Jumanji/4 With Bangalore ASCENDers

Preplan:

The 2 day trek Jumanji/4 was called for off regular track, exploring regions around Thadiyandamol & to reach Kerala, Sasipara. This trek route does not exist, options was made on the fly during trek.

Cautions given:

This trek is for experienced trekkers only, because of unfamiliar terrain, very less idea on water availability, Mountains, Dense forest, Rivers etc. Monsoon season and should be prepared for leaches and rain gears.

@ Day 1.

The wildness was inside the J team, 11 brave souls were ready to go and show their hunger and thrust to explore and find a virgin route to Kerala through Thadiyandamol Hills. Lucky, I was also part of team Jumanji.

The time was around 11 when the team initiated the journey of Jumanji to the trek base at Thadiyandamol and we reached around 7am. By that time all shared past experiences and also about the old series of Jumanji. Ram was the one who shared a lot. So the team was perfectly in rhythm before journey.

The Big Rock towards Thadiyandamol was the trek commencing place. We had breakfast with the sign how would be the monsoon season will affect the trek. Yes there was the ultimate blood suckers “LEECHES”. The amounts of L’s were heavy just after 100m from there.

The trail was leading us some extend, after crossing around the Thadiyandamol peak through the trail, it suddenly stopped. The blended beauty of Mother Nature with mist was absolutely eye catchy. Sudheer and Jinu were in memory of Jumanji/3. They were explaining and pointing where they were…!

While moving ahead through grass hills strong sign of the presence of Giant were true visible. Fresh dong of elephant and foot print, along with crushed green grass were threatening us. Ohh! On very next hill the Giants were with family. (We were happy because it is not single). 8 of them with 3 baby elephants. We went the same way as elephants took. When they were so visible, we took, round route to overtake them. (GPS was also pointing the same way where the elephants went.L) But very next step we saw a small snake laying on the ground. But it was dead. We buried the snake with respect, for fun.

Crushing and breaking sound of wood and new foot prints of elephants were our way pointers from there. Both the side was too steep, and only way was the same way the elephants went. So we started chasing them. (Not they, we were chasing them) An elephant made way in dense forest is so enough and may be luxurious for us to walk. We all were giving time to take away Leeches from our body, and also for snacks. So the elephants went ahead. (They were aware of us and they know we were chasing them.) It was almost late evening, the light was thin. We have to find a water body to camp. We heard sound of a stream; we assumed that the elephant also went the same route for water. (There was only one route; sides are so dense and steep.). Sudheer was leading that time, just behind ‘I’ then Keerthna. We were in hurry to find water that time. On a small curve Sudheer suddenly slowed down and I was in the same pace, holly nature! Some feet away the elephants were standing. Sudheer and I turned back and started to run. The coordination of team was really well for the 50m run. (Yes, all were expecting this encounter.)

We even started thinking to throw a cracker to them and shoo them away. But the question was if they turn panic and run scattered, our job will multiply, and it was getting to sunset. We waited there some minutes, they went to the stream, and they were playing with water. Sudheer went for a look, and a strong warning were given to him. Again after a while we went to the stream and they were gone. We had our lunch there. Yes it was very late lunch. Near by the stream there was some old jeep trail too. After fast lunch, we decided to cross the stream and head towards destination Sasipara.

Yes the stream looks small but it was with strong current. It was not so deep though. I went into stream and tied rope at other end, and we made a human chain to transfer the backpacks. The water was icy cold. We made a nice team work there.

After crossing the water, we were searching for the other end of the jeep trail, but we were unable to find it for a while, after exploring for a camp place we got the trail back. Jinu said there is a house around 6km uphill and we may get a good camping place there. So we all decided to ascend. The second stretch was horribly filled with leeches, and it was too steep also. The rate was dropped because all were tiered. Slow moving J team started voicing to get settle, especially me. In my mind, it was fully about the next day, if it is as same we should give rest. But Jinu was pushing us to walk, again walk walk walk…….. 

When Naveen took off his shoes, a pool of blood was filled in because of leeches. There was some sign of civilization like plastic, pan covers, even casual floaters etc. Finally we came to know that it’s leads to a dead end. So we came down a little to camp. An uneven surface with a lot of stone and it was a bed of leeches too.

We tried to make camp fire but the condition was not so good that time. We all shared some food and biscuits and went to sleep.

@ Day 2.

Fine morning Jinu and I went up hill for a change, and he found man made steps on the rocks. We came back and decided to go through the same way uphill. All were relaxed; we made yummy soup and soupy noodles for breakfast. Suddenly it started raining. All of were under a tarpaulin sheet and we wore our rain ponchos.

200 m uphill we found a good path, which leads to the marked house. We found some villagers and that was the very early end of our trek. The village we reached is Kabbe. We took a long break, was waiting for our transport vehicle to come. We had a thought of going to Sasipara again, but we changed our mind and went back to town. We had our lunch there and returned to Bangalore. We reached back around 11 o clock in KBS.

@ Photos