Amedikallu Trek - November 21st and 22nd, 2015

I was long planning for one of the Western Ghats treks- It's monsoon and it is the best time to visit this range. I was yet to explore this part of Karnataka and all those awesome pics allured me. And thus I decided to go to one of them, and at the same time, I found this trek to Amedikallu organized by Bangalore AdvenTurers (BAT). I just made a call to my close buddy Raksha, who said a Yes to accompany me. So we registered for the event.

We were asked to gather in front of Shantala Silks in Majestic at 8:45 PM on Friday- 20th November. It started raining that evening, but still we made it at the right time. There were already 2 guys with backpack, so we knew they were in our group, and we introduced ourselves. One by one thus joined, and finally the group was all set to leave in a 21 seater Mini Bus at 10:15 PM. In the bus, we had an intro session, and our's was a group of 17- Niranjan (Organizer), Rashmi, Gautham, Narendran, Devendran, Rajesh, Bhavya, Sagar, Santosh, Sumesh, Manikantha, Vishwanath, Karthikeyini, Akshar, Subith, Raksha and I. We were also given general instructions by our organizer, and then we all slept, while the bus moved towards our destination.

We reached Shishila village pretty early, around 5:15 PM (Though we left Bengaluru late; Thanks to the driver :-P) and we had to wait until the clock ticked 6 AM, since we didn't want to disturb our host Mr. Gopu Gokhale. We were to freshen up at his guest house and he had arranged for the day's breakfast and lunch, and next days lunch. We all freshened up, one by one, and went for breakfast at 8:20 AM. Idly Chatni and Sambar it was, and it tasted great! We were given packed lunch, and we left in our bus with the guide to the starting point of our trek, which is about 6 km from Gopu Gokhale's house.

Gopu Gokhale's guest house

Group pic before the start of trek

Getting ready to trek

It was 9:40 AM when we started our trek. The group moved together, and the initial 2 hour path was inside a forest. At the end of this 2 km, we got the first glimpse of Amedikallu, an here we took our first break of about 20 minutes. We energized ourselves with chocolates, biscuits, fruits etc., and we also had Indian gooseberry from a nearby tree. We started again at 12 PM and now the path was in the grasslands. Walking amidst 2-3 feet tall grass was a good experience, but the sun made us a little tired, since there was no tree shade. So wherever we found trees, we stopped and just dropped on the grass to rest. We thus took about 3-4 breaks (which was unnecessary), and we finally arrived at the water place where we had to stop for lunch. 1:30 PM it was! We all freshened up, filled up our bottles and had lunch- Chapati and Bhindi sabzi and pickle, and we took good amount of rest.

Start of the trek

Spot from where we got first glimpse of Amedikallu

Trekking

Lunch packed by our host

Relaxing and chatting before lunch

We then started again at 2:15PM, and we were all exhausted, and kept asking the guide about the remaining distance, who simply kept saying 10 minutes (His measure of time was always 10 minutes or 30 minutes, even if it took hours :-P) and we finally made it to the rock shelter at 3:45 PM, where we would be camping for night. As soon as we saw this place, we just laid down happily (as though we made it to the peak :-P). Niranjan with the help of other guys set up 2 tents, and we kept our bags inside the tents, and we started again towards the peak.

Somewhere on the way, before the campsite

View of Western ghats

Effect of 8 km trek- at the camping site 

Setting up the tents

The walk now was completely amidst grasslands, from where we could already witness the Ghats range to some extent. We made it to a Huge stone, just beneath the huge rock that represents Ame's face, where few people thought of not continuing anymore. (One reason was that we were too tired, another reason being that it was already 4:20 PM and another 1 km to the peak and down would take atleast 2 hours, and it would get dark by then). Most of us wanted to make it to the peak since we had made it so long for now, and thus the organizer gave us the choice to make- to go or not. To go, we were suppose to walk continuously, without taking breaks, as fast as possible. It was a tough decision but then 11 of us did went along with the guide. This last 1 km walk was amidst wild jungle for 20 minutes, and then when we were almost at the peak, it was grassland for 10 minutes, and the last stretch was a huge rock to climb! We finally did it and made it to the peak at 5:10 PM.

Awesome view of Ghats

In front of Ame's head

Final stretch to the peak

Almost there..

