All my eagerness and waiting for the trek to Mullayangiri, bababudangiri and kemmangundi began with Aashish, Sajna and me meeting at the ksrtc bus stop at bangalore. We boarded the 11.30pm chickmanglur reserved bus and reached Chickmangalur by 5am. It's a 5.5hrs journey from Bangalore. My friends from Mangalore had already arrived by 1am and were waiting for us at a near by lodge. Shama, Vishu(Vishwanath), Swosti, Fazal and Ghouse were all half asleep half awake when we knocked on their door. Quickly without wasting much time we got ready with our already packed backpacks and left to have our delicious idli's at a nearby restaurant. Not sure of how to reach our first check point "Sarpadri" we asked for a couple of jeeps to drop us off at Sarpardri but they wouldn't for anything less than 800rs. As we went on searching for a budget travel, a 6.30am "Chickmanglur to BB hills" bus came to our rescue. The bus left Chickmanglur as the conductor promised and the conductor allowed us to ride on the roof top which was an amazing experience to all of us.

The Ride on top of the bus

                              
  In less then 45min we were dropped off at Sarpadri-check point 1.
 

Check point-1 Sarpadri

  After clicking a few pics at check point-1, we started our wonderfull journey to the top of mullayangiri. The climb form Sarpadri is pretty steep till the top, may be an inclination of about 60-70degrees. The first timers were a little hesitant at the begining and once warmed up we were all looking forward to reach the peak.This part of the trek offers some amazing views of the western ghats. Green, Green and Green everywhere.

 

 And when the heavens come down to you..

 When i'm left behind..

With cool wind hitting your skin and clouds brining the instant chilling effect on you, it's simply fabulous. It took us a little more than 2 hours to reach the Mullayangiri temple form the base, Check point 2. The view here is again mind blowing. I'm definately planning to drive upto this place with my family. Though the temple on top didn't seem to be of great importance but the scenery around is spectacular. I could see atleast 20 odd vehicles parked in the parking lot and the roads leading upto this place very much motor able.

 The Mullayangirieshwara temple at the top.

 After a visit to the temple we continued our trek towards the Bababudangiri. I was damn sure of a way that starts from the back gate of the temple but a few guys told there was no other way except the motarable road or descend from the same path we trekked and continue on the road to reach bababudangiri. After much confusion I finally decided to look out for the path which was on my mind. There was a path behind the temple which leads to Bababudangiri. The BSNL tower was hardly visible because of the mist and finally we were on track. We continued on this path till we hit the road as described on one fo the blog. The path from Mullayangiri to this road is pretty easy but no shade of any kind.



Once we hit the roads there was confusion again! We continued on the road in search for a path on to the right which would take us to bababudangiri through the mountains. With the BSNL tower on to our right we continued the walk on the road.

The intersection where the mountain path form mullayangiri to BBG hits the road.

 After having walked quite a bit and no clue of the moutain path(a couple of locals too never knew about this path), most of first timers tired we decided to take the next vehicle to reach Bababudangiri. By 4pm we reached a restaurant (shack would be the word) and everyone except munched on omlettes and soggy egg fried rice, i hd a parata with dal(water+chilli powder+dal). We had a chat with the guy there who gave us a clear picture of the place like how to reach, what are the places. He also offered to arrange for a jeep for the next day for us and gave us his card. I have put it down below, it could be of some help. - - - -

There was a bus which was supposed to come to this place at 4.30 but it never did and a jeep agreed to drop us off at BBgiri for 150rs. By 5pm we reached BBgiri and continued to gaalikere for camping as planned but a police guy mislead ed us telling that this place is not very safe, it's haunted, tigers, leopards bla bla bla.. Already having lost enough time we after discussion planned to camp in BBgiri itself

 

 The camping site.

This place has a number of shops, pilgrims coming to the Darga littered the place and a number of vehicles. We finally found a camping site and finally pitched our tents by 7. Slowly the mist engulfed the entire place and the temperature dropped to about 8degrees and visibility to less than 10mts. We purchased some firewood from the shop there and started with our cooking. It took us entire 30min to get the fire up in spite of pouring good amount of petrol. Happy that it was not that windy and our tents still intact we chatted by the fire, had our instant noodles, Vishu's yummy chooda, choclates, wafers. By 10pm there were atleast 100odd cows in our camping site, one of which woke us up at middle of the night running amock between the two tents. I fell asleep again and woke up by 5am. It was terribly cold and thanks to the tent which had kept us really warm throught the night. We had dropped our trek plan to Kemmangundi because most of them were tired and i didn't want to take a risk with the first timers in the team. Had yummy bread jam for breakfast with more jam than bread, tea from nearby shop and we rented a jeep for local sight seeing. He drove us first to Hebbe falls, the last 10km stretch of the road(no road rather)that leads to this falls is something that only a mahindra jeep does. Nothing else can sustain this kinda road, the drive was amazing and the Hebbe falls too..amazingly crystal clear water. A few pics from this falls and en-route to it.

A rivulet that we crossed

Hebbe Falls

   
 Spent some good amount of time in the falls and we headed towards Kemmangundi. It's just Scenic views the Kemmangundi view point and here we spent a lot of time clicking photos.

Titanic 3D :D

                                                                    

Trying some Anti-Gravity stuff

                                                
  By 4pm we were on the route to Kalahatgiri falls which is also on the way to chickmanglur(our drop off point). The driver told us that this waterfall had dried up in this season and it's not worth it, so we continued to our drop off point Chickmanglur. Had late lunch at one of the restaurants and exactly at 5pm we were at the chickmanglur ksrtc bus stop. The three of us took the Bangalore bus and the rest headed towards their place of stay "Mangalore" by boarding a Dharmastala bus.

All in all the trek dind't happen as expected and I am a little upset with that but all of us had amazing fun. May be I'll do this entire stretch of trek again and hope will do the entire strech wihtout confusion. Cheers to all my fellow mates Aashish, Sajna, Shama, Swosti, Gaus and Fazal who came all the way from Kerala to be apart of this wonderful journey.

There are somethings in life that will always bring a smile on your face when you remember them and this has been one such experience to me. Thanks a lot to all of you who gave me these lovely memories.

Let's do it again guys! Cheers! We \m/