Treading The Trail

Mullayangiri-BabaBudangiri-Kemmanagundi Trek.

WHAT-Mullayanagiri is the highest mountain in Karnataka standing at 1936m from sea level.BabaBudangiri is famous for its Coffee estates.
WHERE-Chikmaglur district in Karnataka.
WHEN-Departure:11:00pm on Saturday.....Arrival 5:00am Tuesday.

After many postponements,we decided to go on this trek on Saturday the 24th of september.We had decided to go by train upto Kadur and then catch a bus from there to Chikamaglur.There was a slight confusion in the time of departure of the train,and it was our good luck that we all managed to board it even though we were an hour late.There were 6 of us, all from UVCE.Sumukha,Suhas and Samarth had never trekked before, while me,Akshay and Karthik had a little experience.The train departed Bangalore at exactly 11:10pm.

We played cards on the train and none of us slept as we had to get down at Kadur at around 3 in the morning.We got out of the station and spotted a bus headed for chikmaglur just outside.The bus ride was pretty eventful and we saw the remains of an accident.A KSRTC bus had toppled over completely just around a blind bend.The people in our bus estimated that the accident might have happened just 10 or 15 mins prior to our arrival there.We reached Chikmaglur at 4am.

To reach Sarpadhari(The base of Mullayanagiri) one must catch a bus headed to Attigundi.But there are very few or perhaps even no KSRTC buses that take that route.So we had to wait for a private bus,the next private bus headed that way was however, at 8am.We had our breakfast at the hotel in the bus stand and hired a van driver to drive us to Sarpadhari.We reached Sarpadhari at around 7:15am and began our trek at 7:30 am.There was no breeze and a hot sun bared down on us.The trail was easy to follow and it snakes its way up the mountain.At some points it becomes difficult to decide which path to follow,but happily we always ended up taking the right one.One can say that this is an easy climb if one starts a bit early and avoids the hot sun.Following the trail, we reached a place where there is a sculputre of  Nandi.we rested here for some time and had some light snacks.We came close to the top at 9:30am. There are some beautiful caves at the top that we explored.The water inside the cave was ice cold.Anyone trekking to Mullayanagiri must not miss this place!!

At the top we relaxed our legs a little and I met an old schoolmate of mine(of all the places in the world).We began our descent from Mullayanagiri at around 10:45am and began the journey towards Bababudangiri.We were told that we would have to trek in the direction of a BSNL tower.At some point later,we lost our way.We could see the road,but could not find the trail.We lost about 20 minutes here.We found out later that we had ended up on the wrong side of the mountain that we were traversing.We reached a stone with an image of Swami Vivekananda at around 12:45pm .There was a checkpost on the road right below us.We had our lunch here(Each of us had carried 12 chapatis).

We resumed our trek towards the tower 45 minutes later.This was the most exciting part of the trek!!We had to walk right on the edge of the mountain with a huge gorge to our right.One slip of the foot and we would tumble down and never be heard of again.Thankfully, that did not happen,and we proceeded slowly on.The trail here,though pronounced was blocked by huge rocks and it was a bit difficult to maneuver here.We finished this part of the journey in 15 minutes and arrived at some plain land.

From hereon,the journey became a little more difficult as the sun had climbed higher up in the sky and was on our heads.We stopped for rest and drinks more often and finally reached close to the base of the tower at 3:30pm.The trail leads to a dusty road which leads to a small waterfall called Manikyadhara.There are some small ponds along the road from Manikyadhara to BabaBudangiri.We spent some time here and reached BabaBudangiri by 5:25pm.

We rented a shed at BabaBudangiri and stayed there for the night.One can see what seems to be all the stars there are,if one looks up at the sky at night here.The view of the adjoining valley was spectacular!! We decided not to trek to kemmanagundi as some of us were pretty exhausted from the previous day.We hired a jeep that dropped us off at the hebbe falls - kemmanagundi intersection.The driver told us to take a left at a point further along the intersection to reach a road that would take us to hebbe falls.We took his advice and could,however find no road. we wasted some good time there.Later a policeman told us that we had to take a right and not a left!!

Running late we started trekking to Hebbe falls.The path seemed to go on and on.We were told that the last bus leaving kemmanagundi was at 4:30pm so we decided not to go all the way and turned back.We reached  Kemmanagundi at around 3:30pm.On the we saw a fresh water crab(The highlight of that journey : P ) We had lunch at small canteen atop Kemmanagundi and left for Birur by bus at around 4:00pm.We caught a train from Birur to bangalore at 11:45pm.

Some Contact numbers :
Swami (Van driver from Chikmaglur to Sarpadhari) : 9980251196 ( Cost: rs270 first asked for rs350)
Suresh (Owns a store atop BabaBudangiri,rents sheds) :9481583277 (Cost 100,150,200 / shed )
Irfan (jeep driver from BabaBudangiri to Kemmanagundi) :9480232935 ( cost 1200 for ride,first asked for 1500)