MEN IN RED

Men in Red have done it agian.

Many had their own opinions & statistics against this team 'Royal challengers',,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,but they have proven all wrong.

Hats off to Anil Kumble for his captaincy,,,,,,,,,,,

And what a style to win,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Hope they win final too & sure they will.
One more day to go cant wait for the final.

Its clash of South Titans,,,,,,,,,,,,

Ombattu Gudda(OG) Trekking

Ombattu Gudda,(OG)

Adventurous, Thrilling , Confusing, Painfull, Disastrous, Funfull, Fearful, Hilarious these are words I could easily use to describe this trek.

I heard this name ‘Ombatttu Gudda’ in the last Kumaraparvatha trek with my group(Bangalore ASCENDers).

Khan initiated the mailing process, who was very keen to successfully conquer OG & so were all of us.

As usual we had mail from khan regarding OG & again as expected there were debate on the trek date & finally it was decided on April 11^th.

Usually in the trekking spots there are paths or other indications where one has to follow.

But OG has targets areas to reach & no definite path.

The uniqueness of OG was getting lost, we put all our thoughts to see that we don’t encounter this uniqueness.

The plan was to reach OG from gundya & get down from OG on the other side to reach Hosakere.( It is not easy as it sounds)

Nagesh (GPS Naga) has taken the responsibility of GPS & its related maps , path etc.

Krishna bhat (KB) booked the tickets & Khan collected all the necessary data, maps & finalized the plan.

The trek group was 13 & we all met in majestic & left to Gundya by bus.

The trekking start point was Gundya check post. Gundya check post is on Blore – Mlore highway , this the junction where all the buses going to Kukke Subramanya divert from highway.

Day-1

By 4am we reached checkpost & the first twist of the trekking started here.

Kiran ,one of 13 got emergency call from home & he has to go back.

Now the group size came down to 12 & the concern of our JALAKNATH was addressed.

He had expressed ‘13’ was a unlucky number to go for a trek. :-)

Kiran would have felt unlucky to leave the trek midway, but after 2 days we all felt, he was damn lucky to go back.

From check post we started walking towards mangalore to reach ADDAHOLE bridge.

By 4.30am we reached ADDAHOLE bridge & we halted here for sunrise.

Around 6am we started our actual trek along ADDAHOLE river.

By 8.30am we reached a river junction.

Here KABBINALE river cuts across ADDAHOLE river.This was our breakfast spot.

There are two ways to reach OG peak, take left walk along KABBINALE river or take right follow ADDAHOLE river upstream to reach peak.(Not easy as it sounds)

If we take left along KABBINALE river upstream, we need to deviate early from the river. Hence early exit from water source.

Although some blogs suggested that this was shorter route than the route along Addahole river , we decided to take route along Addahole river to gain water source advantage.

After a relaxed 2 hr breakfast, we resumed trek at 10.30am.

From here our target was fixed, walk along the river(Addahole) until we get a falls.

We kept walking, walking & walking ,,,,,,,,there were no signs of falls.

And the tragedy strikes here, & it was from Nagesh.,,,,,,,,GPS is not working.

Although it was working for sometime, now it is unable to connect to the satellite, thick forest may the reason.

And we were left with our own traditional method Compass & map.

But it was of not much use. And it was really getting darker.

We did not have the idea of where were we.

To make matter worse ,,,,,,,,Khan started vomiting from afternoon.

The buttermilk he had in the afternoon did not go well. He was almost dehydrated by evening.

We selected a place along river side & halted for the night.

It was not a safer for night & we had no other options.

Khan, ambarish & 2 others had been to OG before.

But they returned halfway as they encountered eleplant & this story kept running in my mind.

But we had decided earlier that 2 will be guarding the group for 2 hours each.

And the shift was finalized , as nobody was asking me to guard , I felt lucky & slept.

I always liked to sleep in the open sky & watch stars. But this was the moment where I just wanted to go to sleep , so that I woke up in the morning without any troubles.

But Prasada was smart enough , he did 3am – 4am shift & made to guard 4am onwards.

Prasad rao was my shift partner.

Day-2

As the sun came out, after breakfast we resumed our trek @ 7am.

We had considered falls as one of the reference point to cross over to OG peak as mentioned in one of the blog write-up.

We trekked along the river upstream in search of falls , after sometime the belief on encountering a falls was fading away.

It was physically demanding to trek along & in the river has there were huge rocks.

We kept on pushing ourselves.

I heard a noise from the group front & noise was out of joy.

Finally we have found falls, this gave us the confidence back & we were all charged up again & the time was 10.30 am

As I stood facing the falls, I could see a peak on the left hand side.

We all believed that to be the OG peak. As per the write up referred, we have to climb over the hill on the right hand side of the falls.

