Project 5 - Body Language - Trekking

Subramanya, Subramanya, Subramanya.., Subramanya, Subramanya, Subramanya..

We were boarding the bus which had just started its journey from Mangalore. 

Toastmaster for the day, fellow toastmasters and guests. We were on a trekking expedition to Kumar Parvat in Kukke Subramanya.

Trekking is a long arduous journey especially one made on foot. The 7 brave men Army started their trek from Mangalore on Friday, 5^th November 2011 at 9 am and landed at Kukke Subramanya at 11 am. The journey was restless and tiresome as the temperature was taking its toll on us and we were very hungry. We set our journey towards Kumar Parvat after finishing our breakfast from a nearby restaurant.  Kumar Parvat is a mountain peak  at 1712 metres between Kodagu and Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka. It is described as one of the most beautiful and difficult hill trekking spots in South India.

We were new to trekking and trekking with a gang of 7 and all known people seemed like an amusing idea. The trek started at 12 pm. With very high level motivation we though the trek is only 1 hour and about 15 minutes.

The trekking trail was a path moving in one particular direction and lot of stones scattered across the path making it difficult to walk smoothly. I could feel that we were opposing the gravitational force and that was the main reason for getting tired. My backpack seemed like getting heavier and heavier with each step.

I was not happy with the idea of walking with my shoes as my friends were trekking faster and I was left behind. Hence,I came up with the idea of clicking a snap just to interrupt their trek and propose a few minutes rest for myself. Amused by my idea, I took the camera (from my bag) and asked my friends to pose in all ways and directions.  It took a few minutes for me to realise the camera was dead and was not working anymore for unknown reasons.  I had to take the blame for not checking the camera and they started the trek again. I had to untie my shoes and drop them back in bag and continued walking using my slippers (cursing my idea which was so successful.) 

With heavy bags, We crossed the first hill after walking for 3 hours and were very happy to have climbed the hill. We blamed our friend as we could see two more hills in front of us even after trekking for 3 hours. We were very tired and were not sure if we wanted to continue it further. I was consuming oranges like never before. I had already finished almost two kg`s of oranges  owing to the trek and dehydration . Some of my friends took notice of this and pulled the bag from me and started enjoying the last  juicy, tasty and … lucky ones.

We could see two more peaks ahead of us and we were really tired after trekking for 5 hours.  The sun was slowing down in the evening and our legs were trembling after such a long trek. We continued our climb and found a house where we filled up water and had a quick chat with the owner of the house popularly known as Bhat. We surged ahead after checking at the Forest check post as we paid an entry fee of Rs.300 to the officer. We reached the Kallu Mantapa a manmade structure out of stone after 30 minutes of our trek and all the seven lied down and rested for 15 minutes. While we got up and looked back we could not see anything other than fog around. we hurried immediately from there as it was getting darker and we had to trek a few more hours to reach the place where tents could be planted.

  

The walk from there was good as the place was a plain area of land and wind was taking our fatigue away. It was a moonlight walk. I realised the next morning that I had walked through a thin lane last night and a wrong step would have landed me in the valley approximately 1500 metres below. We had to climb one more peak next morning to complete the trek. It was 9 pm and we had already trekked 80% of the peak hence we decided to have our food and rest for the day.

3 members of our team were resting in the morning and could not continue to do the final climb due to fatigue. Even though i was tired i climbed the last peak. It was a rocky climb and there were umpteen number of chances to have a fall and get hurt badly. I still decided to climb the hill and unfortunately  slipped while crawling the rock and the nails in my hand and feet broke open. Even though I was hurt, I was happy to see the open skies from the top of the mountain which we never thought to climb. The one hour walk had culminated in approximately 10 hours trek. After praying at the Temple, we returned to our resting place and had breakfast. Even though it took us 10 hours to trek and reach the top of the mountain, but it hardly took us 5 hours to reach the town of Kukke Subramanya.

Thinking of this experience I always feel that “we need to experience the journey in life as that’s what makes us stronger. Next trekking for me is a sure yes as I’ve discovered an inner secret and a unique satisfaction in it. What about you toastmasters? Would you join me for a trekk to experience the journey? )