Trekking has been a passion that I have managed to purse on a near annual basis courtesy my team. Every year when we as a team get together we go on a offsite activity which is usually out into the wilderness. The first two treks were into the forests of Mudumalai, the treks were real exciting but not with the quest of reaching a summit but with a coupled feeling of thrill & fear on being able to see an animal in its natural habitat. I have not managed to see any, but a part of my team saw a tiger. According to the available data, the tiger population in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve Forest, could range between 62 and 80 in an area of 321 Square KM. With these stats how precious this sighting is. That is enough backgrounder, but as a trekker I am still a novice in trekking, never scaled the heights of a peak, and this thought was always on, Chembra was the peak to summit.
Chembra is in Wayanad district in Kerala, its 2100m above sea level that is about 6600 feet, height of UB tower is at 120m, which means that the peak is at 17.5 times the height of UB tower. All this data is in retrospect we had no clue about the height of the peak when we started of the trek. We were supposed to start the trek at around 9 AM but we could manage to start only at 12:30.
When we reached the forest office, we were asked to pay five hundred only, and he arranged a guide for us. We had to walk up to the point where the trek starts as the road leading to the start point had caved in, which meant walking at least 5 km. I was asking the guide in Malayalam which was the peak, but he said that the peak could not be seen. This was one question that would be only answered when we finished the trek.
After the uneventful rather boring walk we reached the tower, which was the start point. After catching a few quick glimpses of the view from the tower we started the trek to Chembra. Think we would have covered 3 km when we just did a status check; the route was at a 50 degree incline, and some of us would not be able to make it as the guide told us that it would get worse and more slippery. Some of us had to leave company to maintain critical mass so that they could head back to the tower and wait. The rest of us now resumed the trek. The team here is Syed, Bala, Praveen, Marco, Nasir & myself.
At some point Syed cited a Kannada proverb “doradha Betta Nonnuge” which means a peak is the distance looks small and easy to scale. The trek was no straight path we would have reached 500m above sea level with no sight of chembra; we still had to cross to other peaks before we could even see Chembra.
It’s no rock climbing, cliff hanger kind of stuff, but nature was testing our strengths to scale one of its peaks. After climbing a stretch, on some occasions you would be totally out of breath, some parts it was just steep, so you had to get your position right. We were in monsoon season, so the rocks were slippery and the threat of leeches. On the leeches we never got bitten at all, not that it hurts or we were worried but they just did not get to us.
After a few stretches we reached the grassland part, here the terrain was easier, so these are some of the spots we managed to take a few pictures. The views were amazing you could stand there for days looking at the peak and the mist clad mountains. But we had no sign of the heart shaped lake which was our destination; we saw a heart shaped lake and nearly declaring victory when the guide told us that this was the smaller one and we still had some distance to go. We crossed another peak and finally from a distance we could see the lake, it was like the schools had closed and it was summer holidays. The guys ran towards the lake, from a distance you see clapping, thumbs ups in the air. It was victory. We reached the peak at 2:30, there was no way we could reach the peak as the officers shut the place off by 4:00.
We had finally reached with 2 liters of water and one red bull shared by 6 guys and top it all most of us were in sports shoes which were made so that we could skid. With the rains and the slippery rocks everyone had their fair share of falls. I topped the list, with my 12 year old addidas tennis shoes. This was a shoes bought by my mom, the shoes had whistood all the abuse of 12 year including the previous treks, but on the terrain of chembra asking anti skid from a tennis shoe is just way too much. I slipped at every 5th corner, but finally was able to reach the tower with no major injuries.
Chembra is in Wayanad district in Kerala, its 2100m above sea level that is about 6600 feet, height of UB tower is at 120m, which means that the peak is at 17.5 times the height of UB tower. All this data is in retrospect we had no clue about the height of the peak when we started of the trek. We were supposed to start the trek at around 9 AM but we could manage to start only at 12:30.
When we reached the forest office, we were asked to pay five hundred only, and he arranged a guide for us. We had to walk up to the point where the trek starts as the road leading to the start point had caved in, which meant walking at least 5 km. I was asking the guide in Malayalam which was the peak, but he said that the peak could not be seen. This was one question that would be only answered when we finished the trek.After the uneventful rather boring walk we reached the tower, which was the start point. After catching a few quick glimpses of the view from the tower we started the trek to Chembra. Think we would have covered 3 km when we just did a status check; the route was at a 50 degree incline, and some of us would not be able to make it as the guide told us that it would get worse and more slippery. Some of us had to leave company to maintain critical mass so that they could head back to the tower and wait. The rest of us now resumed the trek. The team here is Syed, Bala, Praveen, Marco, Nasir & myself.
At some point Syed cited a Kannada proverb “doradha Betta Nonnuge” which means a peak is the distance looks small and easy to scale. The trek was no straight path we would have reached 500m above sea level with no sight of chembra; we still had to cross to other peaks before we could even see Chembra.
It’s no rock climbing, cliff hanger kind of stuff, but nature was testing our strengths to scale one of its peaks. After climbing a stretch, on some occasions you would be totally out of breath, some parts it was just steep, so you had to get your position right. We were in monsoon season, so the rocks were slippery and the threat of leeches. On the leeches we never got bitten at all, not that it hurts or we were worried but they just did not get to us.
After a few stretches we reached the grassland part, here the terrain was easier, so these are some of the spots we managed to take a few pictures. The views were amazing you could stand there for days looking at the peak and the mist clad mountains. But we had no sign of the heart shaped lake which was our destination; we saw a heart shaped lake and nearly declaring victory when the guide told us that this was the smaller one and we still had some distance to go. We crossed another peak and finally from a distance we could see the lake, it was like the schools had closed and it was summer holidays. The guys ran towards the lake, from a distance you see clapping, thumbs ups in the air. It was victory. We reached the peak at 2:30, there was no way we could reach the peak as the officers shut the place off by 4:00.We had finally reached with 2 liters of water and one red bull shared by 6 guys and top it all most of us were in sports shoes which were made so that we could skid. With the rains and the slippery rocks everyone had their fair share of falls. I topped the list, with my 12 year old addidas tennis shoes. This was a shoes bought by my mom, the shoes had whistood all the abuse of 12 year including the previous treks, but on the terrain of chembra asking anti skid from a tennis shoe is just way too much. I slipped at every 5th corner, but finally was able to reach the tower with no major injuries.
We had reached a height of 1600m, but 2100 was target it was just that time was not available. With breakfast at 9:00 AM and nothing else when we reached Kalpetta, south indian good breakfast or tiffin items is like an endangered species. Non veg is plentiful but good veg food is rare, but we found solace in an awesome Uduppi restaurant, if there was a video of me eating it would have been in the list of scary vidoes on youtube.
We will be back Chembra some time, as of now we plan to summit Kumara Parvatha in the month of October, which is a 2 day trek.
Good one Rohan. Just as usual. Definitely this trip was the mother of trips we had done so far in terms of the trekking. The saying, "Best comes in the last" is true in this case. And not to forget the way we hogged at the hotel was too funny LOL. Look ahead to be a part of the team for the KP summit AMEN
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