around. Rakesh’s underwater camera was put to its ultimate test as everyone tried to get a click of themselves submerged in water.

“Time and tide wait for none” – so goes the saying. Nowhere was it more apt than during our dive. Though it seemed too short, our time in the Bay of Bengal was up and the boatmen asked us to get back. Now came the real challenge. Climbing out of the water and getting back in the boats was more difficult than we had imagined. The gymnasts inside us came to life and along with the experience of the fishermen in handling such nincompoops, we awkwardly got into the boats.

The boats dropped us off a few feet away from land as we were given a chance to relive the experience by swimming to the shore. But it was not so easy to let go of the water. We stayed on for another 2 hours in the water, playing games, clicking pics and having a good time in general. The impromptu dance performances by Bhavana and Rakshita were met with great cheers. But the greatest cheer went to the sand sculptures and the model who posed for them – Shak__ Arjun. Our creativity was growing bigger than the ocean…

Alas, all good things must come to an end and we reluctantly left the sea. Most of those who stayed back decided to have lunch together, just to prolong the fun. Our destination was Delhi Dhabha in ECR. We had lunch in typical CTC style, ordering everything that was on offer and eating out of each others’ plates. By now the time was 2:30 PM and the sun was taking its toll on our exhausted bodies. We could not extend the day any longer and so we left… after having a round of introductions. Signs of a new beginning?!!………

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Rakesh R
Live today, tomorrow is just a Myth!!
www.facebook.com/rakesharr
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A land of peaceful hamlets, beautiful landscapes and Innocent villagers - Javadhu hills, Jan 14-15

2012-01-24T17:49:00.001+05:30

[Write up by Durai Murugan]

Walking down the mountain trails; trekking along the banks of the stream; relishing the chill breeze soothing through nostrils; pleasing sun rays piercing the murky clouds; the songs of the birds adding melody in the air; breaking the morning laziness we started our trek from Senbagagathopu village which lies on the Northeast of the Javadhu range.

The agenda of this two day exploratory trek was to trek along the stream and reach the highest peak 975 mts in the northeast Javadhu range exploring this range of mountains and return back to the starting point, trekking along the ridges of the mountain.

Trekking along the river trails and visiting various hamlets:

The trek started along trail along the river penetrating into the jungles and passing through the rocky mountain. Both the side of the trail was surrounded by sky-high peaks and the trek in between them was mind blowing.

We halted for lunch on the banks of the river and decided to take bath in the chill water which refreshed the wetting skin and brought in chillness to the body.

After few of hours of trekking we reached a sliding pool and we dashed each other to dive and swim in the ice cold water it was a rewarding experience swimming and splashing in the river.

From here we trekked and trekked and finally in the evening we encountered a 30 mts high splendid waterfall which was a delight for the tired soul. The pool in front of the waterfall was very scenic. After spending considerable time with the natural beauty we started to trek along the river in search for a place to camp for the night.

Visiting Hamlets and understanding villagers:

I am given to understand that there are around 250 hamlets in the Javadhu hills and most of them have only walkable trails and no roads. Still untouched by modernization and industrialization the hamlets still use their eco-friendly granaries, huts and adhere to the local customs living with their cattle and begin part and parcel of Mother Nature.

The villages in the mountain are very small each having around 4 to 6 huts with a few dogs guarding them and cattle’s grazing around. The people in the villages are very hospitable and very friendly in nature. The best place to stay away from the noisy and polluted cosmopolitan cities and live close to the nature enjoying the chillness in the atmosphere and the melancholy in the wind.

Cold and sleepless night around the campfire:

We camped nearby the river and started preparing our rice and soup for our dinner and the fall of the sun brought in pitch darkness and chillness started spreading across the mountains. It was pleasure sitting around the campfire and eating our supper and chit chatting about the day’s trek and thinking about next day’s hike to the peak.

It was time to sleep and half the crowd did not carry a sleeping bag along with them and few had very thin sleeping bags. The mercury started dipping making us feel for heat or fire. The blankets and thin sleeping bags soon got drained with the fog and now people started wandering for some heat around 3 a.m.

Few guys started making a campfire to keep them warm and I could see the crowd around the fire slowly started increasing unable to manage the cold. Shivering to the chillness in the breeze they spent their night sitting beside the campfire. I don’t think these guys will ever forget this night which gave them endless and chilling night.

The morning was very peaceful and thinking of yesterday night cold made our bones to tremble and to keep us warm we started to sit in the sun rays. Soon preparing and having our corn flakes for breakfast soon we disappeared into the forest to reach the day’s target of hitting the peak.

Encounter with wasps:

It was around 11 a.m when we were hiking through the Javadhu hills to reach the peak I saw a bunch of disturbed wasps flying around us; I had a towel to cover across my face and quickly ran away from the scene. Two of my co-trekkers who were hiking behind me unfortunately had to encounter the wasps and got bitten by the wasps.

Both of them started developing signs of dizziness and the injured place started to swell. Luckily, we reached yet another hamlet which had 5 huts the villagers although surprised to see us trek to their place, welcomed us with charming smile and soon hearing the story of the wasp bite, one of the elderly lady took us to a tree and sliced its barks to extract the medicinal properties which they believed is the cure for wasps bite.

Only after few hours both of them recovered from the wasp bite and the group got split into two. Peter decided to stay along with the injured guys and take them safe to the starting place while the rest of us headed to conquer the peak.

Rocky hike to reach the 975 mts Javadhu north east peak:

We started our hike from the hamlet heading towards the peak trekking navigating by ourselves, braving the thorny bushes and dense plants. It was an adventurous trail at times we had to climb through rocky mountain. At few places we got stuck because of the sloppy rocks and had to do rock climbing. Indeed, it was unforgettable and adventurous to do this rock climbing along with trekking. A mixture of trekking and rock climbing was a real treat to an adventurer.

Rock climbing to reach the 975 mts peak:

The peak was bald and a humongous piece of rock. It at all we had to reach the peak we have to climb this rock. Most of us were quite reluctant if we can climb this rock. With an unconquerable will to conquer the peak we decided to climb this rock. Each step was a cleverly kept; each 1 meter climb made my heart pounce harder although in the middle of the climb I dared to look back to see where I am and think of what will happen if I fall down but I enjoyed the thrill very much. I never hesitated to take my camera out and capture my co-trekkers clever movements to and their expressions.

Successfully climbing the 25mts + high humongous rock we felt as if we “are the KINGS of the Javadhu hills” a nice feeling. Nature rewarded us with glorious views of the peaks below us, the hillock Kottaimalai temple, the greenish Javadhu valley, the view of the Dam.

Running along the ridges of the mountains:

After the conquest of the peak we all were over delighted and rejoiced therefore started dashing in the village trails to reach the Dam where we have parked our vehicles.

This time I choose to stay ahead of the group, myself, arun, vishal and few other guys in the front started running on the trail. We ran and ran carrying our trek bags and utensils and to confess I was able feel my heart beat on my throat. Enjoying every beat of my heart I ran from one village to another village and on the ridges and finally reached a mud road it was almost getting dark. The sun was setting in between two mountains it was a scene of lifetime to watch different colours unfold in the sky. Watching the sun slowly settling for the day we walked along to take a dip in the river and jump into our vehicles.

At the end of the two days trek this is what is would like to state “why would I ever want to go to Scotland to admire landscapes when am lost in the picturesque beauty of Javadhu; why would I ever want to bathe from a frozen Himalayan lake when am convinced of the cold streams of Javadhu; where on the earth can I find peace, tranquility and wisdom if not for you ‘mighty Javadhu’. You are a pristine glory of Eastern Ghats”

Story behind this exploratory trek:

I pinged Peter on g-talk to check if I can organize a kodai trek during Pongal holidays or he is planning to organize any trek which I can join; within few minutes of chatting through g-talk he decided to organize a trek and gave me the option to decide the place, I informed him about my desire about the less known Javadhu hills. To my surprise and delight even before I could finish my coffee at my desk I received a mail in my inbox about Javadhu exploration. I was just awestruck with his promptness in sending invite to the group which reflects on his passion for trek.

On this day 19.01.2012 i.e. Peter’s b’day I join the thousands and wish him to scale great heights; conquer mighty mountains. I pray to the almighty to shower on him with sound health and longevity. It’s been almost 20 + treks with him and I am grateful that I discovered a trekker, photographer and a blogger in me. Thanks Peter Van Geit i.e. CTC to me.

Happy trekking,

Durai Murugan

http://duraithelegaleagle.blogspot.com/

More photos on our forum

Mail Emperors Team-4- Emperor's Difficult Trek to Nagala Combo

2012-01-24T13:00:00.001+05:30

Where to start from? Actually there was no start for this trek. I and Bala were sleeping till 3:00 am even though we have to go to Tidel park by 3:15. Just because of Bharani, we woke up and in half sleep reached Tidel. We came to know that there are 2 unfortunate souls dropped-out as usual. After pickup at Madhya Kailash and Guindy, we had small intro sessions and tea sessions at koyembedu. After we saw the other team already coming over there (4:30 pm), we started heading straight to the trek location with dreams about how deadly the trek is gonna be. But still in half sleep!!! J

Finally we reached oothu kottai where we took a tea break to refresh. Everyone in the group is a CTC-ian. So, we started sharing our previous trek experiences and funny things that happened. And then by 7:30 pm, we are ready at the base to start our 2 day trek. The distribution of food items where happening and as usual some started eating the food on-the-spot (to reduce luggage weight). Dam was full and overflowing. By seeing that, we are sure that there should be more water up there. We walked ahead as fast as possible. Rakesh, Marimuthu ran fast and took a deep dive into 3^rd pool for the morning bath. Then we moved as fast as possible and reached the 5^th pool at 10:00 pm. As Hari/Harish already knew the full route from West to East, they were on the lead and Arun came as the sweep. As some set of people followed Hari, we reached 5^th pool early and many followed us. We started playing with underwater camera for some time.

Being fully relaxed, it was funny to see the tired people coming and all of the sudden Arun charged them for the central peak climb. Some wanted to stop over there and people whose foresttown (like hometown) is nagala wanted to continue. I simply followed them to the next steep climb of the Western peak. And as some didn’t turn back, we left our bags down just to do the west peak climb.

Western peak is really steep and after sometime, there is no trail and most important, no water. As I had managed Venkatagiri with borrowed water managed the same way in here as well. :P Rakesh was commenting that Western peak is nothing when compared to Venkatagiri. Yes, it’s true. J

We took some exciting photos at the peak and Rakesh/Mari searched for notebook to write their names. But thane hurricane has flown that out of the spot. We started climbing down at 70 degree decline then. Bala fell upside down and started rolling down directly towards the eastern side, but Hari grabbed his leg and he was safe. J We started heating up water for the lunch. As per schedule, we shouldn’t have taken up any lunch.

After eating good, the real trek started at around 12:00 pm. Until evening, it’s just plain walking with no waiting/rest. We walked across many pools, streams, and crossed many. At one point, I didn’t care to ask the name of the pool and didn’t care to cross or dive across stones. After a long running, we reached the dry stream which will lead us to east side. There was a hut to mark the beginning of it. But we need to reach one more hut from where it would take another 2-3 hrs. So, it is going to be non-stop walking distance of around 20 km with small climbs, jumps, dive across stones and get full scratches by different colored thrones. I got scratches from red/green/blue colored thrones so I can make out any color with this combination.

We finally reached that second hut around 5:30 pm. By the pace in which our following group is coming, we thought we will hit the camp at the hut itself. And we started relaxing near the hut, But as expected. Emperors never quit. J We need to do a night trek now as it’s already 6:00 pm when they reached.

Without stopping we started trekking some of the more dangerous routes. As it is night and bala /I don’t have a torch, we are extra careful with the spare torch we got from Hari. There is one place I remember where u need to slide and fall to land on a tree. Even though torch is there, the moon light is the real savior for us at such spots. It’s one day before the full moon day. We finally reached the treasure hunt pool. Now, we need to ferry luggage. There were just 3 non-swimmers in the group. The luggage can be moved if 4 people can climb a free falling into pool hill and balance to pass it on. We did the second one just because of moon light. Moon light trekking was awesome!!!... It will be a life time experience and thrilling!!

Finally we reached the picnic pool at the east side by 11:00 pm night. We are happy to see more guys as Senthil’s team was there by 5:00 pm itself. Nearby you can see the roaring picnic pool falls into which some dived even on that night cold. J Arun/Marimuthu rocked in the cooking department with Senthil joining them as usual (siting near pot). Some tired guys went and slept flat. Some were ready with the bowls for the biryani to be ready. Some from Senthil Team were also waiting for biryani for a second round. But unfortunately everyone slept.

Finally Emperor’s Biryani was ready with its own Andra spice. Mixed as much ghee as we can and started crunching it sitting around the camp fire with the moonlit background. Wow!! It was great experience. Sleeping near camp fire is suggested the best but some risked sleeping with bed sheets. Pity them that they all woke shivering, but still sun light saved as.

Morning, it was a show time!!... J All circus diving was done by Rakesh/MariMuthu/Senthil/Arun. As we had Senthil’s Team as well with us, some more new friends. We were pushing each other into cold water and the first person to be thrown was Senthil. J After that, it was full fun games and anthur bulti dives. Emma would have killed arun by soaking him inside water. Even DFS didn’t do anything, but Emma’s grab has made him to panic. J

In-between, Vikram lost his gold bracelet as well. I thought to myself that if he had left that in treasure hunt pool then, we would have done a Misson Nagala Gold to explore and find that. But he doesn’t know where he left it. While all this happening, silently Senthil/Arun/MariMuthu/Bala and others, helped in cooking maggi noodles. It was served hot after a really very fresh bath. Slurp!!!

After 1 ferry points, we headed towards the gorge pool. Wow!!!! For the first time, I am seeing such a big gorge. We need to climb down using rope but with the number of non-swimmers increased and force of the falls is bad, we have to take the longer route.

The longer route is filled with Snakes. Somebody reminded me already that Nagala East is full of Snakes. I was extra careful in every step. But we were able to see snake skin at the top. Since the people count is more, we can be happy that Snakes would have been feared by our constant gorilla sounds.

The gorge itself was awesome; some elite swimmers went to the gorge falls and had a dip. This is the time I felt bad that am not a good swimmer. L The next thing is deadend pool. It’s super awesome. For frequent visitors and people who had nagala as their forest town, it doesn’t matter. But for me, it was a wonderful experience. At many places, I have to pause and ask the person before me about how to climb this 90 degree rock!! J

Then again a ferry point, as it is getting delayed a lot and team size is huge, we split up and managed in the fastest way we can. When I reached already some luggage was moved. I thought of swimming there. But depth fear was still on me!! :( As usual, I used the tube and swim to the other side.

Then it is lunch time… Soup/Tea… With soup, all the soup boys gave excellent stills. Madumita was catching fish and left it back to the stream to break the boredom. Maybe it’s her childhood “Chinna Chinna Asai” thingy… J I should really appreciate Madhumita/Sneha for doing such a tough terrain with ease.

Although CTCian can be marked under forest animal categoryJ, there was a real animal that followed as from West to East. Our favorite dog Sonia. J It did really heavy trekking than us by taking longer routes to avoid ferry points. I once tried following its route and got torn apart by thrones. I don’t know how it managed with blood on its feet. It’s really a poor doggie to get out in the east being a dog from the west. We fed tea and milk to the doggie.

After dead end pool, it’s nothing big to mention. There was a pool flat on the plain named 1^st pool at the east. Nagala east is really a tougher one than the Nagala west trek and there is more possibility to get lost.

You can never experience such a funny atmosphere anywhere. Kudos to Arun/Rakesh/MariMuthu/everyone who were there to add fun elements.

Finally we met all the teams for the evening snack on the road except Masu/Prem team. Mr.Vikram got his gold back and because of which we got an extra treat as well… J

I had another unforgettable trek experience with Emperors Team. Nagalapuram the CTC’s forest town, its native place, was so beautiful as I have ever imagined.

Emperors Welcoming 2012...Team 3-Medium Level-One Night and One Day Trek to Top of TADA Falls 7,8th January 2012

2012-01-19T15:51:00.002+05:30

Post Trek Write up from Alagappan Ramu

The number of months between my treks with CTC seems to keep growing. This time it was more than eight months. In the meantime, I have been on numerous other trips/treks elsewhere. But still I was eagerly looking forward to go for one of those CTC treks especially to meet and interact with a lot of new people. I registered for a trek to the top of Tada organized by Emperors, CTC. Made a few of my friends register. They had a fitness test to go through before they were shortlisted for the trek.

Went with my friend for his fitness test. It was a small hill opposite Chennai Airport. They had to climb up the hill within a certain time limit. If they did, they’re in. Or else, better luck next time. My friend Charan, being the energetic-enthu guy was one of the first to reach the top.

A few days later, I received a small list of people whom I was asked to call up and confirm their participation. I did. Soon we finalized the list of participants. It was a big group of 45 which was split up into two for convenience. I coordinated the Guindy pickup point where 3 cars and around 13 people were to come. I took my car and went to Guindy at 7.45PM, a few minutes earlier than what was specified to others. One by one people came, got introduced and got into one of the cars waiting there. Once everyone was in, we proceeded to meet the others at Koyambedu. After signing the disclaimer form and paying the trek expenses, we started out trip.

There was a lead car. Followed by the rest of us and a sweep car at the end. Among all those numerous heavy vehicles in the road, we soon lost sight of the other cars. Assuming that the others are already ahead, I hit the accelerator very hard. Within no time our car reached the toll gate. We then got a call from one of the organizers telling that they had actually stopped much ahead of the toll gate for dinner. Ah! Our luck. We stopped at a small roadside shop and finished our dinner and waiting for the others.Perhaps, I had been tooo fast. We waited for a long time for the others could catch up with us. Within about 45 minutes from that point we reached Tada foothill.

We parked our cars on the road. Took out our tarpaulin sheets, our sleeping mats and went to sleep instantaneously. The next day, we got up much earlier than the sunrise. Made a fire and prepared tea. We then split all the food items that we were supposed to carry on our trek. After we had our breakfast (a few idlies and a couple of vadas.) we started our cars and drove for another couple of kms to reach the parking lot.

We identified our leads and sweepers and started off on our treks carrying our backpacks. Initially it was a long walk with moderate ascent. Tired of walking, some of took a shortcut and started climbing. Soon we reached the leads and were waiting for the others to come. We took some rest at that spot before proceeding to climb again. There were a couple of nice viewpoint-like locations where we briefly halted for taking some snaps. We also crossed a dry stream on the way to the top.

