Mullayangiri Trek - A long time to do list!

Yes I flagged Mullayangiri! I have been to Mullayangiri before this, not as a trek and been during winter season. I knew this time it was off season, but still wanted to do this as a part of BTC Bday event.

This is how the plan started; Again same VOF is the point where we thought of taking VOF participants to Mullayangiri and do some warm-up treks. But plans never workout so well as we thought. Finally as a Bday event, Me and Monisha thought about this in November and we decided to organize it on 30th and 31st January 2016. So event got opened on December 1st 2015 and within few days we got awesome response and we closed the event. Formed a team of 12. After so many dropouts, planning and everything the day arrived.

29th Jan 2016, Friday! It was 8:00 PM and I still didn't start my packing, within 30 mins everything was ready. Waited for BMTC bus, for around 30 mins and booked Taxi-For-Sure. Reached Indira nagar; met Sandeep Paul there and it was 9:25 PM. We got into an bus to Majestic. Even though it was Friday, traffic was bit less and by 10:10 PM we reached Gandhi Nagar. Meeting time was 10:30 PM and we took 10 mins walk to reach Shanatala Silks. Already Saurav, Nasreen, Monisha, Neha, Giri were there. Within few minutes all were there except Ankit Soni. TT guy was ready and he parked his vehicle in some safe place. Mean while I met Ameer Khan near Shantala. Don't worry its our own BTC organizer. He and Lokith where together with their Sagara Trekking team.

In few mins we boarded our TT and slowly songs started and everyone dozed off with in few hours. I usually dont get sleep in TT and thought I would keep an eye on our driver. Driver was very good and friendly. We stopped in between and had Tatte Idli and awesome tea. Those who wanted to just taste ended up having the whole Idli. We reached Chikkamagalur around 3:55 AM and I tried to reach our Guide Mr.Sudharma. He was travelling from Ramanagara to Chikkamagalur in train. Our bad luck neither he picked our call nor he got down at his stop; as he was in deep sleep he missed the stop. He requested us to wait for 2 hours. Meanwhile we decided to sleep in TT itself and will wait for him. After getting little frustrated, we felt he is going to take more time. It was better we got freshen up and be ready by the time he comes. We got into public restroom, got ready and went to the near by hotel. Meanwhile Sudharma came and joined us for breakfast.

After breakfast as planned we started towards Mullayangiri and stopped near Sarpa dari trail. There were two forest people who were keeping an eye on people by not allowing to enter into the forest trail. After lots of discussion, they charged us Rs. 1000.00 for 12 trekkers. We started our trek. Initially it was like breath taking experience, From some point of the trail if we look down it was completely steep down and I was bit scared too. But after some point along with me most of them got confidence. We started enjoying it and started liking the trail as usual. We took very short breaks and within few hours we reached Mullayangiri Top. Initially we went inside the cave. Then we spent some quality time on top of the peak. Environment was picture perfect even though we didn't encounter mist. After many selfies and group pics we entered the temple and we were randomly moving here and there. Then after spending an hour or so we decided to descent via another trail which takes us to the check post, on the way to Bababudangiri. 

Descent was interesting and some places were really awesome. Beauty was at its best. I personally enjoyed a lot. While descending we had to walk a lot and after some awesome experience with high wind and breeze, we reached the check post. For our surprise TT wasn't there as we planned. Network was also not that great and TT guy mobile network was coming not reachable. after wasting 15-20 mins. I stopped one bike person and gave them TT vehicle number and requested them to inform our driver if they found him any where on the way. They were really helpful and kind, because of them We got our TT guy back. We planned to have lunch in a place where we didn't had any other option than having there. Ankit, Me and Sandeep planned to have outside as juice, Banana and some snacks as our Lunch :-D. After having lunch we headed towards Bababudangiri and we started trekking from some point. Initially everyone was facing difficulty with heavy tummy. I got gastric problem too. Started our trek and soon we reached the base where our guide showed us  a spot to pitch in our tent. As the tent topic came I need to mention some info here. This is the first time BTC team planned to pitch the tent in Mullayangiri and Bababudangiri Trek. We were so excited because of tenting. The place where we thought of pitching tent was already occupied by one group. Even though we had enough space, we thought we might get disturbed by them so better to pitch the tent near Bababudangiri temple. So we started walking towards Bababudangiri and on the way we saw strange things like one tree with full of Nails in it and other with full of coins. Soon we reached Bababudangiri and started looking for a place to pitch in the tent. We got one nice place and each team started pitching their tent. After our tent were pitched we decided to have tea. We got into one known shop, had tea and pakoda. We came back started with some gossips initially, continued with horror story and ended up with astronaut class and soon decided to have dinner. Had yummy Dinner :-D and we go into our tent, slept early as we were really tired. Wind was so high, good that we listened to the locals suggestion and didn't pitch our tent on top of the hill!

Morning I got up at 5:00 AM thanks to Sandeep ;-) It was so chilled, I was shivering and water was literally coming out of my eyes! we got refreshed and unpitched our tent and started towards Mullayangiri Peak via TT. Our bad luck Sun was not showing any mercy on us! at 8:00 AM also it was so hot. Meanwhile we had some challenges to take our TT back and some point we thought our TT may topple. Thanks to our participants who filled the pot hole and made a way to many vehicles to reach Mullayangiri. We reached Mullayangiri, morning morning we had ice creams, Yes you heard it right! Some even had 2-3 chocobars. Its a wonderful experience to have ice cream at empty stomach; Thanks to me for that wonderful idea ;-) We planed to have breakfast at Chikkmagaluru. We had our breakfast and started heading towards Kallatthi falls to take our first bath after 2 days :-D. We reached Kallathi falls and took shower and all got full freshened up. After reaching Tarikere we had our lunch, it was very good and everyone was full stomach. With lunch we decided to reach Bangalore without tea break as we planned to reach by 9:30 PM and as planned we reached Bangalore.

It was wonderful trek, Team was very good, supportive and overall an awesome experience.

Team: Monisha, Anish, Sudesh, Sandeep Paul, Sandeep Biswas, Easwar, Ankit, Nasreen, Neha, Giri, Saurav and Myself (Gaurav).

Written By      : Gaurav Kamath

Original Blog   : Journey of my Life

Organized By  : Monisha & Gaurav

Date of event : 30th Jan - 31st Jan, 2016

Place               : mullayanagiri and Bababudangiri, chikkamagaluru, Karnataka, India

Pictures          : Album