Group along with our guide- at the peak

Group selfie on the peak

View from the peak

We were now on the Ame's head :-P, the tallest point of the peak, and all of us were very much happy that we finally made it to the peak, after a tiresome 9 km walk! We were glad that we didn't give up, and the view from the peak was mesmerizing. A 360 degree view, sunset, cool breeze was just amazing. We shouted on the top of our voices to experience the echo. We took a few pics and selfies, and we spent about 15 minutes there. It was time to move down now, though we had no heart of leaving so early. But sun was pacing down soon, and we had to make it to the camping site before it would become too dark. We thus started down at 5:30 PM and we reached the camping site at 6:45 PM.

It was now cooking time, and we required water. 4 people went with the guide to wash the vegetables and get water to cook. The rest sat under the rock, enjoying the moonlight and cool breeze, chit chatting, while Niranjan made arrangements of firewood and got the setup for cooking ready. Bisibelebath was the special tonight. Once the water was bought, we girls helped in chopping the vegetables, and the rest of the cooking was done by our Master Chef Niranjan. After about an hour, we got the smell of ghee and this made us feel hungry. We all gathered near the vessel and made a queue with our boxes, while our chef was perfecting the dish saying 5 more minutes. We were tired and hungry, and no requests made him feel pity on us, and we waited for about 10 minutes, after which hot Bisibelebath was served. It tasted awesome and couple of people even burnt their tongue in a hurry to taste it :-P Moonlight, cool breeze, Hot and tasty Bisibelebath was an awesome combination. After dinner, 2 more tents were laid, and we all crept into it to sleep.

Pre cooking preparations

Tasty Bisibelebath

Next  morning at 6:10 AM, Niranjan started to wake up people. We had to pack up and leave by 6:30 AM is what he had instructed us the previous night, and people were rather reluctant to wake up :-P We woke up, started getting ready and packed our bags and tents again, and at about 6:30, we witnessed the first rays of Sun. We started at 7 AM, and reached the water spot at 7:20 AM, where we freshened up, washed vessels, filled the bottles and had a light breakfast. We started again at 7:45, and made a long descend until we stopped again at 9:15 AM to have breakfast. People exchanged Biscuits, chocolates, cakes, kakhara, fruits etc. and we started again at 9:40. Without taking anymore breaks, we finally made it to the base at 10:40 AM.

First rays of Sun in the morning

Taking one last look at the peak we had conquered

Beautiful Clouds

We were now supposed to go to the river and then visit Shishila temple. We inquired the guide and our host and got to know that there were no changing rooms near the river, and thus all girls backed up, and all the guys left in the bus. We still got a chance to go to the river which was accessible from our host's farm, about 5 minutes walk, and thus Raksha, Karthikeyini and I left to the river, while the other two decided to take hot water bath in the guest house. Falling into the fresh water felt so much good and was so relaxing that all the tiredness of 18 km trek was gone. The water was only about 2 feet deep, and thus we just sat inside the water for about 40 minutes, and came to the house and changed into fresh clothes. It was 12:40 PM and the guys also came by this time, and we were called for lunch. Rice Sambar Rasam and butter milk- Awesome and satisfying lunch! We were told that the temple will be closed till 2:30, and we had no choice but to leave for Bangalore, and thus we started at 1:30 PM.

After 10 minutes of the start of journey, we had a feedback session. We all had had a great time,and each one of us thus shared their experience. We then started with dum charrads, which was equally fun, and we had some chit chatting, mocking and teasing each other. Some ghost stories were also discussed meanwhile. We all had become so close now, not even 48 hours of knowing each other! We gave a break for tea at 4:30 PM and stopped for too long, chit chatting :P Starting our journey again, Sagar and Santosh bid goodbye to us and got down at Hassan (They were Arasikere brothers) and then we continued further, and stopped for dinner at 7:15 PM at Adiga's.  We then made the final journey, and reached Nelamangala at about 9:20 PM. From here goodbyes started, and one by one got down at major landmarks like Nelamangala, Navarang, and then we reached Majestic at 10:15 PM. We got down here and we bid goodbye to the rest of the group, cherishing the sweet memories of last two days.

It was a great time with new bunch of folks, and two days seemed like too long of having spent it so nicely. Thanks to BAT- it was a very good experience and of course an awesome organizer Niranjan planned it all so well. Looking forward to more and more adventures..