Mullayanagiri Trek

On Friday night(24th October) we left Bangalore to trek the summit of Karnataka-Mullayanagiri, which is the highest peak b/w vindhya mountains and nilgiris with a massive height of 1910 mfs(6317 feet). This is situated in Chikamagalur district, around 12km from city and also part of western ghats.
(click on images to expand) Peak covered by mist..

After a nice journey through great roads, we reached Chikamagalur. On saturday morning after having the breakfast, we reached Sarpadhaari(Snake's path) from where the trekking starts. This is around 12km from the city. With few liters of water, we started trekking, just within 30 mins we started to see the beauty of western ghats. At few places it was steep also bit slippery because of mist and previous day rain. We reached the top of the small cliff from where the photo session started.

Temperature started to drop with height. When we reached the nandhi, visibility was hardly 10-15 meters. From nandhi its bit steep, till cave. The priest in the temple told that few decades back, tigers were there. The Cave:
Second cave is pretty long, we could go hardly 20 feet inside, from there on its was muddy, also nobody was interested in crawling. Few more steps from here we reached top, where it was like a heaven. Its a great panaromic view. Lush green mountain chains, looked smooth and curvy. We could see few huge lakes in and around the city. Slowly clouds started to cover the mountains, as a thin blanket.

Bhaanalli oDo megha girigo ninthalle yoga....
We were so close to the summit and wanted to be on it for few seconds at least, started climbing the temple top one after the other....
On the Summit....

After having the lunch we went Ayyanakere (has lot of historical significance),which is in Sakharayapattana (around 18kms from the city). We saw few ponds on the way confusing it with Ayyankere, but once we reached there entire idea changed. It is so huge, came to know its the second biggest in the state. Time was already 5pm, so we couldn't stay for long.
Awesome Ayyankere....

When we came back from the lake it was already dark and had to walk more than 1km because of mist. Visibility was too low, it had rained for few hours more over land slide is common, so we walked and our driver followed us. No stars, not even single light source that we could get other than the vehicle headlights. Had to wake up priest for dinner, by the time we finished it time was around 11pm. To set up tent we took nearly a hour struggling with torches.
Tent and the Track....
It was a shivering night. In recent past this was one of the most coldest night we faced. Since we had our tent at the entrance of the of the temple, crowd started to build pretty early, making hell a lot of noise and waking us up. This is one Sunday morning which i'll remember for a long time. We could get a glimpse of sunrise it was awesome!!!. After having a coffee, we packed our luggage and tents. We took only the things which were necessary for our trek, kept other in the cab and told our driver to come to Bababudangiri.
Sunrise from the peak

Bababudangiri: Walk on the Edge
Just besides the temple, there's a small route which leads to a wonderful walk. We could see the tower, which was our destination. Luckily it was bright sunny day with no clouds. I have read few blogs in which most of them couldn't complete their walk because of mist. While getting down from a rock i slipped had small scratches. After just a few hundred meters, we saw wide range of grass, with small flowers covering wide spectrum of colors. We named it "The Valley of Flower", which were every where from here on.
Harisha and HM took few great snaps here. A couple of hour later we had our breakfast (thanks to MTR) and reached view point. Few kids were there, then went crazy by seeing us, this view point didn't had much for us, since we had seen better than this already.
From here onwards at least for one hour or so journey was challenging, some times we were hardly a foot away from a thousand feet fall or even more. Jumping, rock-climbing whatever we could try, we did but with real care. This was worth the journey. This picture may not depict the complexity...
We reached the towers, sat for while relaxing and watching the peak we came from, eating cucumber(may be the best one till now) it was so cold, the air was pure. Harisha played Pink Floyd n few others. This was really great time i had since ages.
From here we reached, Galikere and then to Bababudangiri. We were so hungry, we had parota and dates. Bababudangiri is spoiled to the core. Wherever you go, you can find plastic, bottles and clothes. Manikyadhara is falls which can be avoided without any regrets. We were a day before to a yearly function, wherein nearly a lakh people will gather for function. This temple looked really great from the viewpoint, with saffron flag waving before clear blue sky.

Beautiful Sunset

While coming back, the sky had a great transformation from blue to a crimson red. For 2-3kms we had great view. We were running short of batteries, hence could take only few snaps.
In mullayanagiri, there's a belief that if you carry a brick to the top of the hill(around 454 steps-Bharath's count) i.e., to the temple, it will bring good. Its a great thing, since some construction is going near temple it will be of great help to the masoners. Where as in Manikyadhara, you need to leave behind one item of the clothing to achieve the same. This belief has ruined this place. What an irony!

Few more wonderful snaps:
Keeping count of the trekkers:

May be the next windows wallpaper:

The Sholas:
Our team: Harish, Bharath, Kiran, Shashi, Manjunath HM, Pradeep and me..

Reference: Few blogs, Karnataka tourism site and wikipedia. Also thanks to Harisha and HM for matured and wonderful photographs, i had really tough time to choose for the blog.
For Trekkers:
Best season- October to Feb mid.
Distance:
Bangalore to Chikamagalur- 250kms
Complexity: Average on a clear day. Not much water sources on the way. May become really tough based on visibility and rain.

Open for Comments,

Super Man(junath)