We reached the top of Tada by noon. We were welcomed by a nice waterfall and a couple of small pools. Flash forward a few minutes, and all of us were under the falls, some of them diving from varying heights.

The speed of flowing water was unmatchable. We had free high power jacuzzi for a couple of hours in nature’s lap followed by a nice nap in the shade. We took a different path on our downward journey. At one point, we didn’t have a proper descent and had to tie ropes and climb down using that. It took quite some time for all of to get to the base of the mountain, but nevertheless it was fun. Actually, however hard it may seem at the beginning, it always feels so easy when you are done with it.

For some distance at the end, I was the one sweeping the group. In a while, we reached the actual Tada falls where most of the general public comes to. A few guys wanted to go to the top of the falls. Since it was already beginning to get dark, the others had already started towards the exit. It was six of us, stuck in the middle. Not with the group with that had left and not with the ones who went to the falls. We slowly started moving towards the exit, when it became completely dark. We had to take our torches out and walk among the slippery boulders. A bunch of non-CTC guys joined us. We didn’t exactly have an idea of which way to go. So we started walking in the stream. We got our shoes all wet. And then our pants. We were eventually half submerged in the water , by the time we found the exit. The early-birds were waiting for us there. Then we too took some rest there and waited for the rest of the gang to return.

Introduction session happened. It was quite interesting to interact with the people with whom you had spent the entire day. Nice idea of the CTC-Emperors to have introduction session at the end. One thing that was left was the dinner feast which we had at a dhaba on the highway. After filling our stomachs, we parted way and reached back our homes by 01:00. In all, an unforgettable trek.

CTC 4th birthday in Deccan Chronicle

2012-01-19T01:54:00.001+05:30

DC covered CTC's 4th birthday on page 5 today -

Photo from mission DFS/5 (Nittin and Prem)

Previous 58 news articles on CTC over here

Social Visit with TREAT Home, Nov 20

2012-01-17T10:51:00.001+05:30

Thank you note from the kids to the volunteers -

Mission DFS/5, 9 day survival mission, Dec 23-Jan 2

2012-01-17T09:43:00.002+05:30

[Written by Vipin Lal]

DAY1 :

Literally speaking, our trek started from Chennai central railway station itself. The crowd was so overflowing at the Central railway station that we had a tough time reaching our particular platform. We had the general compartment tickets with us.But seeing the packed general compartment we decided to get in the sleeper class bogie. When the TTR came we paid him 50 rupees per person to allow us to stay there. At 2 am we reached the destination. We waited there for our co trekker, Nithin who was supposed to join us from Bangalore.

After having a cup of tea we started the food distribution.The food for the next 9 days was equally divided and given to each participant. It was really heavy. With an added 5Kg of food my backpack felt really heavy. But its no time to whine. I am here on an important and deadly mission - DFS(Dead For Sure). I knew its going to be the toughest trek I have ever done.

As soon as Nithin came we took a Jeep from the railway station to the entry point for the trek. The Jeep driver was asking so many questions since he wanted to know why we are getting down in the middle of highway. With some stupid answers we tried to silent him.

At 4.30 in the morning we officially started our trek. I switched on my GPS and reset the Odometer count and current tracks. The Jeep track was a little bushy because it wasnt recently used, but even a trail of that kind is the maximum you can expect in a CTC trek. So I was happy.

The highway was really far away from the streams in the hill, which we wanted to explore on day 1. It was a long walk. Sometimes we got some village trails, other times we followed the small boulders in the dry stream. After around 3 hours of walking we reached a 50m high water fall. It was a dead end. There was no way to proceed further in the stream as both sides of the stream had vertical rocks. With a slight satisfaction of finding the first milestone in the trek, I marked the location in my GPS. It was only 8 am, but we were really tired after the long walk. Everyone took a nap. Arun, Sridhar and few others started cooking the breakfast - corn flakes with milk powder.

After the breakfast it was time for us to proceed further - to find a way to the top of the falls. It wasnt an easy task. After going back downstream for few minutes me and Sridhar climbed on the right side of stream hoping to find a way up. But after few meters, it turned out be a dead end. Peter asked us to come down and he lead us up, in another less sloppier way. The climb was difficult. We often met rocks with 80 to 90 degree slope which was very challenging. In many places we had to pass the bags first, because it was impossible to balance with the heavy backpacks. I really enjoyed the climb. This was the first time I have ever encountered such kind of rock climbing in CTC treks. I could feel my heart beating fast with excitement. But there was one little problem. None of us had any water with us. When we left the stream we didnt fill up our bottles. After few minutes of climbing we were fully exposed to the sun and surviving till the next water point became the main concern. On the way we found some Amla tree which gave us a boost.

After a long hike, we finally reached the plane areas on top of the hills. To our luck, we often found trails in the direction we had to go. I was reaching my limit without the water. Others were also tired so we decided to take a power nap in a shady place. I felt more energetic after the nap. After the nap we followed the same trail we were following before until Peter decided to go off trail to reach our camp site for day 1 -a 50 m falls. At around 7.30 pm we reached the camp site. It was relatively flat. I changed to my dry clothes and removed my shoes. Everyone collected dry woods for cooking and camp fire. Arun prepared Maggi noodles for dinner. As usual it tasted superb.
After the dinner we had chit chat discussion around the camp fire. Everyone introduced themselves and talked about how they came to know about CTC, about their first trek, their best treks etc. I realized that I cant have such a quality time in any city. Chill night, near to a camp fire, talks with fellow trekkers. Superb!!!

Day 2:

Next day, Arun prepared Aval with Sugar and water for breakfast. Peter briefed the day's plan with a printout of the Google terrain map. The day looked relatively easy with not much climbing. After breakfast, we started following the stream down. Within half an hour we reached on top of a water fall. There seemed no way down until Peter said that we can climb down through a small side stream on the right. It was an easy way down. We went down, changed the clothes, getting ready to take a dip in the water fall.It was 50m high and the water was really chill. I couldnt stand under it for more than 15 mins as my whole body started shivering. This falls looked special because it looked like it was falling from the sky rather than from a rock. After taking a group snap there, we quickly resumed trekking. Because of the chill weather, it was no place to simply stand around. Walking was the only way to warm ourselves other than a camp fire.
On the next few hours we followed the stream over the boulders. The stream had many gorges and its terrain kept changing. Sometimes the right side looked steep and left side gradual slope and in few minutes vice versa.

The walk in the boulders took a good amount of time to finish. Later the stream terrain changed to flat rocks which were easy to walk and more beautiful. The one thing I noticed about this place is that the rock structure is amazingly beautiful. Gorges,falls,pools - there was no limit to them in those 9 days.
Sometime around 12 pm we reached a pool where people started jumping in. Peter decided to take a power nap in the mean time. I am not a fast sleeper so I also jumped into water and got a back massage from the small water falls. In an hour we started again and Peter said that we will stop by an amazing pool in an hour. We would be taking a lunch break there.

By 1 pm we reached the main pool of the day. This pool was not known for its size but it was a perfect place for diving. From the top we have a good 8m diving arena. Its really deep and everyone jumped to the pool from there. I was scared, as I am a non swimmer plus scared of heights, but looking at others diving I too did. I still feel proud of myself at that decision. After taking some snaps and dips in the pool, we had Kakhra with Pickle for our lunch. Even in the mid of day the weather was chill, so I slept in the flat rock directly under Sun. Nothing better than a Sun bath after a chill bath.
We continued walking along the stream after the power nap. Along the way by 4 pm we reached a gorge. Though it was filled with water we didnt had to do a ferry. Tall people walked with backpacks in their head and people like me waited on the other side for help..:)

We continued walking along the down stream until we reached a 50 m high falls on the left side. The falls was caused by two side streams joining from the left. It was 5 pm by then and underneath the falls we had flat space perfect for a camp site. We requested Peter, to camp there and he agreed to it half minded. He wanted to push off some more distance that day, but the place was so beautiful.

Since we had lot of time until its dark, we climbed along the sides to reach the top of falls. The view was nice, and I liked the side stream very much. The stream was around 30 to 40m wide and as far as you can see it was flat rock. I took a walk around with Prem,Sridhar and Raja enjoying the greenery all around us.

That night we had Maggi noodles again with Soup. Peter prepared a camp fire in the mean time which saved us from the chillness for some time. We had a very cold night. The place was open and very near to the bottom of falls which worsened the situation. I could some how manage with my S15 sleeping bag, but even exposing my face outside for some time chilled my whole body.

Day 3:

On day 3, our plan was to visit a rest house made by Forest department and then follow a stream all the way down to the camp site. Day 2 camp site was in an open area and by the time we started it was too sunny. We got a small trail near the camp site itself, which saved our time. Following the trail we saw ruins of an old forest rest house and a watch tower.

To reach the forest rest house on top of hills we had to follow a Jeep trail. Since it was going up, the trail was going in a zig-zag way. To save time, we climbed straight up. After reaching the top we got back into the Jeep trail which lead us straight into a shed made by Forest department. We could also see some ruins near this shed. Peter along with a group of trekkers started exploring the place for more ruins of historical importance. I somehow found a trail near the shed. Out of curiosity, I followed it for 500 meters which lead me to a running stream. In the terrain map this stream was nothing of particular importance, but to my surprise it had water. I realized how well planned the location of this rest house(shed) was. There was a shiva linga made of cement on a rock in the stream. Prem did Pooja, while others relaxed near the stream.

Our next itinerary was to go to the origin of another stream and follow it all the way down to the proposed camp site. We tried to find a Jeep trail, but it took around one hour for us to catch the Jeep trail. We followed it and got down to the stream. At the beginning of the stream there was a 100m falls. We didnt spend much time there. As it was 12 pm we wanted to reach a scenic pool, where we can enjoy the lunch. With this in mind we started going down the stream over the boulders. In one and half hour we reached a small pool where we decided to take lunch. Arun prepared Aval with sugar in the chill water for lunch.

At this time two of our fellow trekkers - Thomman and Sridhar was not feeling well. It was just the third day, but they thought that its wise to drop out from the mission as once you are deep inside the forest there is no easy exit. They didnt want to slow down the group and so they decided to exit.Peter gave them his GPS. After taking the common food items, we bid them farewell.

With the group count comes down to 11, we continued our mission until the flat point in stream where we set up our day 3 camp site by 5.30 pm. The night went as usual. We had a big camp fire with interesting discussions.

Day 4:

Day 4 was one of the most interesting in the whole trek. Distance wise we didnt move much but adventure wise and scenic wise it was amazing. From the camp site we caught a Jeep trail to start off. In some time we decided to get down to a side stream which eventually lead us into the major stream of the day. It was a beautiful stream with flat rock structure. Every 5 minutes we had a huge pool. We took bath in the first one, but avoided the others because of time constraints.

Following the stream down, we finally reached a stage wise falls. There was no way to go down. We enjoyed the falls. It had around 4 stages covering around a total of 150 m height. After this we had to walk over the ridge without any water. So we decided to take lunch at this point - Britannia rusk and cheese - amazing combo.

After a quick power nap on top of falls we climbed on the left of the stream. We followed the stream over the ridge which gave us a better view of the falls. At this time Arun and few others suggested that we should go a little back and go down to the bottom of falls. We could see a less sloppy part which could lead us to the bottom of falls. Peter was doubtful about this, because he have never tried before. Anyway it was decided to give it a try. We went back a little and started descending down. Raja and Prem lead the way.

With some tricky down climbing we finally reached the falls. It was amazing. It looked a lot bigger from the base than it looked from the top.I immediately took a bath under the falls. We went down one more stage. Swimmers started even diving into the large pool. They said it was very deep. I silently sat there enjoying the beauty of the water falls.
We went up the same way we came down and followed the ridge further north. By 5.30 pm we reached a forest rest house(shed) where we decided to camp. Last three days we camped in the open and so it was cold. But this time the shelter helped us to have a better sleep at night. As usual we found some old ruins near this shed. Arun prepared the dinner - Puliyodharai rice, and Peter made a nice camp fire.

Day 5:

Day 5 was a long walk with really steep climbing ups and downs plus a beautiful pool. We followed a dry stream for a long time with not much change in the terrain. By around 12.30 pm we faced a very narrow gorge on our way. This was the most interesting part of the day. We had to ferry the luggage in many places. The team work played an important role here. We stood in a line passing the bags one by one. Once few bags were passed, the guys in the front moved ahead to pass the bags over the next obstacle. There were 5-6 obstacles like this and everything went in perfect harmony. No time was wasted standing around.

The best part was overcoming a small sliding kind of falls. We climbed around the sides and passed the bags first. The sides were slippery but few fellow trekkers like Nithin,Prem and Raja helped me to reach safely. Peter was happy after the gorge, he said "good team work guys". I also felt the same and felt proud of being part of such a team.

In some time we exited the stream climbing to the left side of the stream. It was a steep climb and as per Bharani, "a 4 leg climb". We reached a saddle and now it was time for us to go steep down to join the stream below. Peter said that we had to climb down a total of 250 m down. Before the climb down some of us climbed a little to get a better view at the ridges and valleys around us. It was a spectacular view. I thought, this place is really unique.

The climbing down was tricky with many loose rocks. Luckily we found a slight animal trail which was relatively easier to follow. In around one hour we reached down the stream where we took a power nap and lunch.
We continued walking downstream to reach the camp site as soon as possible as it was getting late. By 6 pm we reached the camp site. It had flat rocks, perfect for sleeping. Next to the camp site there was a huge pool. The specialty of this pool was that it had a gorge which looked like a cave. The water has carved the gorge really beautifully. And one more thing to mention is that this is the only place I have seen big fishes. While looking for dry woods for the camp fire, I got a fishing hook and thread. I tried my luck and I caught a big fish. We barbecued it on a stone with some masala and salt on it.

Day 6:

On day 6, our plan was to visit a huge falls first, and then climb up and camp near a forest rest house. When Peter briefed the map, it sounded easy but wasnt.
We pushed off from our camp site by around 9 am. From this place there is a proper village trail or Jeep trail which you can use to exit the forest. On our way we saw a relatively big temple with few smaller ones nearby it.

To reach the huge water fall, we had to walk around 2km upstream. The rest of the day, we had to follow the same stream but water fall was a dead end. So we kept our bags in one place and went ahead to check out the falls. The next 2km was full of big boulders. It was exhausting but I enjoyed it. In 45 minutes we reached the base of the falls. It was so huge, should be around 150m high. And the pool under it looked like a football ground. I didnt jump into the pool. I sat on a rock and enjoyed the pool and falls. The people who swam across for taking a dip in the falls looked so small compared to the falls. They looked like ants. They said that the water was ice chilled.

By around 11 am we started back. In 30 mins we reached the place where we had kept our bags. Now it was time for us to climb up to reach the top of falls. We climbed on the right side of the stream. The start of climb was full of loose rocks. I was at the back and each person ahead of me, was rolling loose rocks down when they climbed. It was frightening. One loose rock can do a fatal damage and end your trek. Luckily everyone was safe. We climbed further up. It was steep and some sections tested our rock climbing skills.After reaching the top we walked over the ridge to reach the top of falls,where we took our lunch. It was raining by then, we made a small camp fire to warm ourselves.

We followed the same stream up, for 3 more km. The way was too bushy and thorns slowed down our speed considerably. In some time we reached a Jeep trail which took us to the ruins of an old forest guest house. We looked if we can camp there, but it was no good. We moved ahead and saw a watch tower. This place too was not suitable for camp. We walked further on the Jeep trail until we found a flat space. Since it was raining in the afternoon we had to set a proper camping site.

The whole team of 11 was split into three groups - one for getting water from the stream, one for setting up camps using tarps,one for cooking and collecting firewoods. I was part of camp set up team. We made two nice tents in an hour. By that time Peter and Prem went to the stream and got water. Arun and team got enough firewood for the night.

That night we had Tomato rice. By then it was raining. Most of us went inside the tent. Peter was doing some planning with the maps for the next 3 days and when he was done he called all of us inside.

The biggest surprise for the trek came by then. Peter explained the plan for next 3 days. I was thinking why he is telling it in detail until he said "Guys I have a surprise for you.I will be leaving tomorrow morning. The next 3 days you have to go on your own". We were like "what????" Later he told us that even before the start of trek, he planned to exit on day 7. Though it sounded weird at first that was the best thing he did as the organizer of DFS. The real surviving and courage was into play from that moment onwards. For the next three days, Peter wont be there to push us. He wont be there to navigate the way. I felt some voidness all of a sudden. I think most of us felt the same.

Day 7:

Next day morning Peter left by 4 am. He took 3 of our co trekkers who had some leg injuries. Before leaving he shouted "7 survivors". I felt proud. We woke up at 7 and re distributed the food. All the common items was left by people who dropped out in the morning. My bag became heavier again. It was heavily raining throughout the morning and I was shivering.

After taking some Aval as breakfast we started following the Jeep trail till the stream. Initially the Jeep trail was difficult to track, but later we managed to be on track again with the help of GPS. We covered around 4 km in one hour to reach the stream. Peter had told us to follow this stream. But it was full of water, so I decided to take the ridge to make things easier. That was a good idea, because we reached the main stream in one and half hour. The rocks in that stream where very slippery. We were walking like snails. Occasionally some one fell down on boulders due to the slippery rocks. We continued our trek through this stream. Lot of side streams where joining this stream and all of them had water due to last day's rain.

We took lunch in between and followed the stream until evening. As we went down the stream,it got even more flatter, but it didnt make the things easier. The heavy rains caused the stream to widen because of which we had to walk in the bushes on the side of the stream. The way was too thorny. I was walking in the front and it was a real test of patience to walk in that terrain. I wondered how Peter manages to patiently navigate in his treks. The last 1 km in the stream was of flat rocks. This terrain seemed easier and I was happy to get rid of the thorns. In some time we reached a good pool which was a good possible camp site. Since it was raining and getting late we decided to camp there. Aditya said that in one of his earlier trek, they camped at this exact place. We quickly managed to build two tents with the tarps we were carrying.

That night we slept early after having Aval for dinner. At night it didnt rain much and I had a good sleep.

Day 8:

Since we had a long sleep in the previous night we decided to start the trek early. But still I was not feeling like getting out of my sleeping bag. There was no fire wood available. So we decided to eat Oats mixed with water. But it tasted really bad, atleast for me. so instead I just took a five star chocolate.

