Ombattu Gudda – A Lost Journey

Summary –

1. Don’t even think about Ombattu Gudda without guide or GPS specially if you are in a small group or not a hardcore professional trekker.

2. Peoples, who used to say that KP is toughest, had not been to OG for sure, I can bet.

3. If you are looking for combination of adventure, dense forests, wildlife and hills, OG is the place you must try.

4. This is a very clean and unexplored trek, please don’t leave any traces behind you.

5. Be friendly with nature and wildlife. If you respect it, it will give you unlimited joy and peace of mind. If you don’t, it could be very harsh.

Ombattu Gudda – A Lost Journey ( 19^th – 20^th December, 2009)

I used to think after every trek, that after going back I am definitely going to write down blog for it this time. Sadly it could never happen L. But after this trek, I could not stop myself to write a blog. I had to write the blog for two reasons, One, I want to let everyone know that how amazing this trek is and number two, I want to store all bits and pieces of information of this trek digitally. Okay, enough bakwaas, now come to the point.

I was dreaming to trek Ombattu Gudda from last 4 months, since I first read about it on Sandeep’s blog. One fine day, an email popped in my inbox from YHAI to trek 19^th and 20^th December to Ombattu Gudda. At that only moment I decided that I am going. Finally me and Abhishek decided to join with them.

Day1 -

We started our journey from Majestic in a Tempo Traveler around 10 PM. Our trek lead Chandru joined us in Hassan. After quick refreshment we crossed Gundya checkpost around 9 AM. We waited there for around an hour for our trek guide and two locals cum guides cum porters. They were carrying our food items, tents and some other stuff. Finally we started the trek around 11 AM.

For first few hours, it was like a normal jungle walk without much hassle. Although the forests were super dense, but trail was clearly visible. We found one stream after few kilometers. After having our lunch over there and some refreshment, we continued our journey. Later we realized that we were actually playing hide and seek with the stream. We had to cross the stream n number of times.. The water was very refreshing and tasty. But unfortunately we didn’t jump into that, as time was not permitting. It was already 4 PM and we were nowhere close to peak. Leeches also started filling their stomach.

It was around 6 PM, our chief guide pointed his middle finger towards a peak and said that is Ombattu Gudda. Peak was looking miraculous. He said that it may take couple of more hours to reach the peak. It was already dark, and there was absolutely no trail and visibility beyond this point. Luckily, we all had torches so we decided to continue towards peak. One of the porters told us that he knows some shortcut, and that will lead to peak in much shorter time. Although chief guide was reluctant, but after seeing porter’s confidence he agreed to follow him. Infect porter was so confident that he was ready to bet for 500 bucks that this route will lead to the peak.

I see there no route, the local guy walking ahead of us was walking on a steep slope and was cutting tress and bushes to make the way. After half an hour of steep climbing, we realized that we are lost. Porter was leading us to nowhere. Thankfully we were able to reach on top of some waterfall by 7 PM. Pitching the tent was impossible there because it had no flat space. And we were not in the condition to move anywhere. Forests were looking same in all the directions. So we decided to spend the night there. We collected some woods to prepare the food and to keep the animals away. Few peoples were busy in preparing for dinner, few were busy in collecting the woods, few were busy in gazing the stars and rest were busy in pure bc. After having the dinner we were all ready to sleep as we had to get up early in the next morning and get ready to find the way. One more thing we had to make sure that fire was kept on for the whole night, to keep the animals away. I don’t know why I was feeling that few wild animals are continuously staring us through the trees. I was lying in my sleeping bag on the extreme corner of the fall next to Abhishek. A small KARVAT was enough to roll down our sleeping bag with us down from the waterfall. We didn’t even know now about the height of that fall, as it was impossible to go to the edge. But from the sound, it was looking scary. I could see 3 times more number of stars in the sky as compared to Bangalore. Sky was looking majestically awesome from the woods.

Day2 – We were all ready after getting refreshed and a tea session, to conquer the peak. Till this point even our guide and porters were totally confused where to head. Guides did some calculations and concluded that we should start our journey by climbing one steep hill towards the left of the waterfall. After climbing for 40-50 minutes non-stop, we found ourselves on top of some hill. Guide showed us the remote view of ‘Ombattu Gudda’ once again, and told us ‘okay that is Ombattu Gudda, now lets go down again in the same direction, from where we started in the morning’. They all were discussing something in Kanadda. Based on my best judgment, I concluded that they screwed us. Now after three hour, we were on somewhere near to the same location where we stayed in night.

Now we started climbing to another hill, which was in front of us. That was again a steep climb. This time all the guides were united and confident that this was the last hill and after climbing this hill we will definitely get the way towards ‘Ombattu Gudda’. Again after climbing for 1 hour, we got the biggest breaking news. There was an almost vertical deep valley at 80 degree inclination facing us. Now we had two options, either go back and again made some wild calculations in the middle of nowhere OR cross the valley. Although even the thought of crossing the valley was bit scary, but we don’t had any other option left. As neither of us wanted to go back, so we decided to climb down into the valley.

It was one of the most difficult descend, I could have ever imagine. We were literally crawling by holding the trees, roots or whatever comes on the way. One small wrong move and you will get a shortcut to reach to the bottom. But seemed that nobody was interested taking that shortcut as we all reached there in a single piece.

Wow, again some b’ful small types of waterfall. I had a quick bath there, while other peoples were still on the way down to valley. It was already around 11 AM. And we were at the same level as we started in the morning, but possibly one step closer to Ombattu Gudda, however none of us was sure about it. Now we were again facing a big mountain without knowing what is on the other side for us. We again started climbing up the hill, hoping that there are no more surprises waiting for us ahead. It seemed that this time we were right as after 2-3 hours hours of climbing we were in the grasslands, first sign that we are closer to the peak. After having our lunch there, we continued climbing to the peak. We were definitely on some peak. But all the three guides were pointing to different peaks, and were claiming that is ‘Ombattu Gudda’ peak. However we didn’t had time to try any of those 3 peaks, as we were running short of time and energy. It was already around 4, so we just touched one peak, and started climbing down towards the jeep trek.

It was again itself a challenging task, as now again all the guides were arguing to which direction they should go. After some discussion they all agreed to one direction. There we saw first snake of the trek, on a tree. It was a thin, black color snake somewhere 3-4 feet. It was cute. After clicking few snaps of the hero, we continued. There we go, lost again. There we were again in forests, but they were in plain lands. After struggling for 1-2 hours we finally found the jeep way. The excitement of the guides was worth noticeable. They seemed to be more happy then us. They literally started dancing with joy.

Thinking about the unforgettable memories of last 2 days, few hours later I was sitting in bus back to Bangalore. If ever I repeat any trek, that would be Ombattu Gudda for sure.