Yelagiri Trekking

This trip deserves a special mention as it exposed me to some hardcore trekking for the first time. I was totally out of energy yesterday to post it, and gathered some today to post about it. Saturday morning, 3.30 AM we were awake and successfully disturbed those sleeping in our friend's home. At 4.50AM we were out and on the way to Majestic. Luckily we got a bus to Majestic. Thats where our luck ends. Reached Majestic at 5.30 or so to see a three loooong queue for taking tickets. Waiting to get the tickets meant, we will have to travel to Jolarpettai standing for two hours. Since we travelled together as a group, the trouble was esily overshadowed in the fun we had during the journey.

After finishing the breakfast at Jolarpettai, we were on the way to Yelargiri. One unique feature of the route to Yelagiri is that the hair pin bends are named after tamil poets like "Pavendar valaivu", "kabilar Valaivu" etc. Yelagiri seems to be a small town, left undisturbed till now and Yelagiri people seem to live closely with the nature. First stop was at Poonganur lake, a small artificial lake which looked ok and did not attract us very much. After that we started our trek to Jalagampaarai falls. We trode along examining the reasonably developed Yelagiri, with hotels lining both sides of the road. We had a different opinion about Yelagiri before we went there.

The trek to Jalagampaarai was a lot tiresome as we started at around 11.00 AM when Sun was ready to suck the full energy. On the way we found Mr.Raman, who from then acted as our guide. Good that we met him, it could have been really difficult to find the way. Mr. Raman, who could be easily around 55 to 60, astonished us with the stamina and strength he possessed. He rarely stopped in the 10KM trek. We were left with no other option than to run behind him :) Anyway we covered around 10KM trek in around 4 hours with very few stops except for the a long stop for lunch. It was sad to sight few plastic papers even in those untrodden hills.

We were lucky, since there was some water was tickling in the falls, hence we were able to take bath and derive some satisfaction. The most important part of the trek is that we stayed in tent. This is the first time i had stayed in tent. We started back to Bangalore the next day after having "Kaara Panniyaaram". Together we managed to eat 50 panniyaarams. To our surprise it costed us just Rs. 50.Yet another sign, Yelagiri is yet to be spoiled. We made sure that we don't disturb Yelagiri by throwing the plastic covers, and carried dozens back to bangalore to be disposed safely. The only disappointing fact about the trip is that there are not much scenic spots that would gather the attention.

Before i end, people in the trip include Muthukumar Anna, Deivapalan, Rajaguru, Sai, Nachiappan, Praveen and myself. Check out my picasa and stay in touch with the same, as there are more snaps to follow,

http://picasaweb.google.com/sens2003/YelagiriTrekking#

So there ends yet another memorable trip.