We started the trek by 8 am following the stream down. In one hour we reached a dead end or water fall. It was special because there were two falls originating from the same point. We spent some time here enjoying the gorge below and taking few pics. To follow the stream we had to climb up left. Filling our bottles with half liter water we started the last climb of the trek. The climb wasnt that steep as we have done before, but the bushy terrain still made it uneasy. We climbed around 150 m up and then followed the stream along the ridge. By around 12 pm we reached a side stream which will join the main stream which we had to reach. This part was interesting. If you dont know the way you will get stuck here because its way too steep except in few areas. But I have been here before, so I knew that we had to follow an animal trail to safely go down. Finding the animal trail was a challenge. But luckily with the help of GPS I found the familiar rock structure I saw in the last trek. I noticed the slight mark of an animal trial. A smile returned to my face. We started following it. There were many trails splitting up, but the GPS trial from the last trek helped us to be on the right trail. We made it all the way down to the main stream by around 1.30 pm. I recognized the camp site I was in, before 6 months. It felt so nostalgic.

The day was kinda sunny, so collected some half dried firewoods and with the help of camphors we prepared noodles. That was the main course of meal we had it in last 2 days. It was delicious and gave us the energy to push off the last stretch of the trek. After taking a power nap we followed the stream further down. It wasnt anything like last time I came here. The streams were flooding. Most of the boulders I used last time was under water. We had to walk on the sides of the stream which slowed us down. Even crossing the stream took like 15 minutes. I was surprised after seeing the vast change in the situation after one day's rain. By 5 pm we reached a gorge where we had to ferry our backpacks. Prem and Raja prepared a ferry with two sticks and four sleeping mats. With seven backpacks and shoes we had to do the ferrying four times. Prem and Arun did that job well even when the stream had that much current. Since it was getting dark slowly, we decided to look for a camp site. I remembered seeing some flat rocks after the ferry. So we decided to move quicker until we reach a nice place. By around 6 pm we reached another gorge. Before this gorge there was a flat space to sleep. We decided to set up the camp here.

That night Arun prepared Maggi noodles plus Pasta added with cheese for our dinner. All of us had our stomachs full. The woods werent that dry to make a camp fire. So after the food we went inside our sleeping bags. The sky was clear. Whenever I woke up in the middle of night I could see the stars clearly. I felt relieved that tonight there wont be any rain.

Day 9:

The last day, the exit day, finally came. Time to say good bye to this beautiful place. We wanted to start the trek super early so that we can reach the village by lunch time. The village was around 10 km away and I knew that it was going to be a long journey. But before leaving I wanted to say thanks to the forest. When you think about it, its so surprising that all of us are safe after 9 days of extreme trekking. As a spiritual person, I believed its not possible without the hands of a higher being. I silently thanked him and promised to come back soon,before the start of the trek.

We walked on the sides of the gorge infront of us. Except a 10m ferry, we had no problem crossing the gorge. In one hour we found a trail which helped us to quicken our pace. Last time when I came here,I followed boulders in the dry stream. But this time the stream had lots of water. Without the trial we would have had a tough time. The trail continued for some time until it got disappeared completely in the bushes. We were in bushes again for next 1km. Luckily we saw a Jeep trail by then which took us directly to the village. It was a long walk. Everyone was tired, but we pushed ourselves to reach the village and to have a good lunch. By 1.30 pm we exited the forest and entered the tar road.

I switched off the GPS after checking the odometer - It said "125 km"...:)

Vipin

http://vipinjournals.wordpress.com/2012/01/17/25-mission-dfs5-9-day-survival-mission-dec-24-jan-1/

Emperors Welcoming 2012...Team 3-Medium Level-One Night and One Day Trek to Top of TADA Falls 7,8th Jan

2012-01-17T08:43:00.002+05:30

Excellent Write up from Ramesh

Day 1:

Everyone assembled at Koyambedu amidst all the Traffic and confusion about who are last minute Drop outs. The assembling session started at about 20:00 hours and went on till about 21:30 hours. On assembling, the first item in the Agenda, that is Attendance and the Collection of Money was done by Account Aditya. This guy not only appeared to be experienced in his job, but also proved it by his efficiency.

After all this was over, then some of us got introduced to each other and the others just let things go by and waited for an opportune moment to Break the Ice. Some of the Trekkers already knew each other and were reminiscing their old Treks together and looked very comfortable. Some were looking forward to the Adventure with calmness and exhilaration whilst others were with trepidation.

The best part was the organising the cars and finalising who will go in which car. This was efficiently handled by the Organrisers oops Organisers.

Finally at about 21:45 one by one the cars started moving towards the destination of Tada and on everyone’s mind was Food. Calls were flying from one car to the other with the one question in mind – FOOD WHERE? The lead car was driven by Kishhore and he is a fast and good driver. But, some of the cars found out that he was way too fast for them and were lost in Traffic. To catch up with them we had to stop atleast about 3 times to regroup and finally we all stopped at Redhills near a Parotta stall which in the hunger we were in looked inviting. This was at about 22:45 hours and by this time I felt that there was no need to Trek to have leg pain, as the traffic was so heavy that just driving gave pain in the leg. But unfortunately, the nearest inviting Parotta stall was ignored and we had to trek through dense traffic and mud laden roads to reach a small Vallar eating house. Luckily, this house had enough to feed our entire group of 38 much to their wished with good Parottas and Dosas. After our group finished the dinner, the owner was ready to close the shop which presumably he had decided to keep it open till probably 23:30 hours as there was no food left to feed any hungry soul that he would come across.

At about 00:40 hours we arrived at what was presumably the Camp point. For first timers to Tada, it was in the midst of nowhere and there was only the sound of the nocturnal creatures. This was an ideal place and with the Moon being nearly full, it was one of most endearing places to stay as we could hear water gushing in the stream. Immediately on arrival the large Tarpaulin was spread on the ground and anyone with a covering sheet could take any place to sleep on that. But for people like me who could not do much packing as there was some last minute crisis in the office which kept me occupied till the last minute and had to leave without the most important Bed sheet. So I slept in the car and I was joined by Alwin and Kishore Prabhu. The snoring of Kishore was like a lullaby and slowly I meandered to sleep for about 3 hours. I got up with a jerk at about 04:40 hours as is usual on any day and prepared to use the fresh ground for my morning ablutions. That done, feeling a sense of relief and expectation, went to where the main group was sleeping and was surprised to see quite a few guys up and moving about.

The organisers were in the mood of the final preparation and were making plans about who will carry what. Then it was time to get the tea shop going and it was left to Masu to light the fire. Fire wood collection was in full swing then, with Masu urging everyone to find dry wood. This was an onerous task as it was the dew which was the culprit in keeping the top surface of any piece of wood wet and thereby not allowing it to burn well. But, the camphor did the trick and there was a fire for the tea pot as well as for a bonfire to keep everyone’s teeth chattering like a typewriter under the fingers of an expert. I do not know of how many in the group know about a typewriter let alone even seen one. Another group went in search of neem trees to make good toothbrushes as is the wont of the organisers as it was announced no one should use toothpaste. Everyone brushed their teeth with neem I suppose. Maybe some skipped it for the sake of being truly being with nature.

It was at this time, that the Motor mouth Sanker (Sanker, excuse me for the usage)started with a roar in his car to buy Breakfast and everyone flagged him off wishing him good luck. Even before the din of ‘Good luck’ died, he as off in a flash as if he had not eaten anything for quite sometime and he wanted to very badly.

With this done and everyone fairly heated up, the trek was about to start. It is at this time that Prem felt that two pieces of rope will be very useful for any emergency. Everyone was surprised at the mention of rope and some of them with a feeling of dread about the prospect to have to use it. It was left to me to cut the rope into two pieces of about 10 metres each and seal the ends in the fire by slightly heating it in the embers and then dipping it in the nearby stream. Having prepared the two pieces, carrying one of the ropes became my responsibility as Prem very sweetly asked me in such a way that he would not take ‘NO’ for an answer. It was at this time, that the Breakfast arrived, which was Idlis and Vadas. Since, the organisers had received negative feedback about the quantity last time they, were very generous this time and for some of us it was felt that the quantity was a bit too much. But for everyone, who felt was a large parcel at the start of the trek, turned out to be morsel of food at the end of ascent.

The cars started purring along the way and thru dirt roads and pathways with only small stones which were making each car to trek its way to the Main car park. After reaching the Main car park, which brought memories of my previous visit to the Tada falls about two decades ago, everyone parked their cars in a very orderly manner. After this was done, last minute orders from the organisers were creating a bit of confusion when I looked at it from the outside, but, after getting in the midst of it, felt that it was creating clarity amongst everyone. So far so Good.

Then we started walking towards the I guessed to be start point of the trek, but after sometime realised that the trek has already started. First we crossed a stream with a small foot overbridge over it, and peering down, saw that the water was clear and felt like taking a dip and then proceeding further. My prayers were answered when we came across a stream without a foot over bridge. From far expecting the water to be bit deep atleast till waist high, looking forward to the morning dip, was disappointed to see that the water was only till the calf muscle level. Anyway, decided to remove my shoe as I did not want it wet right at the start of the trek itself. This crossed, then we came across a dense foliage, I would not call it a dense forest, where we left the beaten path and started our ascent uphill. Prem and Masu were leading from the front, Sanker was in the middle and the sweepers were Kishore and Vinod. This was the way till the end of the Trek with only Sanker sometimes moving a bit up the line and down the line.

The ascent was gradual to start with and then picked up gradient as we went along further and further. Some of the companions felt the going tough and felt the need for an accelerated stop session. This was also accentuated by the fact that there was not much of tree cover and we were left to the vagaries of the morning sun bearing down on. But at this stage, it is felt that the organisers of any trek should take care of the starting trouble every trekker – experienced or regular or occasional or fit – faces about 15 minutes after the start. This is because of the fact that everyone is high strung when they are going into the unknown and are having a war with self doubt etc. This period once it passes and the organisers give an assurance, then everyone can see even the weakest of all trekkers easily taking on the challenge with a smile. This rest is not essential for trekkers who have already taken the particular route before and are familiar with the terrain.

Some of the trekkers who could not but follow the ancient jeep trail, felt that it was more of a bike trail. I have my own doubts whether during the period when we are talking about, jeeps were built to ascend this steep tracks. But, definitely bikes were built for this and I have personal experience about the same. By now some of the more agile ones were not following the jeep trail, but were cutting across and making quick time and were always ahead.

At the first point of stop, on everyone’s lips was the only question how long will this torture continue. Prem and Masu were very patient and explained that it was only about 15 minutes to the top and we are home. Personally felt that they were pulling a fast one which proved correct later. Our first serious stop was at the lookout point in the fort which was nothing but a space flat enough to house two men with possibly a machine gun or some sort of fire arm to defend themselves. After some photograph sessions, we again started towards what Prem described to be the best water fall and dipping location in these parts. The final location looked as if it was far into a distant galaxy, but Masu assured that it is not so. Somehow felt he was not pulling a fast one this time and felt reassured. Immediately after the start from the first major stop, came across a steep and slippery rock face with not much of a tree or root hold or even small crevices on the rock. It was quiet smooth and if not for the softness of the behind and the absolute absence of any flat ground immediately after the rock slide, many would have slid their way down, but were denied the pleasure. With deftness known only to goats, Prem and few others easily were down before anyone could even take this slope and be down and out. But, everyone took this step by step and no one was left with a sprained or twisted ankle.

We crossed a dry stream which was pointed out by Prem as one of the points that we will cross during our descent. The place looked decent with lots of tree cover and coolness. But the absence of water stopped some to have stopped there for a longer time. They were enticed by Masu by tales of the waterfall and the pool which we will be reaching in no time. Finally we reached the water fall and the pool after about 3:30 hours from the start. Everyone who have been there are blessed souls to experience such freshness in the water and the surroundings. After about 2:30 hours of dipping themselves and indulging in all sorts of tumbling and turning in the water, Prem decided it was time for one of the most important points in the agenda – LUNCH. As is the wont, all packets of sugar, aval, chips, pakoda and the all important garlic and tomato pickle was collected. Food was nothing but, water soaked aval mixed with sugar and with chips and pakoda on the sides. I was entrusted with the job of distributing chips and pakoda and felt that I made everyone happy. The food tasted like as if it was amirtham directly from the heavens as we were possibly the closes bunch of humans than many in the locale to receive it fastest.

After a siesta in the hot sun, we started our descent into the unknown with Prem asked for the rope I was carrying at a particular point informing that it will be required now as we were descending a twenty foot drop with no hold. But to his amazement everyone who came down did not use the rope at all. At the start of the trek he had informed, that the rope is required only in one location of the descent and everyone felt the worst was over. But, to the chagrin of many, after about 30 minutes, we reached a spot where Prem and Masu first descended to ascertain the slope. Here the progress was slow and it was the location where indeed both the pieces of rope came in very handy. Here, Sanker and Vinod were called for assistance by Prem and Masu. It was a sight to see both Prem and Masu standing in a small piece of rock which was just sufficient to keep two pairs of legs and were also collecting luggage from everyone and also helping some who needed it. Here the progress was very slow and the wait was making things worse. It will be easy to just face an obstacle and get on with it rather than wait imagining it endlessly.

I was explaining to a fellow trekker that by keeping your mind calm and free from all sorts of doubts which assail you, it will be tough but easy to tackle any sort of obstacle during a trek as solutions will flow just like that. But, on the other hand if you view it with self doubts, then you are sure to make a mistake to regret it later.

After this was over, some of them decided to have a dip in the lower water fall as well whilst some felt enough was enough and wanted to get back. Hence, the group was split into two and went about their way. On the way back, almost everyone took a dip in the shallow stream and changed into a fresh dresses. This was welcome as otherwise it would have been very difficult to sit in the cars on the way back. Finally, at about 20:30 hours curtains were dropped as far as the trek was concerned, but, there was one item left on the agenda which was a sumptuous dinner promised by Prem and Masu. Only a few left early without food due to some reason only know to them.

The dinner locale was just after the check post which was a Punjabi Dhaba, but owned by a Mallu and manned by non Punjabis. Everyone was treated to an endless supply of the best of the rotis, chicken curry, omelette and boiled eggs. Even after everyone had their fill, still Prem and Masu were eating and were unabashed about it. Looking back, was reminiscing my younger days when I could match them in gluttony.

Finally reached Chennai by about 12:00 midnight and finally crashed to bed by about 01:00 hours after lots of scrubbing and cleaning which woke up my wife with the comment that I was wasting water and next time, I come back from a trek to carry back sufficient water to cleanse myself

CTC in The Hindu Downtown, Jan 14th

2012-01-16T20:08:00.002+05:30

Last Saturday CTC appeared in The Hindu Downtown (Ashok Nagar,K.K.Nagar, Vadapalani, Virugambakkam, Saligramam, Koyambedu, Porur, Valasaravakkam, Ramapuram and Manapakkam) -

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_o7QtZJaW3qOWRmNWRmNzgtNWQyOS00Mzg0LThiOGQtODk3NTNhNDNhOGY3

KP, Nov 2011

2012-01-16T19:52:00.002+05:30

Day - I

It was very well planned for booking train and bus ticket for Kumara Parvatha by Chennai organizer – Raj and Bangalore organizer – Arasu. I was sick just 3 days before the trek, took 2 sick off days for recovery and approached Doctor to cure my viral fever ASAP (before Friday) for getting ready to the trek, doctor must be thinking that I’m a crazy guy who is serious to recover from the fever just for the weekend trek but I know Nov 2nd week is something very special than any other week end because of KP trek with my lovable CTC friends who is already known and many unknown friends. Yes, Even if people are not known each other, I know that they will be my friends because of CTC – Like minded People. We three guys reached Tidel park station to catch train @ central. While most of the guys carrying laptop bad @ Tidel Park station, I could see couple of guys were carrying sleeping bag/Mat which is easy to spot the Ctcians. We introduced each other. After a fine lunch, a group was gathered near allocated coach and handshake ceremony among us before boarding train. Raj must be the tensed guy who faced drop out from the time of ticket booked ( 1 month back ) to 1 hr before boarding the train but he is our captain cool carrying smiling face , It sounds he is ready to expect the unexpected that is what he is an organizer.

Train journey is always fun but with CTC friends it is Funnnnnnn with lot of mokkais,comedy tracks and eating all types of IRCTC food item by sharing among the group and making noise with unusual laughing sounds and playing with Kids. 2nd class compartment is designed for 3 people to have seat but we 6 people will park our seat on this when a camera man is trying to shoot a photo. Our passengers were really jealous about our enjoyments throughout the journey. One passenger told Arun that you guys are enjoying with any stop, Are you guys from same College? He replied that we are all from same school. He might have meant we are all from school of Trekking.After a fun filled journey, we reached Bangalore majestic station. Breezing air and traffic road welcomes us , we had dinner before moving to the bus stop. As usual, round of handshakes with Bangalore friends before boarding the KSRCTC bus. Conductor is the happy person who will have not much work to do as 30+ people are from same group in the bus. It is been told that 8 hr journey to reach Sowampet. After a chit-chat at the bus, everybody started sleeping after closing the window tightly to rescue from Bangalore Fogs and chilled air. Now nobody can escape from the cold because bus got punctured at back wheel around 3 am and of course conductor, driver had to work much to replace the tyre. Most of the guys came out from the bus and discussing about fun events happened during recent past treks. After 1 hour of repair work, we resumed our journey but the beauty here is some guys never know that vehicle had stopped for puncture work and waited for 1 hr. They got into deep sleep before getting tired in the trek.

We reached the destination – Hill station bus stop around 6:30 am and we had to take another local bus to reach the base station, we all quickly finished the breakfast and got ready for the bus. The local bus was crowded like anything becoz of our boyz. It was very nice experience to travel in the Hill station along with nice sceneries, nice view point from the road. This must be first bus for the day which is going from main village to other places because conductor has to do lot of work like delivering Newspaper while bus is going on and had to deliver chicken/other material to villages. It was nice to see multi personality on him. Local villagers are really very kind in helping us, Bus is crowded with innocent school boys and girls while they were on the way to their school. Bunch of girls said “Thanks Uncle” to Arun and “Simple Thanks” to me for carrying their school bags with us. I’m sorry Arun; you must know that you are getting old.

We are all dropped Pushpagiri – Last stop. Arasu took the charge of sharing food materials and common items to all guys. Here is our best friend “Leeches” saying “Hello” to all by finding O +ve blood at my foot then most of the guys started preparing for it. Every individual had their own remedies such as tobacco powder, Neem oil, tobacco water, Leech socks and etc…, we walked about 5 km on the road to reach the forest check post, and there was a halt for clearing few formalities that helped SLR camera Men to click nice snaps. After a while, we actually started our trek towards the Pushpagiri Peak. You never know that Western Ghats will not allow you to trek without spending time on long living trees with natural design and greenish plants with sun light. It was beautiful sceneries all over place and nice to enjoy the bird’s rhythm. We stopped at one point to dive into water, It is an beautiful and chilled water falls, WE felt that legs and fingers are freezing after coming out from the stream, There are lot of differences b/w Western and Eastern streams. I think people whosever didn’t take bath here is really missed a big refreshment, Next is photo session because the only time our face will be looking pretty is after taking bath so it is important to capture our faces with lot of refreshment.