Hard luck continued as GPS was not connecting to satellite.

Although the OG peak was on the left hand side, we decided to take right hand side as mentioned in the write-up. (we never thought this would be such a disastrous decision)

Finally after quick pit stop & photo session we started again.

We started climbing the forest hill. This was one of the toughest terrain we had to cross. It was too steep & it took out everything from us.

Khan was getting tired & dehydrated. His vomiting had become as common as coughing.

He was brave enough to keep pushing himself.

In a short time we attained good altitude.

Our idea was to be as close left hand side (falls) & cross over this falls river from top.

But this never happened. The valley on the left hand side was getting deeper & deeper, we could never go to left.

Also we did not wanted to lose the altitude gained & thought we could cross from hill top.

We went on climbing the hills only to reach the sunny grasslands.

But ‘Surya Bhagawan’ was kind enough to stay within clouds.

And we kept on going from one hill to another & without knowing exactly where we are heading.

Oh god,,,,,,,,,,,,, what a good news from Nagesh, GPS is working.

We all were relieved & overjoyed. It was like oasis in desert.,,,,,,,& the time was,,,,,,,1pm

And this joy was short lived as he showed us the map with locations.

We have deviated too much & over-shot our target point.

To reach OG we have to cross 2-3 hills & pass through thick forest valleys.

There was panic among group now. Many have not informed at home that the trek could extend. Some were very eager to reach home by next morning & very rightly so.

But trekking at night in thick forest is more risky.

Now we were left only with 2 options either take risk cross all this hurdles & go forward or go back. There was no point was going back, as it would take another 1 ½ days.

We decided to go forward.

As luck goes, we got Airtel network signal at one point & called up home, informed them that we missed the bus & will reach Bangalore by Monday evening.

(To be frank we were not sure of reaching home).

It was not easy to cross the hills, the only way was reach top of the hill & cross from top.

We were running out of water & food. Not sure at what time we reach some human inhabitants place or water source, each drop of water was precious.

But there was one point, where we had to enter thick jungle & reach the bottom of the jungle to climb over to the other hill.

I’m sure this was part of jungle should a virgin jungle never touched by humans.

As proverb goes ‘Fortune favors the brave’, as we were entering the deep valley we found water source. how lucky we were ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,after filling up the bottles we started the up hill.

Finally @5pm we were standing on a peak facing OG.

A thick deep valley was separating us from OG. The only option we had was to getting down in to this thick forest & climb up to reach OG.

As it was getting darker, we decided to camp in the hill top for night.

But khan’s health was getting worse, he was totally exhausted.

We were not sure of khan’s health for the next morning, this was an serious issue.

It was like gambling one’s life. In case his health worsens more, he would really need medical attention, which was no where near.

By god’s grace we had network signal & called up our friends.

We decided to check the only emergency option if in case.

I called by friend shyam & told him to enquire about air lifting possibilities.

The answer we got was, there were no helicopters, most of them are on election duties.

If at all available it cannot go beyond 200 kms without refueling. Also the cost was around 5 lacs.

All this were not encouraging sign.

Unlike U.S. we don’t have airlift options from government.

It again proved we are just a common man in India no matter what.

The only thing we could do was pray god & hope for khan fitness.

Although there was no panic, anxiety in the group, surely there was some worry.

Few questions crossed my mind,

Khan’s health

Is the hill facing is OG or some other hill?

Can we cross this jungle safely?

Do we have a chance to see the civilized world again?

Everyone had there own apprehension,

Jalak was missing his wife,

KB too was missing his wife.

Girish & Sandeep ran out of cigarette stock.

Khan was praying for a good sleep.

As sun went down, we all prepared for sleep. And the rotational ‘Team Guarding’ exercise was followed. Again myself & Prasad rao got 4-6am shift.

We played cards under moon light till the sun came out.

Day-3

Khan woke-up & was looking fit & refreshing.

As decided we entered the thick forest valley in the morning.

After an hour of trek, luck strikes again as we reached the bottom of the valley,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Water ,,,,,,,,,,,water ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, .

We got fresh here , had breakfast & resumed the trek.

As we just crossed the river & started uphill, we reached a man made path , it was wide enough for jeep.

Now after team discussion we decided to follow this track hoping to reach a human habitant place. Although this was instantaneous decision, many had a gut feeling that this may lead to some habitation place.

After an hour of walk along this track we reached a coffee estate & followed by few houses. This was most rejoicing moment. Then we requested the driver of the estate there to drop us to Hosakere. He finally agreed after narrating khan’s health condition

Finally we reached Hosakere, bruised, with scrached hands & legs.

Spent few relaxed moments in village water canal took bath & left to bangalore

And we know to reach Bangalore from Hosakere is a cake walk.

& we did so ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,reached Bangalore in the late evening.