Tuesday, November 22, 2011

12-13 Nov 2011 Night Trek - Nocturnal Nagalapuram

I was all excited to have enrolled, gave fitness test for Night Trek - Nagalapuram. 
Another reason is Nithesh was joining this time after missing out on Nagala -East. 
Am gloomy as there's no camera for this trek to capture sunrise from an altitude of 880m.

12 Nov 2011
As always at 04:15 PM, Nathan's cafe met couple of new friends. We started at 05:45 PM from CMBT as one member got too delayed which made us wait for over an hour. For strange reasons, Guru(organiser) took Tiruverkaadu route with 4 folks in Anitha's i10, our van followed them and it was already 06:30 PM when we crossed Tiruverkaadu Junction.


We reached Nagalapuram by 09:40 PM, food was distributed and night trek started at 10PM.



kept trekking by talking initially - I had to carry Varunesh's bag who wasn't moving a bit which slowed my pace considerably and tired me out sooner than expected. 
Guru -the organiser was trying to push Varuneesh going but he doesn't want to proceed further.  Guru was also carrying 2 bags. After almost 90 min into the trek -Rajsekar waited to check if everyone is alright. He joined Guru in trying to make Varunesh move further.


13 Nov 2011

After a brief halt for sometime to energize our bodies, we reached a place where we left most luggage-carried bare essentials to reach the hill-top. Me & Nithesh decided to carry his bag-leaving my bag back. It was at this place where Varunesh decided to stay back or was left back. Rest 16 of us moved ahead trekking in night with the help of torches, moon-light & other foot-steps. 


Finally about 03:40 AM we scaled 880m peak South peak in Nagalapuram. The view was just amazing and very hard to put in words. Take a look at the pictures below.

It was so cold and chill, we tried to rest-take a nap in-between those humungous rocks and whatever little bit space was available. They should have lit some fire using those dry branches available -wonder why it wasn't done.




We waited till sun woke-up to witness amazing sun-rise slowly from the horizon with vast open fields below & mountains all around us. The wait was worth-it baring the cold, clouds









We started our detour by descending down around 7AM or so. 
As during the ascend, it was Brijesh who was leading us with the help of GPS. 


We met Varunesh; at this point Brijesh & Rajsekar made soup for us. After re-fueling our tummies its time to move down which looked as if it's never going to end.


Still we kept trekking at a place for close to about 30-40 min till we came back in trail with GPS. I kept hearing the noise from the stream ---kept trekking down still the stream never showed up. Finally around 01:30 PM or so we spotted the stream. few guys in front kept moving down....me and Nithesh joined Brijesh and others in no-time we reached the 2nd pool by 02:10 PM. spent some time in pool..swam and changed while Nithesh joined Brijesh and others to the 3rd pool. 


Trek concluded with all of us reaching parking bay around 5PM. As in all treks it seems like customary to booze in Himalaya wines near Uttukottai before we got dropped in Koyambedu by 08:30 PM


 

Monday, November 21, 2011

Trek Nagalapuram, East 17-18 Sep 2011

17 Sept 2011

I had to reach CMBT by 4:20AM. It started pouring down from last night, I managed to wake-up by 03:00AM and managed to reach Nathan's cafe (near CMBT -regular pick-up or assemble point for almost all Chennai Trekking Club treks) in time after couple of auto-refusals. Due to heavy rain, we waited for a while and kicked-off our journey towards Nagalapuram by 05:30AM. I was in Premkumar's wagon car along with Adithya Verma & Anavardhan Raj. I met Prem during my 1st trek to Venkatagiri so I wasnt alone as Nithesh (co-worker) who joined me last time couldnt make it.  In about 2-2:30 hrs we reached Nagalapuram after having tea-coffee in Utthukottai.





All cars were parked off near temple, food-fruits-energy supplements or our ration was disturbed for the trek and we started walking. 
First view of walking along the bank of relatively decent pond with mountains at the backdrop on one-side and tall-lush green trees on the other-side was treat to eyes. 
This is one the reason most members come to trek -being with mother nature with cleanest of fresh air to breathe and crystal clear water to drink.





I kept taking a pictures, one of the organisers urged me to move ahead as there's lot of other places ahead to be photographed and so our trek started around 09:00 AM
We kept trekking by the stream crossing some-huge boulders to pools.










We reached dead-end pool 11:20 AM where we had breakfast or ate to refuel our bodies. 
We crossed the dead-end-pool with our bags ferried across using swimming tubes and swimmers assisting non-swimmers to cross the pool. At the end of which we had to cross this huge rock served as a natural obstacle.













After this we settled down to have lunch around 02:15 PM and continued our trekking till we reached our destination to stop-cook-rest- spend that night under the sky 
by picnic pool where we arrived just about dusk -maybe around 06:00 PM. 

 
Trek party cooked soup followed by sambar rice (bisibella bath) for dinner. rested our legs, bodies after settling down by the picnic pool and slept under open sky gazing at stars. It wasn't chill or cold that night rather pleasant with the sound of stream to keep company.


18 Sept 2011
Dawn (early morning) was spectacular ............. words cant explain or express the below









I kept waking-up few times and as expected missed to join few folks heading further up the pool to catch splendid views which I saw later on Adithya's camera. 







After spending some time swimming in the pool, taking loads of pictures and packing all set to come-down.We had something for breakfast and emptied sambar rice left from last night for lunch and started our de-tour around noon. Trekking back was something close to cake-walk with most of trekkers were comfortable with the route/trail.









 

Again by after dusk, Trek ended with almost everyone reached the starting point on the pond bank by 06:10 PM or so. We parted ways after having dinner in dhaba near Utthukottai. Prem dropped me in Lucas flyover & I reached home by 10:30 PM.

Another memorable experience trekking with CTC.  
Thanks for organisers Ela & Raj Jacob.