We resumed our trek by crossing dense forest with natural beauties; there were many SLR cameras in this trek to capture single moment of forest, Everybody was trekking very cool and took many snaps while passing , It was looking like photography trek for some time. WE could spot few view points in the middle, that was looking very beautiful and there were no evidence about civilization from there. We have to trek 4kms more to reach the peak. Excitement was going high but stamina level was going low because of bag weight. You can’t take rest in a place for long time because of Leech Attack. Keep moving, Keep Trekking for some time to reach the steep rock. Some private trekkers were there at the spot who were struggling to go up. They were trying a path one side of the rocks. I and Raj climbed the rock straightly without pushing hard. We made it easily. We CTC folks always different in following path/trail and eager to have adventures often

After moving some distance, it was completely wide open forest with big Rocks and it is the best time to eat chocolates, oranges. We captured few snaps to make our Face book audiences happy and then trekked again. Finally we reached the Pushpagiri Peak, trekked 8.5 km in total. Now we are on the top of Kumara Parvatha Hill. Everybody is started relaxing in the fresh air and enjoying a spectacular view of KP.Now the time is 2:15 pm, we finished our lunch packets. Just want to recollect the trek title “Sunrise @ Kumara Parvatha”. Somebody raised question that Are we going to stay here till tomorrow morning? It will be boring to stay at the same place. So shall we climb down and try Ombattu Gutta? series of questions was asked to captain cool Raj, the answer was positive but we need to travel 22 km to climb down and only brave hearts are allowed to move because it is going to be long distance to cover before night time. So it is time to resume the trek, we are real trek hungers, never be satisfied with view points, sun rise sceneries. We wanted to have more joy, more adventures and challenges too.

We started climb down on the other side of the Hill to Kukkai, stopped in the middle to handover food items to the guys who are staying back at the peak. Now what will happen to the trek title “Sunrise @ KP”, there is small change “Sunset @ KP” now. Our plan is to reach base station by 7:30 pm. After crossing leech forest which is really dangerous in Monsoon because leeches even will fall from trees but this time it doesn’t have big impact. We reached a peak where you can see the entire KP hills with lush green sceneries. I couldn’t believe my eyes with wonderful view. So there is a halt to capture the green land and also noticed that trail somehow that goes from the peak to Mandappa (the place is to take rest for trekkers and taking food) but the distance is looking very long, we have long way to go. Initially I pushed myself hard by running and trekked fast to descent each of the Peaks. It is such awesome feeling to cross each small peaks and cover nature in my eyes. It is visual treat to my eyes. These peaks are usually be covered by Karnataka Cinemas where Heroes will run behind heroines in duet songs but they must have spent more time to come here. We CTC real heroes are to dare to cover the KP range in single day where as initial plan were to cover it in 2 days.

The whole 14 members was fast in climbing down but myself ,Prem,Sankar,Arun was faster than them and was ahead one or 2 peaks from them. While looking back, they were looking like Ants which crossing the peaks. We waited for some time to re-group the people, I have no water to drink, and throat was completed dry. There are no water bodies at the peak too. Push gave me little amount of water, that rejuvenated my body and ate oranges, energy bars to gain the stamina level. After re-grouping, started the trek again. It is big game-challenge to the legs because all the places were steep descents and moving stones will be disturbing lot so the whole body goes directly to your leg that makes us tired very quickly. Another beauty in KP is , we climbing up/down, we used to think that peak what we were seeing in our eyes will be the last one but while reaching there, you will find new series of Peaks there. Sometimes Life is having same theory whatever we see in front of our eyes will have end but the end will have fresh start. (What a philosophical thinking Masu, It is time to sleep and continue the writing tomorrow)

We could spot a small stream at a peak where we filled water bottles, Walking, Walking and Keep walking, finally we reached Manadappam where we asked food (rice) as we tired enough and we got the food luckily. All of us had a nice meal; it is another unique experience to eat rice at the Hills in CTC trek. Now the time is currently 5:30 pm, we have still long way to go to reach the base station. Do we able to reach the base by 7:30 pm? The challenge starts here, started the trek again to descent the Hill and the same steep descents, moving rock but this time it is closed forest.We could enjoy the sunset at KP in the middle. We prepared our legs with leach remedies as we are going to enter the closed forest and light is going dark. LED torch is on, camera is off, but action is started to experience the night trek, because it was complete dark after the sunset.

The whole group was scattered into 3 to 4 groups, climbed down along with the trail. There were many obstacles, like the tree root, blocks the way, moving stones and irritated me for some time and we got to fall down at many places.Pushparaj torch was not working, so i had to help as well. It was full of pain, walking, walking, but we never reached the base station. There were no stops, halt in the middle for at least one to 2 hours.We were climbing down constantly with normal pace. I could feel that my legs are pushing me to stop for some time and I managed it without any stop. It’s not a idea to take rest at dense forest with dark light too.This is game of winning mind over body, though your body pushes you to take rest, but your mind will move on without respecting the signal. We could feel the power of inner engineering.

We had to pass few places where full moon was visible openly at the forest that gave me a feel, we will complete the mission very soon. But that is not the case, as we returned 1 hour from there.I keep torturing Pushparaj, who already trekked at KP, by asking questions like how long it will take?, but he never gave me a look about getting the base station. At one point of time, I thought we could have stayed at the peak without trying this.but at the same time, i haven’t lost my whole energy, to complete the mission.Keep trekking, keep climbing down; finally we reached the base by 8 pm. It is remarkable achievement by the group to have the KP mission completed in single day. Wooww.Wooww. Great, we made it. We waited another 1 hr at the base for other guys getting reached the camp

B/w scientist pushparaj researched why his LED torch wasn’t working, He found a silly mistake between + , - co-ordination, he paid enough for his mistake. We took rest almost for 1 hour as we lost whole energy and everybody gathered finally. Few of our guys was tired like anything and don’t want to continue further. We all moved to Kukkai murugan temple by walking 1 km from our base station. It was pain to walk each step after taking rest and pushing the relaxed muscle again. We finished dinner there. Arun & co was trying to arrange a cab to travel from kukkai to kundai checkpost from where we need to enter OG forest – the miracle forest. It is 20 kms away from kukkai. It is time to say bye to the guys who planned to leave to banglore. [ 4 or 5 guys left from 2nday mission ] We managed to get a traveler to go checkpost. The moment I took the seat, I started sleeping and didn’t wake up till reaching the destination. It is a special gift to have a nice sleep like this. sometimes we don’t get such a deep sleep in our routine life as same as the current situation to me [ Now the time is 12:15,but I’m writing this blog after watching mokka TV channels which is because of not feeling sleepy ] Once we reached the place, we started looking for a camp where all guys guys can sleep.

There was spacious area just next to the road and there was a mechanic shop on the other side. We decided to sleep there and tarp.sheet made ready. The local shop lady helped us to give nice place under lorry shet where lorry is already parked there but the owner insisted the driver to move the vehicle outside. It was unexpected and timely help to us. We had tea & lime sota at her shop. Do we allow lots of guys to sleep in front of your house? Most of us will really hesitate to allow them but the the lady never hesitated to do it. I’m really happy to meet such a kind hearted people during the trip. Sleeping at road side is something I usually do it during my hostel life, Thanks CTC to make it happen in my life again. At last, we had a very nice sleep though push was making unusual noise but it didn’t disturb me due to tiredness.

DAY - II

It is sun rise @ Sunday morning, woke up with fresh mind, we all had refreshing tea to wake up all of our body, why should we restrict ourselves with single tea ? We had countless no of tea by tasting black tea & white tea. It is good there is a river flowing near to the area we stayed. After finishing morning kasamusas, we planned to buy food items for lunch @ OG forest. It is obvious that everybody will say OK for chicken but no shop is opened at that time. Though one shop is opened, he was not ready to chop chicken completely. Once again helping hands from the local family to buy chicken. Arun,Prem took jeep to travel about 5 kms to get raw chicken. Vegetarians kept saying, requesting and shouting to have separate food item for them but I’m not sure how many of them took it seriously. It is planned tomato rice + chicken for Non vegetarians and tomato rice – chicken for vegetarians. We chose a shop to take breakfast we ate square shaped idlies . I don’t know why they add sugar to sambar but they are really sweet guys in serving food and responding in friendly manner. The whole group was waiting for arun,prem but they didn’t turn back. We didn’t want to waste time by sitting in the small wall. So, why don’t we become camera man ? we took so many snaps and didn’t miss anything near the place . Few of them took soda bottle with sun light, black tea with sun light, tea shop and dusty road. Thanks Kasuhik for SLR lessons. Somebody [ I think Manimaran ] bought special tirunelveli Halwa , all hands fought together to get piece of sweet and tasted with fun.

It was been long wait to Arun,Prem. Finally they were back after killing 2 or 3 hens. 3 and half chicken was ready for lunch. Meanwhile I was buying tomatoes and other food items and kept with me [ This point needs to be underlined, let me tell you why in the later notes ] We started 2^nd day mission around 9:30 am ,started walking about 2 to 3 kms to go inside the misery forest. Raj was carrying rice and other stuff. I was carrying onions & tomatoes. Myself ,raj,nagin,push & Venkat started with a pace, we had to overtake Arun & co team and also overtook loudspeaker gayathiri team, why loudspeaker ? She never close her mouth at any circumstances [ Mokka podurathu ] .now we became first batch walking towards the jeep trail. It is been told that 8 kms walk to reach the OG river which we set as destination. It was a clear jeep trail that moved without any deviation, we started marking our foot marks by walking so that animals would scare about us [ hee.hee] . After walking for some distances, It looks like dense forest with calmness and long living trees and of course our friend ‘leeches’ started doing natural therapy at our foots. I don’t think we walked fast on the jeep trail or next batch may be slow enough to reach us.

We stopped in a place where there was a deviation that went to river. Nagin went inside and confirmed that no trail there so the next batch won’t confuse on it and walked further on the jeep trail. There were many manmade obstacles in the trail to stop elephants if you get a chance to chase with them. The chilled air, colorful trees, rhythmic sounds by birds and small streams crossing on the way gave us pleasant feeling to move further on the trail. We got a scaring location where we spot an elephant foot mark in a mud and looked like the jumbo played with bamboo trees. At one point, we didn’t hear any loudspeaker sound so realized next batch was very slow in walking. We found a small stream at right side and not seen any trail there, there were no path at left side or straight way. Raj just followed the stream at right side and found the continuation of jeep trail there. We just went right side and stopped there to re-grouping because this would really confuse the next batch. It is time to remove leeches from our foot and got time to relax too, we started asking questions why? What? Whereabouts next batch? We waited for long time ( 30 mins ) but no clue about our boyz. After sometime, we heard a sound very close to us,were happy and cool that guys reached our place. So we replied with big sound , whistles but some point of time, there were mute sound from where the sound came from. We just went back near the stream and searched our boyz but no clue. The misery OG forest started playing its game. So we kept waiting at the same place, How long we can seat the same place ? Leeches were allowing to seat there. Venkat got big bites at back bone area, his t-shirt was full of blood at back side. He never know when actually it started injection and taking out blood. No luck after waiting for long time, so we confirmed that we scattered into two groups. Our group – Raj,push,nagin,myself,Venkat. Other group – 9 members. We never know who actually missed in the forest. We followed the correct trail and waited for long time but they didn’t come our way so they are lost from us. From their perspective, we went in jeep trail, should have reached the river by this time so they must have thought that we are lost from them. We guys thought to push further on the jeep trail and reach OG river. Expert nagin stopped us by asking few questions, why should we move further without seeing other batch ? we started thinking and analyzing the scenarios where they have gone ? One thing,we were suspecting was, they could have seen the elephants and turn back to village without coming further. Other was., they could have taken different path without following jeep trail.

We assumed the ourself that sound what we heard was from local villagers [ may be elephant hunters, who knows ? ] Raj proposed a plan to go back atleast, push & myself will stay on the same place but Nagin simply rejected because he didn’t want to have any more scattering. We young blood guys were not ready to seat idle but nagin is an aged person with same young blood plus experience who didn’t allow us to explore more options in the deep and dense forest. OG is well known for missing souls because of confusing trails. Now the time is around 12o clk, great time to prepare lunch but I had rice,oil,masala,salt and vegetables , other group was having only raw chicken, 1 small chicken masala. So now the dream is broken, No chicken….[ Enna Koduma sir ethu ] . Sad thing is I was cutting onions during the idle time assuming we would meet the group for sure but it didn’t happen. We had an idea to cook veg-rice where we stayed for long time but our mind was set to take non-veg so not very much interested to cook the veg.rice. The only thing we were happy about other group was it had expert trekkers with them which didn’t make much concern about their safety. We started walking back from OG without completing OG mission and also assuming other group would haven’t come to forest due to disturbance of wild life. While trekking back to base, we stopped at each deviation and whistling for long time and tried to find them but no luck. We haven’t found any clue about them,was researching foot path and haven’t find any clue but confusions remains same. Nagin was teaching lession how to handle wild life and making sound from the plate to get away animals from our path. In the middle, we stopped at OG river near the road, had a nice bath for long time. Our trek and mission was over once we touched the road and filled stomach with coconut water.

Being more interest on chicken, we took heavy meal in a hotel with fresh piece of fishes and stomach was full of fishes. We went to forest guest house building and had a deep sleep till evening outside the building.This is what the other group had to say, Where did you guys go ? why did you guys didn’t come the destination ? and series of discussion/questions once we met up. Nagin had to say one line “I was thinking that you guys had to reach back the base safely so you guys did that. So no more questions, Lets go and the cool Man Raj had nothing much to discuss/questioning. This is what we call it as “EXPERIENCE” . He offered so many teas,coffee, lime juice to the group. It seems other group had lots of fun and thrilling moments at the forest, they shared their experience with cup of tea. They spot furious animal in the world which is none other than “Human” with big,strong guns to hunt elephants, this kind of human is most dangerous than wild life. Our boyz bit scared to see them inside the deep forest. They had great fun time by cooking raw chicken without salt and not enough curry powder. Chicken is the only item they had to eat for lunch; I couldn’t imagine how they finished 3 and half kg chicken without salt. [terror boyz ] , Vegetarians ate raw noodles without cooking. [What a tough time to veg. folks ] .

We all finished our dinner with group by hearing all these stories from them and had to wait for our bus in the check post. The guys whoever tired much had occupied the tea shop to have power nap. Our banglore boyz started in the bus from Kukkai murugan temple and alerted us to wait near the check post. Good feeling with nice memories, we had to get in the bus. All family members of tea shop came out and gave farewell by saying bye to whole CTC family. We left OG and reached Banglore next day morning. The 2 days of joyful trip ends with same round of comedies in AC chair class train and round of vada,dosa & snacks. Thanks to Prem who did TTR job to make the seat arrangements to CTC folks and negotiating with public.

Sad to miss Kumara paravatha and Ombattu gunda forest. Thanks Raj and Arasu who gave us these wonderful days to our life. It was great to see the girl gayathiri’s spirit towards trekking. She is the only girl among our group who accomplished the mission and she didn’t show any hesitation at any place. It is really commendable job. Special thanks to Banglore friends who bought food items for us and Thanks to all SLR camera men to cover the journey beautifully. Very BIG thanks to whole team who made these days as most memorable days of my life.

Thanks
Masu

In 2 de wild west season II

2012-01-16T12:31:00.002+05:30

Writeup by Priya Krishna Moorthy:

After an half –hearted half day at work, set off on Friday late evening to wild wild west with little clue on where we are heading. At udumalaipet, some more adventurous souls joined us. We soon off boarded from our bus and got into the Jeeps waiting for us and that was just the beginning of the entertainment unlimited. Soon enough, the cool breeze and the beautiful scene outside pushed those looking for seatbelts when they boarded the jeep to hang outside the jeep and on top of the jeep too.

The sky seemed so much closer from on top of the jeep; the beauty of the hills got augmented and looked right out of the heaven. We stopped briefly for breakfast and a quick trek down to Malaiyoor thoovanam falls. We lost no time in jumping into the waters, while the shutter bugs started clicking nonstop torn between the amazing waterfalls and the excited people. Strong currents didn’t let us swim closer to the falls but we spent some excited moments in the water and some in quiet contemplation. On getting back to our jeeps we exclaimed that it was just the beginning of Day 1 and more fun on our way.

We continued our onward journey to Munnar with some interesting expressions on our roof top journey and waving to the local people. Reached the camp site in bright sunlight and quickly set on camping, camp fire and cooking process. Three rounds of maggi and many rounds of antakshari followed. We snugged into our sleeping bags soon but conversations followed non-stop with photographers in their very own world of trying their shots at the bon fire and some light men helping the profile photographers.

Day 2 had a little de-tour and the mullai periar issue, upset our plans a bit. After 3 hours of negotiation, we were forced to take an alternate route to kodai. With unquenched excitement and our A team’s excellent ad hoc arrangements helped us reach Kodai at almost 10. 2 more hours of off-roading in jeeps lead us to our camp site. It was indeed amazing the way our drivers managed the roads (rather the absence) and the absolute lack of visibility due to thick mist.

Made our camps in bright moonlight. While most of us snugged into our sleeping bags swiftly and quietly, some sterner souls pursued the mission of feeding us with delicious upmas that were ready at about 3 AM.

Day 3 started with maggi and a trek to the nearby Palani view point in a trail that didn’t seem to exist. The best was yet to come when we hit the streams again with atleast 7 naturally formed slides, the afternoon went a huge roller coaster ride for most of us and natural spa’s too. The inevitable photo sessions followed esp the Billa 3 trailer. The photographers took some risky shots at last plunged into the pool themselves.

Lunch followed by a quick feedback session and pack up. ‘A team’ had more surprises to unfold at kodai bus stand when we were pleasantly greeted with some homemade chocs from chocolate Factory. Bid farewell to the Bangalore team and headed back home with memories of a breath taking holiday and the most beautiful Monday of our lifes.

