Mullayanagiri - The Killer Mountain

It was quite some time since I went on a trekking expedition ( Yedukumeri was the last). Things had changed a lot post that, I had lost 8 kilos, continuously working on my stamina, lung capacity had improved and even the endurance as I used to walk for 25 kms on weekends. Now it was time to test my bodies endurance!!!.

The previous week Santosh had been to Kumara Parvatha with Vikram, Sunil, Bhaskar and Swaroop which I couldent make it. I had taken off on a Friday and Santosh was ready to join me and we were yet to finalize on a destination. I did lot of googling on Friday and came out with 3 destinations, Thadiyendamol in Coorg, Chembara in Waynad and Mullayanagiri in Chikmagalur. The information I could gather about Mullayanagiri was, it’s the highest peak in Karnataka (1,930meters), board a bus to Chikmagalur, from there take another bus to Mullayanagiri, from there start the trek through sarpa dhari.
So we zeroed down on Mullayanagiri and Santosh said he would pick me at my place to go to Majestic at 8.30 PM. I packed 10 chapathies and a MTR’s ready made pack of panner butter masala (which we never opened). We reached Majestic at 8 and there were too many busses leaving to Chikmagalur and we got into one that was leaving at 9. Though I tried to get some sleep the excitement and Santosh’s crazy jokes didn’t let me sleep. We reached Chikmagalur exactly at 3.30 in the morning and we didn’t have any busses going to Mullayanagiri at that time. We had to wait till 6 in the morning. We were not ready to waste 2 precious hours and wanted to start as soon as possible so that our exposure to sun during the trek is minimal. We took a rick who to Mullayanagiri foot hills and he charged us 180 rs (very expensive for 10km distance).
We started our trek 8km before sarpa dhari on a neat tar road which passes between estates and few huts and houses on both the sides and dogs scaring us quite often. It was 4 in the morning when the hill started to show its color through the raising terrain.By 5 we hit a junction of 2 roads, one going straight and the other twords the left. The only information I had was the trek route to Mullayanagiri starts through sarpa dhari which has a mettalic arch entrance. Initially we took the left and proceeded 1 km where we realized we were going to the peak through the road and not the trek route. We came back to the junction and took the other route in search of the arch and finally found one and I was shocked!!!!!!!!!

I expected the arch to be something like the one that we have in RR nagar entrance in Bangalore but was hard to digest that it was max 6 feet tall which is hardly visible covered with tall grasses and when we went closer we also found a board stating the name of the donor of that arch. That was really funny!!. We started to climb the hill at 5.30 and we were sweating by 6 and taking deep breaths. That should explain how steep the hill is and to make things worse Santosh got cramps in between as he had done a trek the previous week.
We started to rest e very 20 mins and the climb was getting worse. By 6.30 we were half way through and the sun rise welcomed us and the view was mind blowing.

After few more breaks we ware on top of Mullayanagiri and there is a very old temple of lord shiva at the summit.

The priest served us hot coffee and charged Rs 20, trust me its worth more than that after such a climb.
The priest showed us a tower and asked us to follow that to reach Bababaudangiri or we can descend Mullayanagiri and we would get a main road where you have lots of busses that would take you back to Chikmagalur.

We decided to hit the road and later looking at our condition choose weather to climb Bababudangiri hills or go back to Chikmagalur. We started to descend Mullayanagiri by 8.15. When you are climbing a hill you knee and thighs would hurt, but when you are descending your toes would start hurting which is more painful. The descend was not as killing as the climb and we managed to hit the main road by 9.15. We asked a passerby how many km’s was Bababudangiri and he said it was 8. The very first thought that hit us was, its easily doable and we started off before we realized those 8 kms meant a hard 8 km climb over a hill.


The view from here was amazing but had no energy to feel it. We started the climb by 9.30 and we hit the tower by 12. We started taking breaks every 5 mins looking at the tower and it looked as though the tower, our destination was moving away from us. Whenever we crossed a small hill a new hill would popup in between. Luckily we carried enough water and dehydration was out of question. We had reached the end of Bababudangiri hills and we had to walk about 3 kms to catch a bus to chikmagalur which was out of question. Luckley a muslim family who happened to be there dropped us near the bus stop. We went to the nearby shop and I had 3 bottles of warm slice as none of the shops there had a refrigerator. The bus leaving to chikmagalur was parked in a distance and the driver told us that it would be leaving in 20 mins, so we went and slept off. When I woke up an hour later the bus was still parked in the same place and me and Santosh were the only 2 people in the bus .We never thought 20 mins would be 1hr 30 mins. Finally we reached chikmagalur at 2.30 in the noon and we found a decent lodge and when we paid the advance I realized that I had forgotton to draw cash and I went in hunt of an ATM which was 2 km from our lodge. We took bath and had a heartly lunch and slept at 4 and I woke up by 6 in the evening. As the bus stop was pretty close I went and booked the Rajahamsa which was leaving by 10.30 PM. We spent the evening roaming in the city and left chikmagalur having a decent dinner.
We reached Bangalore by 5 am and knew it would take a day or too for the pain in the leg to fade off but the experience and confidence would never.

For more pics please click the link below

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/sunilkaushik15/Mullengiri#