Trek to Brahmagiri, Coorg (23rd, 24th Oct 2010)

This was my first trekking experience with BMC. Knowing how tough it is to get a group of friends together for a trek, I decided to go ahead and take a shot at going with a new and unknown group of people through BMC. It turned out to be a very good idea and I had an amazing experience.

Our group of 16 started from Bangalore at 10:30 PM on Friday night. We reached Madikeri at 4:30 AM on Saturday and settled into a home-stay about 8 km from Madikeri. We got fresh and had breakfast there and drove towards the base of Brahmagiri (about 80km from the homestay) around 7AM enjoying the amazing weather. At the forest office in Brahmagiri, we were delayed for a couple of hours in getting a guide and we decided to use that time in Irupu falls.

We finally started the trek around 12 noon. Thanks to the leeches which were all along the path, we made quick progress through the forest, with nobody stopping for a break because of the fear of leeches getting into the shoes. We crossed the forest stretch in good time and reached the grasslands and were greeted by some breathtaking views of the hills covered with mist. Since we did not have permission to camp in the hills, we had to start back by 3PM due to which we had to be satisfied with reaching Narimale peak and not Brahmagiri peak.

We trekked back to falls and "washed away" our leeches in the water there. I had about 20 bites on each leg :( . In spite of that, the trek was most enjoyable.

Out host at the home-stay was kind enough to setup a warm campfire for us. We spent a couple of hours a the campfire and then settled into tents that we had pitched in the estate.

Sunday morning, we spent some time walking in the estate through the coffee plantations and then headed back to Bangalore. We visited the Tibetan monastery (Golden Temple) in Kushalnagar on the way to Bangalore.