Thanks Jothi, Joseph, Kaushik, and all the invisible hands in excellent organsing of the trek. Thank you photographers Balaji, Joseph, Ashish, Viji, Narayansamy, Bharathi for capturing the moments. Thank you Jeep mates – Kavitha, Bharathi, Ramaa and Vishnu for letting me ride in the front and top. Thank you midnight cooks (was too sleepy to note) for feeding us in the wee hours. Thanks George for showing the lead when required, Thanks Anushka sry Ashok for making our trips more manageable and the Gaana and joke kings for the TP.

Writeup by Kavita Reddy:

New years come and old years go but this one would be etched in my memory for ever. Just when concrete jungles, demanding bosses, reluctant parents , mundane life, crash dieting and ‘Voda voda voda dooram korayale’ type feelings were pissing me off, this trip came as a escape route and what an escape it was ;) A kickass start to the new year with adventurous souls and breath taking places. From taking the bus in koyembedu on Friday night to getting off the bus on Tuesday morning, the trip had ‘Sheer Happiness’ written all over it.

The high points of the trip :)

* All the fundo girls Getting on to the top of jeep and feeling on top of the world(litreally, physically and figuratively). We never thought we could do so and when we did, we got loving waves from the kids envious glances from others ;)

* Bathing in the ice cold water in the Thuvanam water falls. It was sooo cold (Thanks to venkatesh who suggested that I hold my breath and take 3 dips and would get used to the colds..Was a superb technique ). On the way back, a lucky few of us spotted a huge bison and a jungle squirrel :)

* The camping site in Munnar . Setting up the camp, cooking food , followed by anthakshari. A lucky few fell asleep, a luckier few enjoyed the moonlit sky, good jokes, bad jokes, campfire etc..

* The mullai periyar issue and the after affects. What was really worth appreciation is how quickly the team bounced back with an alternate plan. One could see how upset and morose the organizers were for a while. It showed their passion towards the trip and how much they wanted to make it happen. At the end everybody took it in their stride and carried on with warm smiles and great attitude. We were so overwhelmed with whatever we got to see that no one felt bad about not getting an entry .

* The awesome campsite near kodai. Waking up on a Monday morning to such beauty is a rarity . It was sooo beautiful and serene . The very thought of it brings a huge smile to my face. In the same place we trekked to get a scenic view of the palani hills. Found lots of ‘Mini’ tomatoes there. They were sweet and nice to eat :) . Ended up bathing in a beautiful stream.

* There was lot of talk about leeches n snuff power and organizers getting late night calls on how to use snuff power to counter the ‘blood suckers’ :D . We were pleasantly surprised to have a ‘Leech free’ trip :)

* Hearing the A team organizer and ‘Trail creator’ Ansar’s name 300 times in 3 days(Here , there , everywhere .. ufff), even though he dint seem to be physically present.

Whenever I go on trips I look forward to meet different people and interacting with them. In this trip also there were so many with whom I loved to converse and know about them. Ramaa and Vishnu gave us great company in the 4*4 jeeps. Hyper humorous jothivel kept everyone in good humour. Major shaheb George for his initiative , effort , insight and helpfulness. No wonder they say, once an army man, always an army man.:) Calm and composed Sahaya joseph for being on his toes always to set things right and imparting knowledge to us on 4*4 jeeps. Mayur and venkatesh for their jokes , stories and leg pulling comments. Narayana swamy , sashi, priya, viji and a hyderabadi guy for being warm , friendly and nice to talk to :) My best friend and school mate bharti,for being my trekking partner. We just finished another great trip.The ‘A’ team for their homework, effort ,sincerity and everything for no other reason but passion. And so many, so many others who made the trip memorable ..

There were so many moments in these 3 days , which made me remember these lines from the English movie ‘American Beauty’.

“it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst...and then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life..”

For More Writeups and photos visit

http://chennai-trekking-club.32436.n3.nabble.com/in2-te-WILD-WEST-Season-2-td3569823.html

Thanks,
Sahaya joseph

Stand up for what you belive in, even if it means standing alone!!!

Chennai Coastal Cleanup, Feb 5 - First Week Update

2012-01-13T11:32:00.000+05:30

First Week Update on Chennai Coastal Cleanup 3 - Feb 5

This past week CTC rocked with our registrations increasing by the hour, several emails from corporates and companies expressing interest and willingness to join, student and youth groups writing to us. Can our members show we not only trek the most difficult terrains and climb most dangerous peaks, but we can also rock the peak of Giving and Civic-responsibility? Come on, Chennaiites—time for Clean and Beautiful Chennai—one beach at a time!

If you have not registered, it's highly time to Sign Up Now

Updates so far:

Registrations: We have close to 300 registrations within one week of announcement. With still 3 weeks to go, we are expecting individual registrations to easily reach in the 600-800 range complemented with at least the same number from external non-profit groups, companies & students.

Support from Companies/Corporates: The list is growing by the day: CTS, NOKIA, HCL, Infosys, Wipro, KLA-Tencor SW India, Hexaware, Universal Print Systems, iNautix Technologies, VSL, Momentive have contacted us and expressed interest to participate in our cleanup campaign. Cognizant will be promoting our event in all their Chennai locations and emailing all employees end of Jan to participate in our event. NOKIA is participating with 200 of its employees! Do you know of a company/corporate/business that could support this initiative? If so do so today! Find attached our event poster, event summary form which can be forwarded to your CSR/HR teams.

Sponsorship: we need to buy around 1000 bio-degradable garbage bags and 500 reusable latex gloves for all volunteers. We are also planning to print posters and banners to spread awareness of the event across the city beforehand. As of now a few individual sponsors stepped forward but we only covered 25% of our total expense. You can help in many ways—as an individual or by contacting a sponsor. Find attached the event poster, event summary and sponsorship form which can be forwarded

Current sponsors - Satish Swaminathan NGO "Etena Trust', Babu Dilleeswara, Asha, Sudhagar, Siva Doiraswamy and a few anonymous sponsors

School & College Participation: Anna University (NSS, 50 volunteers), D.G.Vaishnava college (40 volunteers) and 4 orphanage homes (100 kids) have confirmed their participation. Do you know of other schools or colleges who could join in? Can you contact them?

Non-profit Groups: Several non-profit groups are spreading the message on their network to participate in our coastal cleanup. AIESEC, AID India, Rotary, Youth Red Cross, Green Peace, Inner Wheel Club. You know any other organizations who would be interested to participate?

Media: A pre-event curtain raiser article/tv features are being planned. NDTV Hindu already contacted and have shown interest. If you have radio contacts or contacts in area newspapers like Besant Nagar Times or Adayar Times or talk magazines like Nungambakkam talk magazine who may be willing to do a pre-event write up, please do let us know. Further, if anybody can get a radio/media group to tie-up with CTC for the event (i.e. complete sponsorship) then it would be fantastic!

Publicity:

Posters: Our graphics design team has produced some excellent posters (find them attached). CTC received sponsorship for 100 A4/A3 posters and 10 4x6 ft banners. CTS and InfoSys have already requested posters to be put up on their public notice boards. Banners will be displayed at key public places like beaches. Police permission is being sought for the same. If anybody wants these posters to display on college, company, or group boards, please contact us.

Facebook: We have an event page and pic badge. Spread the word in three simple steps:

1. Here is the FB Page - Like It

https://www.facebook.com/ChennaiCoastalCleanup

2. FB event - Join, invite your friends

https://www.facebook.com/events/210238175732019/

2. Pic Badge - Wear it, invite your friends

http://www.picbadges.com/chennai-coastal-cleanup-3/2459991/

Garbage: Did you know how long it takes for your garbage to bio-degrade?

(source Wikipedia)

Product	Time to Biodegrade
Vegetables	5 days - 1 month
Orange peels	6 months
General paper	2–5 months
Paper towel	2–4 weeks
Cardboard box	2 months
Cotton t shirts	6 months
Tree leaves	6–9 months
Wool socks	1–5 years
Plastic coated milk carton	5 years
Leather shoes	24–40 years
Nylon fabric	30–40 years
Tin cans	50–100 years
Aluminium cans	80–100 years
Glass bottles	1 million years
Styrofoam cups	5000 years- forever
Plastic bags	5000 years- forever

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Emperor's Easy + / Medium (Optional) Trek to Nagala West, 3,4th December-2011

2012-01-10T18:18:00.002+05:30

Here is the write-up by masanamuthu

DAY - I

It is again Nagala but with new people, new energy. 22^nd yr old – youngest organizer ( as far as I know) Senthil is organizing his first trek. A girl who is the co-coordinator for tidel park sent very strong SMS to be there at point by 10 pm sharp, the guys who is seating next to me also got the same SMS. The car owner who is also my past trek friend got the message,.this was not known to her that we know each other unfortunately. I was bit scared and thought she might be experienced trekker while reading the SMS. Once we gathered in the place, started speaking like machan,mama. The girl doesn’t have co-ordination role to play. Don’t worry Alekha. These friends are not my childhood friends, they introduced to my life before few treks and they are attached to my life closely. You will also get such friends for sure. CTC is well known to making new and true friends. It came to know later she is fresher to CTC, It is good to see organizers giving such roles to fresher and they take the volunteering actively.

We joined hands with another Mamu-Vikram who joined from M.Kaliash and gathered in koymedu. I noticed a aged man and very young boy waiting there, I just went and did handshake with them assuming both are coming to the trek as CTC always doesn’t have age restriction but later I realized that the aged man is a father who came here to drop his son . The young boy avinash who is studying 11^th std joined his first trek not just with CTC but his first trek in his life. Kudos to his father. I have mentioned “aged man” & “young boy” words in last 3 lines but bit confused now what to mention for “Chella sir”. He is actually 40+ ( Sorry to reveal your age but Don’t worry still girls will propose you ) but he is looking like 20+ with new hair style,shorts,his son t-shirt. It’s all because of recent treks made him young. CTC guarantees “weight loss” for youngsters who are participating regular treks and “Age loss” for elders. The great example is our Chella sir. After meeting few known friends and few friends who are going to be known, the preparation is ON with full pace by Esakki who took charge in getting sign in liability forms and money collection by Bala who took charge in accounts. We could also notice couple of people who skin colour is contrast with us, the French girls also joining with CTC first time. Our-hero Senthil was busy in co-coordinating the car owners. Confusion over “total head count” and confusion over “Mani”, two manikandans joined the trek but one guy is supposed at that point. He managed all the issues beautifully and started pushing the vehicle towards Nagalapuram. I’m sure the guys whosever seeing Senthil for first time would have thought how this small boy became organizer but the fact is

“Muruthi sirusu keerthi peruse” ( I’m not good enough to explain this in English )

After travelling in senthil’s car. We reached oothukottai where we sipped hot tea with live singing concert by a “Tasmac - drunken citizen” in the tea shop. The police men who were busy in check post was jealous about us, they asked us that every time you guys go with your group why don’t you guys take us too. We welcome TN,AP police team to join CTC. No restriction. We had to swap people from cars and managed to get a vehicle free for 3 more persons joining the trek. A girl from Nagalapuram who was much interested to join CTC and tried hard for last 6 months without luck but this time the luck worked on her way. Her family didn’t allow her alone so his uncle, brother also wanted to accompany with her. I don’t think organizer can manage the situation unless he faces few drop-outs but Senthil said OK just for her enthusiasm about joining CTC and trekking interest. We enrolled 3 of her family with usual CTC norms. Thanks Senthil to approve such exceptional cases and allow freshers to feel good about CTC. Now kavitha’s family joins hand with CTC family.

We all gathered at base camp with our trekking gears, call was made to collect food items and common gears. We started our trek to enjoy the nature with lead position –Arun and sweeper Senthil & Myself. This group is mix of 40% freshers and 60% experienced trekkers. Another exceptional case on this trek is costal guard’s team who are coming for 1 day adventures camp with us with approval from Peter. We need to accompany the 10+ guys with us. It is going to unique experience for fresher to start their trek at 3:45 am with dark light , organizer would have thought to show the Nagala hill with a surprise when sun light comes in. We wanted the group to move fast and not leave gaps in the middle so kept saying “move on” guys, keep moving. The guys whosever coming last with us have to face mokka jokes so they will better escape from our eyes by pushing their legs hard. Lora,Emma was our first target to crack jokes, we had fun time while walking on the base trail. Thanks to Lora,Emma for accepting our bad English. After walking 30 mins,we could hear the stream’s sound that encourages to move forward. One of my father’s dream comes live today, My dad wanted to become me navy engineer and trained me since childhood as he works for Port trust but sometimes dream will be dream. Now, I’m the one pushing the navy officers to move forward and commending them and interestingly they need to obey/respect my order as long as l’m sweeper. Team kept walking and had lot of energy too as there were no delays in the trek. We crossed 1^st and 2^nd pool without any stop, Team was bit struggled and delay over few steep climbing and continued to walk along with stream. We reached 3^rd pool by 5:45 am. Now the team is seeing each other’s face in sun light clearly. It is refreshment time to chill with water, dived into the 3^rd pool and enjoyed the morning bath. If you need to tackle the chillness, you need to stay with water , should not come outside but when a call is made for tea preparation I would not be there for long time. Organizers never fail to keep their away from the water pool as we are mainly concerned about safely first and enjoyment /excitement is next. Manoj is a fresher who got brave heart tried to jump on a rock but failed with bad injury/bleeding at his leg. Bala and others helped him from his injury and I thought he won’t be able to climb further with his bad injury but he did it. CTC Emperor is well known for serving tasty food at any hill ( sapatu ramans ) and we don’t want to see our brand goes down. Fire is ON in our eyes and in cooking pot too for preparing upma with ghee and hot tea. Thanks to costal chief who gave us assam tea while we struck initially in setting up fire. His question was really funny, you guys need tea powder or tea ? when our fire was working bad, we opted the option direct tea not tea powder. So they served refreshing morning tea for us. Meanwhile, costal team prepared their noodles and left more for us. We managed to set the fire at another place and cooked upma with ghee. It is very tasty to enjoy the breakfast with heart melting sounds of stream and with chilled air. No camera man can cross our place without clicking our eating style. Adithya who was very keen to get more noodles from costal team’s pot and managed to get after a long struggle. It is better to serve noodles to French girls without explaining what is upma?and what flavor and all. Whatever the Indian food is, they felt that would be spicy. Luckily they didn’t say tea is very spicy ( ahhha.ahha )

After spending 1 hour, it is time to pack up from the 3^rd pool but some hipamatoas is still enjoying the water and not ready to move forward. Commando Senthil forced the guys to move up from 3^rd pool. The team was slowly climbing up on the rocks, few freshers scared lot to make a move at the rocks as it looks endangered without any grip but they managed to do it as co-trekkers helped them. Myself and Senthil showed a path at left side of the stream as water level was high than usual one. Few groups followed it but arun will not let the people follow the easy trail, he took another group to walk in the streams and passing through the streams. Nagala is the best place to walk on the rocks, I always enjoy it . People was making their move very carefully and started climbing a small steep and descent to cross a stream. Again seniors got more jobs to guide and help the new comers. We didn’t take much to time to reach the mini-courtallm falls, another halt at the falls. It is awesome waterfalls (can also term it as snow fall ) with high force and chilled water. Nobody will ask you token to enter into falls and no rules and mainly no garbages,no druken citizen will be around you as we usually sight at tourist spot – waterfalls. So all you need to enjoy the virgin forest with joy and don’t forget it is natural massage too.

DSLR men were busy in shooting the moments and capture single drops of water falls and we started slowly moving towards next mission – 5^th pool. It was heavy rain last week in Nagala so it is bit difficult to confirm the trail and follow it as most of the path was washed away or at least the path will confuse you . Team was ready to face the challenges and we slowed started climbing up the precipitous path with rolling stones. Everybody pushed hard to get the top of the peak but realized later that we followed different trail, that doesn’t have any clear path and also thons will damage your skin as much they can. People started walking 4 legs (used the hands as legs too) in some place as there were no grip and don’t want to get injured at any places. After trekking on the hard path for 1 hour in frog style, we couldn’t get idea about reaching the destination. Sasi kept asked me how long it will take to reach the other pool. My answer was always 10 to 15 minutes so I think sure bunch is guaranteed to my face if I give the same answer next time. The peaks offered amala fruit in the middle that gave us fresh energy and moved further with same stamina. Don’t regret yourself that we missed the easy trail. “Don’t follow other’s route, make your own path” – Thumb rule of CTC. We should be proud to say we can make easy trek to moderate trek level and can complete it too. Yes. We somehow got connected to regular trail at last while descending from the hill. Swetha was looking tired and couldn’t manage the rolling stones; co-trekkers helped her all the way and got their luggage too. Thanks to all helping hands for supporting the slow trekkers and making them also to get the mission completed. If there is a halt any place or people taking rest in the middle. All we need to do is crack meaningless jokes and all we had is funn..funn..funn time but people who won’t tolerate our mokka jokes will have to escape or run away from us. This time it happened to swetha. Nice way of doing the sweeping job. Kudos Arun,Senthil and Bala.

Meanwhile Amul baby – Rakesh joined in our trek at last after starting late from Chennai and we all kept moving along with the stream. Another water pool welcomes us and swimmer got dived into water. Non-swimmer were busy in blowing their tubes. I must say people who were wasting time in blowing air would have invested the same time to learn swimming. I’m sorry Bharani, I didn’t mean you. ( bulbantha..bulbantha.Bharani ) .

After enjoying the water pool,people cut their pickle,jams packets to have chapptis for lunch. Team started moving towards camping location, It is time to say good bye to coastal guards, they planned to leave the place from there itself as they climb down and reach the base station before night. Brave hearts Senthil & Rakesh accompanied them to drop at base station and they need to climb up to camping site – 5^th pool. These guys are really amazing and never hesitate to do any job at Hills. I don’t want to leave the water pool quickly, I was enjoying there for long time and came out from there at last and walked with bala,arun towards 5^th point. We are last batch going to base camp, noticed tent was already prepared and folks got ready to sleep now. So what is the time now? It is 2:40 pm. Ada pavikangala. Team would have tired due to the hard trek and didn’t have proper sleep at night. Between, I’m the tent master as per the volunteering team email but nobody allowed me to touch the tent ( People would have already known that “Nan verum paratto masternnu” ) .

We didn’t disturb them further but this won’t happen at usual CTC emperor trek, emperors would be always busy marking and extending territories at hills. I clicked few sleeping snaps of people for time pass. I also went to a rock near the water fall and started putting the body in sleeping mode. If somebody murmuring or if some sounds come in the middle while sleeping, we used to get irritated and lose our sleep at bed. Here no bed only rock and water fall’s sound keep going into your ears without any stop but we can go into deep sleep without any disturbance. That is the beauty of nature which can be understood by our inner parts. It is time to prepare hot tea after a tired sleep. Once the pot is ready with tea, call was made to take the tea but half of group is still sleeping. A big rock was found to do mokka tharbar where aditya,arun became centre of attraction for laughing, had a great fun time for around 1 hr by discussing past trek’s comedies and other funny events. Meanwhile the two real heros Senthil,Rakesh came to camp station after dropping the costal team, they took just 3 hrs to climb down and up the Hills. People welcome them with a big round applause. Volunteers collected dry woods and preparation is ON for soup by 6o clk. BIG thanks to vikram who always get free noodles for soup packets. He is the man emperor team was looking for. Mixture of soup and noodles are now ready after struggling in fire, Had a tasty soup in emperor style. The fire was not set in OFF mode as the preparation was going high for Emperor special dinner – veg briyani with ghee,cashews. Collecting woods by a group, cutting onions by another group and blowing air in the dusty fire by Senthil and our main chef Arun is busy in making the formula there. I was busy in eating the toasted cashews (Intended cashews scam )

A group from a tent was busy in playing games and laughing. Emma started singing “Kola veri” song in the middle for the group added joy to the party. But a group of girls was simply sitting with their bowl to eat the briyani. Get ready folks for next generation of life style. All boys are busy in each department of cooking, No girls touched and not even come near to the fire. Make use of CTC to learn cooking that will be useful in your life boyz. I’m really tired writing about our special dinner at every trek or I may not be right person to explain it, I’m sure CTC fresher would have enjoyed the dinner lot. No words to explain the taste, it is good to eat the veg rice under the full moon and at the night. There was a technical fault while preparing veg curry in second pot that made few guys delayed for some time to get the dinner. Once the second pot is ready with briyani, there are no many takers for food however we wanted to finish the biriyani. Any volunteers for eating ? ? ? Nobody …..because all are gone to sleeping near the camp fire.

DAY - II

It was cold at night, I had nice sleep but chillness at morning around 4o clk woke me up .I couldn’t sleep further, thought to resume the camp fire which was setup last night. senthil accomplished me to do it. Once the fire is set, the guys whoever felt cold have come out from their blanket. We are about 5 guys started thinking why not we take the food which left unattended? We put briyani pot near camp fire and hands down into the pot to taste briyani by 4:30 am in the morning ( he...hee..hee ) but only thing is I haven’t even thought to brush my teeth before eating. ok, No problem. As usual everybody was saying “No elephants are brushing”, then why not we? the taste was so good, people joined hands to take the food. Now everything was finished. At last, I’m happy no food was wasted and we had double chance to taste the Emperor special briyani. Now time to prepare the hot and fresh tea, It was prepared in full pace but no takers because people are still sleeping. I had nice tea at morning. Myself and esakki went to refresh at water pool by 6oclk morning. Daring attempt to take chilled water at early morning. It was good to see lora,emma woke up from their place and start the day with a prayer. Sometimes this kind of trip teaches new culture and can help to influence other’s culture. Now folks are getting ready for challenge to climb up 800m peak. Few guys are not ready to take it because of tiredness and don’t want to push their body hard. It is kind of punishment to cook breakfast – noodles for the guys whosever didn’t join with us but who knows ? This may be a punishment to us to eat the cooked food. Now march towards the peak starts with lead Rakesh and sweeper Arun. Not sure what role senthil is playing? He runs all over place. No defined position to our organizer. It is very steep with full of thons, slippery path due to rain. We left our back bags at camp luckily ,just carried 1 litre of water with us that helps to push easily, the team was so energetic and never delayed while trekking in the no trail areas. We lost the trail due to heavy rain that confuses our path but didn’t regret ourselves. We enjoyed in walking on the bushes. After about 1 hour hard trekking

We reached the green flat surface and halted for sometime to capture our sweating t-shirts in camera. It is halt time like the highway buses stops at canteen for 10 mins. We highway trekkers put halt our leg’s speed and relaxed with 5 star chocolates and honey water. Go & trek on these hard path and take a sip of water tastes like honey to your tongues. It is high time to take group photo with greenish plant and take rest with chilled wind. Vishnu priya was busy in climbing up a tree and giving pose to camera like monkey. Ya, finally we could spot wild life at Nagala. She became centre of attraction for a while and always no miss to fun with round of comedy tracks. We resumed our trek slowly and happy to climb up now as we could see the peak. Finally we reached the peak . It was wonderful view point to see the opposite peak at one side and Dam, reddish base trails at other side, everybody started enjoying the location and obviously photo session. I found a decent rock under a tree but I know these emperors never allow us to take rest; this is what happened in past treks too. Yes. This time somebody noticed a very nice ridge near the peak.

That looks very beautiful and should be nice if we go there. So what is next? unpark your body from the rock . Started moving towards it. We never set destination, keep exploring the destination. I’m happy to get such a hard core trekkers with me. We 5 guys managed to go the big rock which gives beautiful view and also offers pleasant wind. We shouted from the rock to the peak where our boys gathered to take photo from there but it is long way communication not really sure how many SLR camera men took photo of our adventures rock walking. I had confident on my best friend balaji who is expert in photography that he would have covered the ridge very well and our risky steps too. After spending sometime, we left the place and climbed up to the peak. We were eager to see SLR photo and searched balaji camera but disappointment remains to me because it was full of Vishnu priya photos with lot of expression [ Enna koduma sir ethu ] He took 1 or 2 photos of us on the ridge. I forgive balaji this time as you covered me in future treks. After having fun time at the peak. We started climbing down to camp site and enjoying amla fruits in the middle and this time we got trail,reached camp site easily. We so far didn’t spend time in the falls so decided to take bath . We formed group like honey bees near water falls. Somebody was playing with water by blocking/unblocking it from the top and others was busy in pushing water on other’s face. It was totally fun to take bath as a group .

After taking the tasty noodles around 11 am, we planned to leave the camp site and started getting ready by collecting garbage and folding the tarpaulin sheet . The whole group started trekking back to foot hill. We unfortunately had to face few bad incidents here. Ajith’s knee was injured while he pushed his body on the rocks, he took rest for sometime and we did the first aid as much as we can. He was feeling paining at every step, struggled lot while descending from hills. It was sad to know his ligament was tore later. I couldn’t imagine how he could make his step with pain. I appreciate his mental strength. News was, group of people was sliding just above 3^rd pool. Manoj was also joined with them and fell down at 3^rd pool from the top which I can’t even assume that how bad he would have injured there. He doesn’t know swimming but he felt down in water. The moment he missed in the sliding, Senthil & arun quickly moved on the side rocks and dived into water from top and rescued him from water. No words to explain your caring and daring attempt boys. You guys simply lead by example and ensure safe trip to fellow trekkers. After sometime relaxing in 3^rd pool, we went back to 2^nd pool where we could see group of children playing there with CTC social trek group.

We got busy in preparing popcorns. It was hard to collect dry woods and setting up fire however senthil and co managed to cook the hot pop corns . Meanwhile arun was busy in taking swimming lessons to non-swimmers. Other group was busy in diving by disturbing SLR camera man to take snap while jumping to water, What to do ? we need some photos to impress ladies fans in facebook. Other group was busy in holding boys at their shoulders and pushing them into water. Some other group was playing with children at the pool. It was fun filled time with hot pop corns. It was so nice to see children’s smile and was fun to watch their innocent face with joy but sad to know they all have come from an orphanage. Let’s pray god to give them always happiness in their life .I respect CTC to bring smile on the children’s face. We left 2^nd pool by 4:30 pm and walked towards base.

We didn’t fail to pay attention to cave temple in the middle, Filled bharnai’s head with full of sandal mix. Ajith was not able to walk on the base trail so balaji got a role to play, he drove his mahindhra Thar into mud road and gave ride to him .

Meanwhile we took pictures at dam,had again round of comedies with group and pot dance by vishnu. Once everybody gathered at base, we started self introduction and feedback session. This is something happens at end of each emperor trek. We had lot of fun,lot of adventures and of course lot of food too. I enjoyed every moment of this trek and was happy to see people helping each other during the trek. Adithya gave his jerkin when somebody felt cold at night. Vikram gave his knee guard to ajith while he was struggling to walk. Bala helped manoj when he was badly injured at his leg with a plaster. Senthil,arun was carrying bags of slow trekker when they delayed and struggled in the middle. Balaji who got ‘rescue lead’ of Emperor team, always don’t hesitate to help people at any circumstances. Rakesh,senthil was climbing up & down twice in single day to accompany costal team. Pulling mano from water at 3^rd pool by senthil,arun and etc,..etc.., This is really wonderful trip with lovely and kind hearted people. The trek completes with our hero chella’s dialogue “I’m getting younger in every trek” and mano’s speech from his bottom of hearts saying heartfelt thanks and finally a group photo. I don’t think I miss these guys after the trek, I’m sure we will meet up in future treks.

Very good work by Senthil, BIG thanks to him to organize this trek beautifully with lot of patience

"Trek to Tada Falls" Movie

2012-01-10T11:52:00.002+05:30

Post Trek Write up from M. Skandha Saradhi,8^th Standard Student:

Trek to Tada Falls

Story-M. Skandha Saradhi,8^th Standard

Screenplay-Masanamuthu

Direction-Prem

Editing-Shankar

Stunts-Kishore

Audience-The team

We started at 9:35 PM from Koyambedu. We ate at a small mess at Red Hills. We reached the camp site at about 0:40 AM. Prem and Masanamuthu had spread the tarpaulin sheet for us to sleep on. I slept at 1:10. Had a comfortable sleep, except for some mosquitoes buzzing around my ears and chilly breeze.

I woke at 5:30 in the morning while the organisers were preparing a fire to make tea. The fire didn’t last for long and we had to collect firewood to create another. After collecting huge piles of sticks, twigs and branches we could light only a part of it. We drank tea without sugar and got ready for the trek. Each trekker was provided a 5-star (which I love), groundnut bars, two oranges and a packet of electrolyte. I packed all these in my bag and prepared to depart to the parking lot in the car. We drove the car till the parking lot near (not so much) the falls.

From there, we started the trek by crossing a stream, climbing slopes and crossing another stream. We took a detour from the main path which led into the forest. We started climbing the mountain, which was tedious. Most of the trekkers (including me) sat and rested for a minute on the rocks at the side of the trail. The group going first waited then and there for the others to come. We ate our breakfast: Idlis (I loved it!) As we climbed higher and higher, the trail started to become steeper and difficult.

Soon, there was no trail and the organisers warned us to stick together or we would get lost. The route after was slightly difficult. As we dragged our shoes on, we reached the peak. It was a breathtaking view from there. We left our bags at a place and climbed down a little to reach a viewpoint. I was amazed when I looked at some trekkers having courage to stand at the tip fearlessly and posing for photographs. We climbed back up and took our bags and left.

The organisers told that the falls was behind two peaks, down a valley. We managed on to move on. This incident which I am describing now may sound humorous or painful to you (but it was damn painful for me!) At one place, there was a small rock slope. There was also a tree available for grip. I caught the tree at the slope, but suddenly I put all the weight on my hands. I fell on my back and slid down at exhilarating speed (felt like that) and stopped by putting my leg against a tree. Luckily it was just four feet of rock I slid on. I took my time to get up and reached the others in no time.

We started moving slowly and soon I could hear the sounds of people enjoying and a waterfall. It was further than I thought. I was happy after reaching the waterfall. I wore my swimsuit and got into the pool. It was cool and refreshing. I swam for about an hour and returned back. Soon we had our lunch which was made by mixing aval (rice flakes), sugar and water. We had pakoras and potato chips to eat with it. I finished my lunch and cleaned my plate at the stream. Some had a nap while others were talking and resting. We packed up and continued our journey down.

We climbed down in an ordinary route. We headed towards a dry stream and descended. There were some obstacles which were difficult. One of them was a steep slope in which we had to use a rope to get down. Soon we were heading down at a good pace and reached the next obstacle.

There was another obstacle: a twenty-foot drop at the edge of the mountain. It was thrilling as well as scary. I couldn’t imagine climbing it down. After that there was a slippery stretch of rocks, which I could pass through easily. Soon we climbed down to a stream.

We divided into two groups- towards the lower falls and to lot. I chose to go to the lot as I was too tired. Some people went before us and eight of us were left. We were literally lost. We could not find the others even when we shouted.

Then suddenly, a few other men (not from CTC) came and saw us. We asked them the way but unfortunately they didn’t know too. So we went together and followed the stream. It was difficult as the cold water was gushing through our pants. At one point, the water became four feet deep and we were totally drenched. Luckily we found the path back and reached the others. We reached the others and rounded up for the introductory session.

We introduced ourselves and knew about each other. I enjoyed the trek very much and looking forward to bunk a day or two from school for another trek.

Best of 2011

2012-01-09T18:14:00.002+05:30

2011 is the year we had accomplished great heights; is the year we contributed to our society more firmly as ever; is the year we discovered some exotic locations less known to mankind. The best way to end the year is to re-visit the ever-green memories and to crystallize them into our hearts.

Presenting the “BEST CLICKS OF 2011”

Landscape category:

[Visit the entries to the category here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150442527546586&type=1]

Living upto the expectation Landscape category received the best entries.

First Place: Murali Kanth who is a freelance photographer and who is very much interested in capturing the natural light through his camera has delighted us with his capture of the “Incredible cave pool”. To know more about him visit here

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1655146724

Second Place: Raj Pandian who is a wanderlust budding entrepreneur loves reading and photography, he amazed us with his click of the Bodi to Munnar trail. This picture looked like a snake lying down on the humps of the mountain. To more about Raj visit his profile here https://www.facebook.com/rajapandian

Third Place: Durai Murugan an avid trekker and an amateur photographer captured the mystical clouds from the Palani peak and won the admiration of the on-lookers. To know more about Durai visit his profile here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=673662370

Honorary Mention: Muthu Kumaran with his click of the misty kodai brought in chillness in the bones of the viewers and brought back nostalgic memories of all Kodai lovers. Visit Muthu's profile here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1840339793

Flora and fauna Category:

[Visit entries to the category herehttps://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150442567321586&type=1]

First Place: Raj Pandian with his magic click of the western nagala pool has discovered a “space ship” for many and an “art” for the others, won the most number of likes and comments.

Second Place: Muthu Kumaran a very calm guy during treks never fails to do magic with his clicks, with his capture of the dew drops on the tip of a leaf he has won the “wooow” of many.

Third Place: Durai Murugan with his capture of the spider web with dew drops has surprised the eyes of nature enthusiast.

Honorary Mention: Koushik with his click of the sun bird on the palm of a Kodai kid has silenced down trekkers imagination.

Adventurous / crazy moments:

[Visit entries to this category here https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150442470356586&type=1]

First Place: RaviKanth Kurma who is a Software Engineer loves trekking and clicking, with his crazy click of the three photographers shooting each other he has won all the crazy CTCians heart. Visit Ravi's profile here

https://www.facebook.com/ravikanth.kurma

Second Place: Om Prakash who loves capturing people and kids, especially joyous and decisive moments has done the magic of clicking a trekker diving into the water without any clue for the viewers what is happening keeping them spell-bound. [Visit his profile here https://www.facebook.com/bjomprakash]

Third Place: Rajeswar Krishnaswamy who is an amateur photographer has realized that CTC guys are the craziest people he has ever met and he acclaims this picture reflects what he has realized for himself. [Visit his profile here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1076590447]

People:

First Place: Manoj Kumar Natarajan who has realized the skill set within him for photography from his CTC seniors is a passionate photographer. His Witcher studios never fails to reflect Chennai’s different life. With his click of Mother and kid on a CTC trek he has not only won the hearts of Dudette’s but also all the Dudes. [Visit his profile here

https://www.facebook.com/manoj.k.nataraja]

Second Place: Om Prakash who loves capturing kids has brought the innocent smile and peace from the eyes of the kid and won the kindness of CTCians.

Third Place: Manoj Kumar Natarajan bringing in the brightness in the face of the gal has made the gals of CTC throng for a picture like this.

Discovery Category:

[Visit the entries to this category here

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150442465151586&type=1]

First Place: RaviKanth Kurma who has Art as his passion from childhood has realized that Photography is the medium which lets him express himself. With the capture of bats flying inside a cave he has brought in thrill in the minds of the viewers.

Rest two places in Discovery category were dropped and allotted for other categories as Honorary mention.

Winners of CTC Photography contest, 2011 will be provided with T-shirts each with their photographs printed on them and also a certificate of appreciation.

All those CTCians who are interested in sporting with the coolest T-shirt displaying these pictures along with CTC logo hold on for further updates.

Regards,

CTC Photography Organising team

Chennai Coastal Cleanup/3, Feb 5

2012-01-09T16:14:00.000+05:30

CTC Mega Coastal Clean-up Update

Earth Mother says: Clean up your mess!!! We in CTC travel to sea coasts, the mountains and her valleys every week all over south India from Nagala to Palani to Javadhi! Our weekends are made bright through our forays into the deep secrets of Nature. We make community on mountain tops, pools, rivers and seas. It is time for us to give back what she has unhesitatingly offered us.

Yes, CTCians—Time to team up and clean our coast from Marina to Injambakkam. On Feb 5, we social trek for Mother Earth! Join the groove! We have conquered many a peak -- can we climb the heights of Giving?

Share this information with your friends on Facebook, SMS, Twitter, or on your website or mailing lists! Ask them to join the Cool Clean-Up Gang! Make this Chennai’sLargest Clean-Up Event of the Year!!!

Exciting Progress so far:

Registrations:120 and increasing by the hour.

Schools - 40-50 students are joining us from D. G. Vaishnav College. What about other schools and colleges out there?

Less privileged – Our social trek organizer Thilak is finalizing 2 orphanages to be participating in our cleanup campaign. We would be arranging transport (available) and breakfast for the kids (need sponsors).

Companies – Have you told your company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) about the CTC Coastal Clean-Up? If you have not, then please do! Several members have contacted me saying they have done so including CTS and HCL. In the last 2 coastal cleanups participating companies and external groups made up 50% of our strength.

Sponsors - a few individuals and companies have stepped forward to sponsor in order to keep the event free for volunteers. We basically require around 500 largebio-degradable bags (11Rs/piece) + 500 reusable gloves (20Rs/pair). We welcome sponsorship for any part of this amount. Companies are also welcome to sponsor caps or t-shirts with the event and company logos.

Awareness - We require volunteers to put up the attached posters in public places - web sites, profiles, Facebook, mailing lists, public places in the city (Landmark, company notice board, colleges....). Let us start rocking Chennai—we do more than trek—we serve while we trek!!!

Mid-sea swim @ Kovalam, Jan 7

2012-01-09T13:27:00.002+05:30

What can I say... when I am offered a chance to bob in the Bay of Bengal with like-minded souls.. It was a definite YES!!! I wanted to do this sea-diving for quite a long time but never found the right company or time and now thanks to CTC.. I have done it and enjoyed it immensely..!! Moreover.. I would love to do it again!!! Unlike the treks there was nothing to fret about because you did not require check-list to play in water!! The whole group (some freshers and some seasoned CTCians) headed towards Kovalam in the evening.. a perfect time to happily laze considering the water's warm temperature!!!

Everybody was super excited to get to the water.. It was just a few minutes before we all got into 5 different boats with our life jackets on and started heading towards the sea... It was like being on a lull mode.. as we are always used to steady ground below our feet.. To be on the safer side.. most of us did not attempt to stand in the boat but as in most of the cases some were trying out the famed "titanic" pose ;)

Once we were few kilometers away from the shore.. we were asked to jump into the water.. and most of us were just more willing to do so..!! And then you see so many heads bobbing around you happily.. All you want to do is join them.. It was quite a sight with so many orange vests that anybody viewing us from shore would have started wondering what it was all about!! But as the happy souls we are, we were in our own joyous world totally in sync with the sea..

We did not have to exert much as the current was just willing to help us float easily... Some were using this chance to pull pranks on their buddies while some were just too happy to pose for the shutterbugs..!! Overall it was good fun to have a salty soak for nearly 45 minute or so.. And thanks to the vigilant fishermen who ensured that all of us were safe at the end of our playtime!!

Regards,

Ishwarya

The Day We Went Mid-Sea, Jan 7th

2012-01-08T10:34:00.003+05:30

The trip is simple enough. 40 souls gather at three different points in the city and make their way to a fisherman’s village in Kovalam. There they don life jackets, climb on curved fisherman’s boat, surge over the waves and make their way to mid-sea. Mid-sea, one-by-one they climb out of the boat into the sea.

Yes, the water is salty. Thankfully, temperature is perfect. Yes, there is a rope to hold onto. Mind is blank. Mind is blank. And the fishermen are watching over everyone. Hold, breathe! Thoughts enter—you are at this moment bobbing in the Bay of Bengal, some kilometres from the shore. “Can I leave the rope?” A young man encourages. I leave. There now-- afloat, watching myself slide over that wave, face-up, sky above, the slight sun, and miles and miles and miles of water beneath.

I close my eyes—how strange to feel utterly safe, peaceful and at ease....in the Bay of Bengal. T.S.Eliot’s words ring: “Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.”

Spin around—so many bodies and heads and life jackets bobbing in the sea. Smiling, telling jokes, teasing, begging for photos—as if they were not in water but on the sea shore, playing in gentle shallow waves. Should I nudge and remind—ok, folks, we are in the sea! But I guess everyone knows.

We make our way back or rather the fishermen ensure we make our way back. We emerge, the 40 souls-- what coats our senses is a gentle knowing, a joyful visitation to our Father- the Sea.

And outside in the village, grandmother Shivsundari says: No, I don’t swim much anymore. The water had come to our huts.

Yes, we live in paradoxes on earth.

More photos on our forum

Fresher's Party 2011: One day Trek to Nagala Eastern Entry on 25th Dec 2011

2012-01-06T23:01:00.001+05:30

Write-Up by Asha:
"Challenge yourself and you will be surprised by what you can accomplish."
For the past 3 months since moving to Chennai, I had been looking for every opportunity to push my limits with respect to my Physical fitness. And trekking fulfilled double purpose of pushing my fitness limits and being close to nature, trees and wide spaces that I grew up around. And still at 4.00AM on 25th morning I had hazaar reasons telling me "maybe Asha you cannot do this this time. There are treks every weekend. You can go for one of those." (Vadivel has already called me twice earlier before asking about my confirmation for the trek.) And somehow I pushed myself to make it to Madhya Kailash albeit late by 20 mins. Just before 5.00 we reached Koyamedu and after completing the formalities started around 5.00PM. We were around 31 people assembled there and I had mixed thoughts of excitement, apprehension of the trek ahead and determination to make the best of it.

On the way stopped at Poondi reservoir for few mins and while starting from there requested Sudhir that I want to drive pillion on his bike. After returning from US driving/pillion on 2 wheelers has become a tough thing and I would prefer to avoid it as much as possible. Throughout the bike ride I held to the bike tightly with the fear of falling down ;-). Around 8.30 we reached T.P. Kota, had a quick breakfast of Poli(Sweet as breakfast? I think only possible at CTC treks) and started for the trek along the reservoir edge. I ended up amongst the last people struggling to catch up with the people ahead and the hike uphill made me stop every few minutes to take a breath before continuing.And when we realised we have to go down the way we have come up, it was mixed thoughts of happiness that I skipped a little part of uphill trek and apprehension how I am I going to make it with my knee which has started hurting already. We walked downhill, enjoying the views again.

We walked for another hour along the water, among the boulders, shrubs grabbing at whatever is available to stop from slipping, lending each other a hand to cross the water and boulders. At 10.30 we reached the first pool and the surprises seem to have just started. The cold water welcomed all of us for a refreshing dip and we enjoyed the dip thoroughly. In an hour we started from the first pool and reached the second pool. Had a quick lunch of chapathi and again plunged into the water.

I had been scared to enter into water if the depth is more than where I can stand properly. With a swimming tube, I tried swimming and after a few attempts had crossed the pool all by myself. And surprises awaited us at other end of the pool in the form of a waterfall.
With help from vadivel, gandhi, kiran and others crossed the shallow waters till the water fall which provided us with a good massage. You got to be there to know what it is like to swim in pristine water with about 100+ feet high vertical rock cliffs with trees on top on all 3 sides and sunlight playing luka-chupi(hide&seek in hindi) with you from between the trees. And this is what I think pulls people again and again back to Nagala and where I also want to go again and again.

And the walk back from the pool to the base again was a nightmare made easy with the bunch of people I was with. Every other minute I was asking those around me to lend me a hand and I found out jumping is not the only way to cross boulders. You can roll on them to the other side, slide down them. And great conversations flowed throughout the walk back and the last surprise was the hot food waiting for us at T.P.Kotta. We gorged on it like hungry wolves, cleared the bills and drove back home with beautiful memories and new friends.

Thanks Vadivel for organising the trek and for the extra effort you put in helping me. Thanks Raghavan for the extra distance you came to pick us up. Thanks Gandhi, Shyam, Kiran and others for lending a hand whenever I asked for, staying behind me to make sure I was fine. Thanks Padma, Aishwarya, Lavanya and Rashmi for being in the trek. Your being there in the trek ensured me permission from my parents to come for the trek.

Write-Up by Raghavan:

Hi all,
I have never pushed myself to this extend and its just the beginner trek. the trek was wonderfully organised right from the beginning. and although i met everyone for the first time, by the end of the trek it felt like i knew them for a long time.

The trekking experience was really wonderful, when you look at nature it looks like god has placed everything strategically for a reason, at the beginning we were reluctant to step to little puddles of water but half way through you begin to look forward for those little streams to cool down your sore feet. and towards the top, nothing can be more relishing than a refreshing dip in the cool picnic pool.

I was definitely exhausted towards the end and made the rocks my bed. The travel downhill sure did seem endless. and the fun of trekking is in losing the way, which we did most of the time! By the time we reached the bottom it was 6.00 p.m, and just when you think it is over there was this long walk from the hill to the cars, and boy was i tired, thanks to some good friends, i made it. After all this what stays in your mind? Bonda and Tea :) !!

And I did bring back some souvenirs - Lot of photographs, good memories, new friends and oh ya! two broken toe nails!!

Lets do this again!!

Kumara Parvatha, Nov 12-13

2012-01-06T21:32:00.000+05:30

[MASANAMUTHU ARUNACHALAM]

We three guys reached Tidel park station to catch train @ central. While most of the guys carrying laptop bad @ Tidel Park station, I could see couple of guys were carrying sleeping bag/Mat which is easy to spot the Ctcians. We introduced each other. After a fine lunch, a group was gathered near allocated coach and handshake ceremony among us before boarding train. Raj must be the tensed guy who faced drop out from the time of ticket booked ( 1 month back ) to 1 hr before boarding the train but he is our captain cool carrying smiling face , It sounds he is ready to expect the unexpected that is what he is an organizer.

After a fun filled journey, we reached Bangalore majestic station. Breezing air and traffic road welcomes us , we had dinner before moving to the bus stop. As usual, round of handshakes with Bangalore friends before boarding the KSRCTC bus. Conductor is the happy person who will have not much work to do as 30+ people are from same group in the bus. It is been told that 8 hr journey to reach Sowampet. After a chit-chat at the bus, everybody started sleeping after closing the window tightly to rescue from Bangalore Fogs and chilled air. Now nobody can escape from the cold because bus got punctured at back wheel around 3 am and of course conductor, driver had to work much to replace the tyre. Most of the guys came out from the bus and discussing about fun events happened during recent past treks. After 1 hour of repair work, we resumed our journey but the beauty here is some guys never know that vehicle had stopped for puncture work and waited for 1 hr. They got into deep sleep before getting tired in the trek.

We CTC folks always different in following path/trail and eager to have adventures often

Now the time is 2:15 pm, we finished our lunch packets.

Just want to recollect the trek title “Sunrise @ Kumara Parvatha”. Somebody raised question that Are we going to stay here till tomorrow morning? It will be boring to stay at the same place. So shall we climb down and try Ombattu Gutta? series of questions was asked to captain cool Raj, the answer was positive but we need to travel 22 km to climb down and only brave hearts are allowed to move because it is going to be long distance to cover before night time. So it is time to resume the trek, we are real trek hungers, never be satisfied with view points, sun rise sceneries. We wanted to have more joy, more adventures and challenges too.

After re-grouping, started the trek again. It is big game-challenge to the legs because all the places were steep descents and moving stones will be disturbing lot so the whole body goes directly to your leg that makes us tired very quickly. Another beauty in KP is , we climbing up/down, we used to think that peak what we were seeing in our eyes will be the last one but while reaching there, you will find new series of Peaks there. Sometimes Life is having same theory whatever we see in front of our eyes will have end but the end will have fresh start. (What a philosophical thinking Masu, It is time to sleep and continue the writing tomorrow)

Keep trekking, keep climbing down; finally we reached the base by 8 pm. It is remarkable achievement by the group to have the KP mission completed in single day. Wooww.Wooww. Great, we made it.

We waited another 1 hr at the base for other guys getting reached the camp.

More fun, More Adventures @ OG forest, Stay tuned for write up.

Thanks
Masu

Kumara Parvatha, Nov 12-13

2012-01-06T21:29:00.004+05:30

A post trek write up by nachiketa janardan

How does one define a perfect trek? Is it a trek in which everything goes smoothly and according to plan? Possibly. Is it one in which the plan changes every minute? Maybe.Is it a trek where the fear of untamed mother nature and it's inhabitants forces the group to stick as close together as possible? Could be. Or is it one in which a group of disparate souls bond so well over the course of one weekend that at the end of that weekend it seems as if, we've known them all our lives? Definitely. And so was the case with this trek, which had all of the above and more.

It all began more than a month back when the initial notification was sent by Raj Jacob about the upcoming trek to Kumara Parvatha in the Western Ghats. Up to this point all my treks had been in the hills of Nagalapuram and beautiful though they are, I was itching to go someplace else. Also this was an opportunity to climb one of the highest peaks in South India, and it was more than twice the highest I had ever climbed. As soon as the notice came out, I signed up. When the shortlist was released, I was pleased to learn that many faces in the group were already known to me. The initial shortlist was drawn up almost a month before the actual trek and the wait for 11th November 2011 was interminable. As this was a slightly tougher trek than any I had been on, I was cautious. At the same time, I wanted to push myself to the limits and see how far I could go. Raj too, in his ever professional manner, regularly sent us updates on how to get in shape for the hike ahead and how to prepare for the hike ahead. Everyone had a thousand questions to ask and the experienced trekkers among the team patiently answered all our queries and questions. The foremost concern in our minds were of course,the leeches! A hundred fears were brought up, and a hundred ways to avoid their bites were suggested (None of them worked, but that's quite another story). Various blogs were consulted,which recounted the difficulties of the trek. From these sources many of us realised that quite some preparation was required to sucessfully complete the trek. I took the opportunity, to stock up on some new gear and get myself into shape for the journey ahead. And then finally the big day was here.

The assembly point was Chennai Central at 3 PM, for Raj had booked tickets on the Lalbagh express. One by one, the team members assembled in front of the coach. Old friends greeted each other with hugs and jokes. New faces were introduced and handshakes and pleasantries were exchanged. It was with pleasure that I noted that the pantry car was right next to our coach. This meant that we would get first choice of whatever delicacy that came out of it! Excited, we bundled into the coach and soon took our places. Adjustments were made with our fellow passengers in order to obtain seats adjacent to each other for the entire team. No sooner had we got on did the first of the snacks come out! Masala Vadai! Followed by Cutlet, A divine Egg Omlette, Bajji, bhel puri and what not!! All in all, we consumed enough snacks to feed an entire army. The train journey itself was enjoyable with loads of laughter, jokes and discussions related to the upcoming trek. Friends recalled stories and funny incidents from previous treks and relived all the good times they had had over the months. At Bangalore we switched over to a KSRTC bus where the Bangalore participants were gathered. Again introductions and handshakes were passed around and we got onto the bus eager to begin this stage of the journey. A puncture and many bumpy roads later, we had finally arrived at Somvarpet. And here we found that we had to take another bus to take us all the way to the beginning of the trail! Many of us were disappointed as we were just itching to start hiking as soon as possible. But there was no other way and that was that. And so we had to hop on to another rickety bus, which managed to skirt all the edges of the steep ghat roads and set quite a few stomachs rolling. Thankfully the bus soon deposited us at the designated drop off point and we all got down and got ready to trek.

The initial climb was a 4 Km climb to the Forest Office where we had to register and pay a small fee. This was easily the most beautiful part of the entire hike. We walked on steep country roads passing impossibly green fields and quaint little cottages, broken down ancient bridges and towering mountains. It all felt like being in a dream. After the dusty brown of Nagala, the lush greenery around us was uplifting to the spirit. A steep 2 hour climb later we had reached the forest office,and registered and paid the fee. Just as we were going in, we met another group of trekkers who were heading out to the peak. We were to meet them on the trail later on.

We had now entered the forest proper. The trees all around us were dense and lush with greenery. The trail was well trodden and we were never in danger of losing it. As we entered the forest, the guards had warned us that a tiger had been spotted only a few days ago, making us extra careful. The group split into three as the faster trekkers raced ahead. I was in the lead group with Manimaran, Gayathri, Arun, Prem and Nagin. Even though the team we had met at the forest post had a 45 minute head start against us, within the hour we had overtaken them! A couple of hours int the climb, we did start to tire, but the thought of being beaten by the other team to the peak spurred us on. But another concern was just dawning! The leeches. Slimy, crawly, and absolutely disgusting, we had to pick them off our feet regularly. A couple of us were already being sucked dry. But getting to the top of the peak was foremost on everybody's minds and the leeches were shrugged off like a minor discomfort and we resumed climbing. A couple of steep, slippery climbs later we had almost reached the peak. Water was not in plenty on this route and we had to be careful not to consume too much. However, there was one small stream which provided the clearest, cleanest and coldest water I had ever tasted. I daresay it was better than Nagala water. Refilling our bottles, we fortified ourselves for the hardest part of the climb. The last part of the climb was over several slippery rocks that rose at a steep gradient. Tackling steep climbs like this is now child's play for any CTC member and we clambered up the rocks speedily. The other team could only gape in wonder at our speed and we left them well and truly in the dust. What had taken us a few minutes took them the better part of an hour as they proceeded to climb slowly and ferry their bags up the slope first. All this while we climbed up with a heavy back pack without concern. CTC had definitely won this round. And with a little more effort on our part, we reached the peak. After a climb of barely 6 hours. Kumara Parvatha, we discovered, was overrated.

The peak was filthy and had a lot of trash and plastic lying about and we soon discovered why. There were at least a hundred people climbing the peak on any given weekend. We had reached the peak very early and we did not know what to do next. As we sat around taking in the magnificient views we discussed what to do next. It was way too early to pitch camp, and so it was decided that one group of brave souls would climb down the other face of the mountain while the others stayed on the peak. 17 of us started down the picturesque grasslands towards Kukke Subramanya. A few minutes into the descent I started experiencing a slight discomfort in my knee. As we went lower and lower it became worse until I could not bend my knee without pain. Climbing down with a dodgy knee like this was always going to be a challenge, but I grit my teeth and ignored it until it could not be ignored any longer. A welcome break at Bhattara Mane provided good food and some relief.But we still had a long way to go. Even the beautiful rolling hills around me faded into oblivion as the only thing on my mind was the climb down and the pain in my knee. Raj Jacob had given me a brace to wear and that did provide some relief. The climb down seemed never ending. On and on we went, losing track of the others, never losing track of the pain, wondering if I would make it down, and ferverently looking for the lights of the town. Kowshik was behind me and he provided me the much needed motivation in taking every step. Ela Murugan too pitched in with a strong shoulder to lean on when I could not have gone further. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, we heard the sounds of dogs barking and autos revving. Civilization was near! We had reached the end of the line. And we had completed 25 kilometers on the first day of the trek alone. What had started out as a moderate trek had all of a sudden become a hard core difficult trek.

Now that we had reached Kukke Subramanya, we had to find a place to camp out for the night. The plan for the next day was to try and scale Ombatthu Gudde peak. So we had to reach a check post 22 Km away from kukke. Dinner was eaten and a tempo was hired to take us to the check post. Raj had given me the option of quitting the trek and going to Bangalore with a few guys who were leaving midway. I daresay I was tempted for a moment, but then I thought to myself - "Oh what the hell? It's just a little pain, here today and maybe gone tomorrow" and with that I decided to stay. At the check post a very friendly lady gave us her courtyard to pitch camp in. we spread out the tarps and slept like logs. Early the next morning, at about 4 AM, we were awakened by the friendly lady's rooster crowing it's head off. To tired and sleepy trekkers this was too much and some of us even thought of killing it and eating it in revenge! But of course, we could not do that and awaken we had to. My leg was still a little stiff, but I had made it through the worst of the pain, and I was ready for anything.

Chicken was on the menu though for the after noon and after some enquiry and bargaining, we managed to procure about 3 kg of chicken for the mid day meal. The nice lady even loaned us a few of her pots and pans for the journey. I do not know what we would have done without her. Armed for the day, we set off towards Ombathu Gudde. The locals told us that a good campsite was about 10 km off the road and it was there that we headed. 2 Km from the check post, we had to step off the road and walk along a jeep trail that went straight as a rod for most part. On and on it went, with neither end nor turn in sight. My knee had started throbbing again and I was dismayed to see that it had swollen up like an over ripe apple. But this was no time to stop and I was determined to keep up with the rest of the team. Every step was a mixture of grit, will power and pain. I was slower than most of the team, and perhaps this was the reason why the team split up into two. "There is no such thing as pain", I repeated over and over again in my head. The leeches were everywhere and I picked several of the slimy worms off my shoe.Ahead of us lay a fork. It was here that we got split into two. Seven of us went down one route and the other seven who were in front went the other way. It was quite a while before we realised that we were on our own. In the meantime we had also spotted some Elephant footprints and some dung. Fearful that we might encounter it,the seven of us stuck close together. It was around this time that I noticed that in the excitement and the pace we had kept, my knee pain had silently disappeared. A miracle no less. We walked on and on, regularly spotting elephant tracks and hearing rustles in the thick forest, eventually covering about ten kilometers. Finally we had reached the stream.

The stream itself was a shallow but wide expanse of swift, slightly muddy water. The water was very very cold and was the perfect balm for our tired limbs. In the meantime, Shankar and Prem had decided to take a detour and try to find the remaining team members. They were unsuccessful though they did find the spot where the other team had peeled onions in preparation for the mid day meal. We had only chicken and masala and a little coconut oil to cook with, and a spicy, but delicious chicken curry was swiftly conjured up. Since there was no bread, and cake being unavailable, the only thing to do was to eat the chicken as it were. Most of it was consumed by Prem in between mouthfuls of chips and dry maggi. For the vegetarians, they had to make do with buns and maggi-bhel. My deepest sympathies. It truly sucks to be a vegetarian on a trek.

As soon as lunch was done, we packed up and got ready to leave. The return journey was along a parallel trail which took us along the river for the most part, along with short steep climbs into the forest. Mid way, we chanced upon 3 men with guns and machetes! Poachers or hunters. For sure it was something illegal they were up to. Mindful of our safety, we quickly passed them without so much as looking at them and heaved a sigh of relief when we had left them behind. The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful and by late evening, we had reached the highway. Tired, but exhilarated at having completed such a superb one day hike. Perhaps it was the adrenaline rush, but my knee never felt better and I was sure I could even climb the peak if I wanted to. We met up with the rest of the team. After realizing that we were not following then, they had stopped for a while and then headed back to the check post. Worried that we had encountered an elephant or worse, they were relieved to see us all together and accounted for. All that was left for us to do was to wait for the bus to Bangalore. Soon enough, the bus arrived and we met the team that had stayed on the peak for the sunrise. Excitedly, we exchanged stories and adventures and passed around cameras to show each other where we had been. Sleep came swiftly and thankfully to all of us, and even though the road to Bangalore was a bit bumpy, 6 solid hours of sleep was ours. We reached Bangalore early the next morning and got on to the Lalbagh express. This time though, we were travelling in the comfort of air-conditioned Chair car.The chair car was chosen so that we could get some sleep in comfort after the ardous trek. Needless to say, no one wanted to sleep. We discussed and analysed and relived each and every second of the trek. All too soon though, we reached Chennai. Being back home felt surreal, but all good things come to an end. And so did this.

I learnt a lot on this trek. I'm sure everyone else did as well. Pain can be ignored. Plans can be abandoned. But the bond that is felt between a few disparate souls upon completing a gruelling trek, and the high that comes from knowing that you have gone beyond what you thought you were capable of is beautiful and something thing that can never be forgotten.

Nagala East, Dec 3-4

2012-01-06T21:17:00.001+05:30

[Written by Shanta]

Hi Folks...,

Its all about our Flying birds Trek to Nagala East on Nov - 26,27,Lead by Raj&Raj..Which was planned to be moderate. But ultimately a day before our Journey made this Trek as Awesome Adventurous one and scaled up our team Spirit throughout the Trek..

Am a rookie to the CTC Treks..It was 3weeks back i come to knew about CTC through one of my friend (Thanks ARUN), my subscription was initiated on the same day, I fall prey to my email check every day til i receive the first Trek email from CTC Groups.I was in Cloud nine.. Trek mails was keep posting but oops..al r moderate/difficult/social treks.. Awaiting to pick up my EASY Trek mailer... My craziness made me to decide to push my registration for any of the next trek, It was fine Invite - “Invitation to Nagala East, Nov 26-27”

In my over enthusiasm I was the first to be registered and assured myself that surely i would be part of this Trek..My Curiosity made me to keep read blogs about CTC and Nagalapuram. It was First Shock in a form of the post , it stated the participants will be shortlisted, then confirmed, Few would be in RAC and Even waiting list too..OMG..Is it this CTC a kind off, an other IRCTC Reservation Type..On Wednesday there was an announcement “Registration gets closed by Tom(Thu) by 5PM and chart will be prepared and released by NIGHT”... It made me too nervous.

Will i b the luckier to get into Nagala..??? That day was a sleepless night for me, as I keep refreshing my inbox for Confirmation mail for every one hour. No emails Till Next day Rainy Friday Morning, I prepared myself to question the organizers "When will you be releasing the List" and made it. Second Shock awaited to be served on my plate , Yep.."Madam, we don’t have your name in our registration list". I become like a broken coffee mug. As it was rainy day, the luck was drizzling on my garden; I was announced as one of the confirmed participant. No words for my excitement. Now, its time for packing up and all purchases.

Every Event should e a Hat-trick to add spice up for the beautiful things. Here comes the Third Shock - Due to heavy rain , Few candidates has been dropped out ,so.....whats up..?? Lyk crazy kid, NO...NO...No...There are no limits. Just I have to go for it... Reach out the marvelous land of Nagala.

Day 1: The Fresh EArly morning Coffee near koyambedu added Sweetness to Our Journey towards uttokotai. Hey guys, really it was amazing that we became friendly in the couple of Coffee shops before we start our trek.
Once we reached the base camp Village, which was the launch pad for our NAgalapuram Eastern Trekkers, the Foods were distributed and we reloaded our stuffs with xtra 2kgs of food in our backpack and ready to explore the nature and refine ourselves with new spirits.

We prepared to wrap up our day, the rainy clouds and Cool Breeze also takes its bow. We were astonished by the Great invite of the Greeny bushes and water streams and range of mountain peaks , they LOOK EXEMPLARY BEAUTIFY.Its nature dude!! It has evrythng...every damn thing is admirable..

For Every Trekker, the sun is a big deal and everyone adores. Owing, perhaps to the temperate climate, sunshine means energy and vitality.In contrast, what excites us in much the same way is rainfall . it’s invariably because the sun is out& Being a beautiful day. The rain is a sign of good fortune. Our Rainy day ,shows that there is hope for more good things to follow.

We Started out Quite well, with WAlk through the DAm Site , Had Few Photo clicks, and traversing through the Wet LAnds and Greenaries in Terrain Forrest..To Start with our east Trek, we need to cross the first "Stream Bed"(Its an Earlier version Till a day before). Unfortunately today due to flooding by heavy rains, we were standing near a "Stream Bank" which carries the clearwater in a rapid or fast-flowing manner.

Our CTC Organisers take cues from the Steam Currents to plan out their operations. They identified a spot where the crossing will be easier and Thanks (Vijay,Prakash,RAj & Raj, SAM..), they set as a forerunner and tied the rope on both ends of stream, and spread across river and helped in crossing it successfully.

Walking along the river stream, we reached the First Pool...but we couldn’t step in for a DIVE or FUN or REFRESHNESS , because of heavy water flow.Our Further Trails turns to be muddy and slippery, which made us to opt to choose the Water surface as medium to ferry .Then we catch up on some climbing skills on the nearby cliffs along the Ferocious water. It was gradual climb, full of boulders and Slippery rocks.

We reached the second Pool (Dead Pool),and decided this location as our Night Campstay..It made as wonder,, "Are we going to stay here..?" Everything was just wet, wet, wet... It was drizzling throughout.It was really scary about this spot; it’s a Small cave lyk structure along the river stream.
We jam packed ourselves in two sections within that area. Dinner preparation was started in one section by collecting few dry woods and igniting them. Our Chief Cook Mehul made the Cheesy yummy 2mins maggie noodles and it was ready to be served for the starving hungers. WE all transformed to our dry clothes, Stomach full and ready to Sleep State.

The sounds of gushing water, silent dark nights presented some pleasant beauty infront of our eyes with our flashy Torch lights. Within a couple of hours, the drizzling rain created a ‘domino effect’ of heavy down pour, rapid increase of water level and sudden waterfall in the vicinity(In front of the the camp stay of our cave).The gushing water entered into the Sleeping mats of some of our friends, and they relocated and we all managed and confined our coverage with in our existing arena.Missed our Light cooking utensils in the heavy water flow beautifully :-(

It made the adrenaline pump for many of FRESH Trekkers.But Our Cool Organisers does not matter what our circumstances and their remarkable attitude and leadership gave us affirmations dat tomorrow morning we will have more luck.WE were on the lap of NAgala hills within the warm hug of cool breeze and felt fall asleep til our better morning woke up with Smiling shine on our faces. The Sudden Night Waterfall was a Mirage in the morning.

It was time up for our return journey which was set up 9AM in morning. Planned for a little uphill climb and down through the mutty slopes to the First pool..The Day nights heavy rain added slipperiness on the greasy carpet with loosen stone rocks and bushes too.

These steep and lofty cliffs turned out to be Slippery Rocks a and made a small twist of operations and decided to traverse through the water stream again..,The River walk was as delightful and serene now. Today the rain and shine was in favourable measure.

And I had numerous falls and slippages. Thanks to my friendly folks (Raj,NAveen,Surendar,Muthu, prakash, Rishi...etc... ) who helped me @ every pitfalls. Most of time I was crawling, sliding, shot jumps, pushups and frnds drag me up , Hope I didn’t do any sort of Trekking in re-route.

All our yesterday land trails was now a water float. But all of us enjoyed our water trek.Now we came to our final crossing, The river was still ferocious and it doesn’t permitted us to ferry over it; It was Our mission to have a vision of the eco-path again. Our Swim Leaders started to set path against the stream with the rope. Our Rope crossing was a adventurous one for most of us and some people struggled but it was all worth it. But for me..,Oops..!!!! Its Life thrilling event and made me so nervous..But the tricky ideas and exemplary approach of RAJ helped me a lot to make Slight water moves and drags made me to accomplish it. Finally we all feel a sense of personal accomplishment when your team’s efforts result in something positive..,Hurray!!!! We made it guys..!!!!

Then our trails was smooth cat walks along the bushy plants,throny shrubs and known flat wet paths till we reach our Camp village. Finally say Good-Byes and departed with our satisfactory souls on Awesome Trekking.

Here comes our Snacks Foodie of the DAy near to uttokotai.... A small byway shop roasting the BONDAS and RAW Bannana Bajji's.. Am sure Shopkeeper would have high turnover of the year within a 20mins time. BONDA's cost 1re and Bajji's @ 2Rs with hot and spicy KARA Chutney and Coconut Chutney was DAmn Delicious Combinations few added sweetness with Groundnut Chikkies...No limitations so we break through our tasty counts...,Followed with small dine out @border Highway dhabbas with parotas and Dosa's. We progressed to our destination on busy roads, big industries and bright hoarding boards welcoming us back to our city life.

It was with a slight sense of pride and a cautious sense of adventure that we plumped.

I want to add a Thank note.
1) To RAJ & RAJ (CTC Organisers/Emperors),For giving a Wonderful opportunity to be part of CTC and cared for us in each n every aspect throughout the trek,. Gave a lot of hopes, confidence and exceptional support which are the attributes of great leadership march.

2) All Trek mates was lyk a bird of same folks which fly together with same spirit,pace,energy and speed.And Kudos for Team Co-operation and Co-ordination and made it as pleasant trip..

Thought to make a small write up but I couldn’t stop nowhere in between til I reach this final line of happy moments.

Love to see you all once again in CTC....Happy Trekking....

Nagala East, Dec 3-4

2012-01-06T21:15:00.004+05:30

Write-up by vinayak jawalkar -

It all started as a planned Trek to Nagala East which eventually turned out to be the most thrilling and adventurous trek of Nagala. Find out how!

Here is how it goes… All the trekkers gathered Saturday early morning around 4 AM. The weather was great; rainy days in Chennai as well. I believe there were few drop outs due to bad weather. They really missed this Trek. Since I was amazed by the beauty of Nagala in October, I expected to enjoy the nature of Nagala once again in November. All of us travelled in three vehicles – 1 Van and 2 Cars. Met new friends during the travel and had tea as usual before reaching TP Kotta. We had our food items distributed and started our way to the Eastern part of Nagala. We started the trek at 9 AM in the morning. As soon as we started we had to cross the dam which had the water level high up to the hip level for all. Our organizers decided to use a rope to cross the dam. This was a just a slight indication of how the water level would be forest in the mountains. We then headed our way towards the mountain further. We walked a bit long expecting to reach our first resting point which would be the First Pool where we can enjoy the water and cool ourselves. Shockingly, there was no such spot visible as the entire place was flooded. Small streams through which all can walk turned out as flooded rivers that had water current to a high level. One of the highlights of the trek was to cross a stream so as to proceed. This was an amazing experience for everyone I guess since the water current was high. We had some brave folks in our trek (Sorry to forget their names) apart from organizers who were a helping hand to cross this stream (supposed to be one!) This was a challenging part of this trek apart from various other obstacles like loose and slippery rocks everywhere. It took a long while entering and exiting the mountain to cross these streams. Great Experience! Worth the time for everyone!

The entire plan changed. As projected, all the spots that were supposed to be visited seemed to be flooded and then raised a question as to how are we going to find a camp site. We had to avoid the stream, hence the organizers decided to climb up the mountain for a long time. It was quite adventurous as the path was not chosen so far (I Guess!). It was really great moments throughout the climbs. The weather was very pleasant with rain at times. After a good climb which gave us beautiful views of the mountains of Nagala, we had to go down for a snack/lunch break. The question about our Camp Site then! Our organizers set us an example of finding alternatives in difficult times throughout the trek. Yes, they found an alternate camp site for us which were not even seen in television. The way to the camp site - it was a bit thrilling itself. We never knew that the actual thrill of the trek was yet to come. We then reached the campsite around 4 PM.

The Camp Site! It was an astounding spot to have been discovered. It was a small cave that was made by the river. I would say that the camp site had kind of three layers. We can call it lower, middle and upper berths  but, believe me friends, it was not as comfortable as the berth. Some of them found places to sleep, some of them found places to rest and some of them found places to just sit! It became dark. All we could hear was the sound of the water flowing heavily. The view was really wonderful where we would watch all the time the beauty of the water flowing through the rocks. I never expected that we could have maggi prepared for dinner as the camp site didn’t seem to be ready for one. The Maggi was superb in taste. It was an early dinner around 6 PM. Early to bed; early to rise seemed to work out in this trek. All the trekkers decided to rest their bodies. Luckily some of them in lower and upper level of the cave found quite a decent place to lie down. Unfortunately, the middle ones weren’t fit to lie down. Challenge is a Challenge. I could barely lie down the surface was really not good. I was a bit scared that I may doze off and fall into the river. So I avoided sleeping. Unfortunately, I had a terrible headache for 3 to 4 hours. I tried not to take a pill but the pain aggravated as I had no sleep even in the previous night. Finally I had to take a pill with no choice.

Rain started pouring like anything and the sound of flooded river and rain were good and bit scary in the darkness. Thrill starts now – May be around 10 to 11 PM, the rain became too heavy and the water level started rising gradually. Nature tested the trekkers on that night. The water level had risen to such a level that our friends in lower level had come climb up a level in that small cave. The water disturbed them in their sleep and it was scary. Few belongings were lost. It was a scary moment as the rain never stopped and the water level kept increasing throughout the night. The folks from the lower level managed to someone sit / lie down in a little higher level. The chillness and the water level made the trek amazing adventurous and scary. The question in everyone’s mind - What will happen if the water level increases further? It would definitely come up higher and we may end up just surviving the whole night. I would say – It was like as if we were trapped in the middle of the jungle. It was a real time experience for every one of us in the group. Throughout the night, I could see the lights from the torches flashing around everywhere to check the water level. Somehow I managed to doze off a bit as folks on my both sides were like a grip. We could see a new waterfall from the top of the cave because of the heavy rain. The night was a memorable moment in everyone’s lives. Though it was scary and breathtaking, it was one life time experience for all. Everyone must have had in mind – “When will the Rain stop? When will the Sun rise?” The test by Mother Nature was over. It was around 6 AM; everyone got up and felt a bit relaxed. My headache vanished. We had fruits for our breakfast and started back at 9 AM Sunday Morning. The way back was good with Great Spirit from everyone as all were happy to go back home. However, we still had a stream to be crossed which had high water current. Volunteers helped and it was an amazing experience for all once again while exiting Nagala.

We then reached our spot where vehicles were parked. We had to cross the dam before that. However, no one seemed to bother about having a rope to help after seeing thrilling moments in the forest. Most of them took a bath in the dam water after which we had returned to our vehicles and started back. Unfortunately, Ananavarathan Raj (one of the organizers) seemed to have lost his valuables during night. Luckily the Nature helped him get back his belongings after a few days in the same week.

One the way back home, in Utthukottai a wonderful shop was found. It was a bajji shop. The taste was lip smacking and was served in a teak leaf. One Bonda costed Rs. 1 and one Bajji costed Rs.2. No wonder all of us filled our stomach as much as possible with Bonda and Bajji with great tasting Chutney of 2 varieties.

The Trek was a memorable experience. It was unplanned which ended up really adventurous. The beauty of Nagala is always amazing. This was my second trek to Nagala East and it was completely different. I was hoping for a planned trek to enjoy however this trek provided me satisfaction to a higher level than a planned Trek.

Thanks to Raj Jacob & Anavarathan Raj - for your care and support. You did a great job in organizing this trek. An example of good leadership must be learnt from you. Wish to join you guys in the future treks.

Nagala East Trek – on the whole was an adventure filled with joy!

CTC Rocks!!

Regards,
Vinayak

Email: Vinayak0521@gmail.com
Mob: 9941910995