How exciting it feels to cross a mountain range, right from one end to the other (though a small range)! So it happened, 14 audacious and adventurous souls from Chennai set for a 2 days mission to cross the Nagalapuram range from West to East. The trek, organized on behalf of Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) was meant to be the most exciting and heart thrilling adventure. Nagalapuram is in Chitoor District of Andhra Pradesh and is about 85 km from Chennai, which takes a drive of about 2 hours. Part of Eastern Ghats, these Nagala hills stand tall and depict the scenic beauty at its best. The base of these hills is at about 120m above MSL and the highest peak (southern peak) is at about 900m above MSL. Trekking in Nagala hills involves a mix of adventure activities like hiking, rock climbing, swimming and crossing streams. The forest is noticeably dense and for majority part of the trek there are no proper trails to follow, which pose challenges for trekkers. For these and several other reasons it is called ‘Home of CTC’. For trekking in Nagalapuram, the person should have a good fitness level and should know swimming. If the person doesn’t know swimming, then he/she must carry a water tube/life jacket with him/her.
Day 1
We set off from Chennai at about 4 am, gathering people on the way, and hitting the base of the hills at about 7 am. The sky was cloudy and it was drizzling a bit too. The pouring scared our wit a bit, which we knew would make our trip more difficult. But then the whole trek was meant to be “adventurous”, so why fear the rains!! On reaching there, we quickly distributed common gears and food items among ourselves and started an incredible journey.
We started moving briskly and soon after walking 2 kms through bushes and following a trail, we entered a thick dense forest. And it was as wild a forest you can imagine! The tweaky sounds and the rushing river. I wondered why animals were not there. Amongst this thick forest, the stream showed its way, which we had to cross as our first mission. A thought came of crossing it bare feet, but then banged my head with the thought, “We are amidst flowing water, and wet shoes and clothes are a must!!” Crossing the stream became more of walking on the stream surface, as it was not deep. And here we met the slimy, slippery rocks, which arose due to the heavy pour before our trek. These were really scarecrows as it became dangerous to step up on them. Even the branches of trees kept on breaking if we tried to hold them because the excessive rain had weakened them. This was all the game that “beautiful” rains had played. The only rescue through this unsteady path was the person crossing before the next when, who became each one’s savior!!
The whole funda was to try to avoid these slippery rocks as much as you can by going through the dense forest. Amidst these mind-boggling step stones, there were scenic pools and waterfalls. And this enthralling journey made us land on the 5th pool. Now this called for a funtime!! The pictorial imagination of water flowing from height, and then making its way through rocks, cutting the edges, all happening right in front of my eyes!! The only thing we did is, plunging ourselves into the water! Had a splendid 45 minutes water play there and refreshed for the journey ahead. Unfortunately, here, the only girl in our team was injured; and with this crashed down our plan of hitting the peak. So we left the western stream and travelled a smaller peak to catch up the eastern stream. There we followed the stream for about half an hour and noticed a steep descent in the stream forward. So in order to avoid that, we followed a faint trail. After sometime we realized that we were moving away from the stream and it was left far away. But then, the sparkling waterfall could be heard, which excited our minds to walk down the steep hills crossing all the bushes and trees on the way. This task was challenging in its own way, but our strong souls managed to get back to the stream and celebrated the moment. Dawn had started falling in its full fury and one of our members was injured. So, instead of reaching the picnic pool, our supposed campsite; we decided to pitch our tents(tamboos) somewhere before that. At the banks of the stream, the very pictorial timber-leaf huts became visible, and that became our campsite. Now was the time to kill the hunger!! Some experienced trekkers could ignite the moist leaves with camphor and cook Maggi!! We slept peacefully for the night, after filling our tummies with it.
Day 2
Next morning we woke up at about 6am, got fresh and tightened up the belts for journey ahead. After making some difficult maneuvers through rocks and stream and boulders and slippery rocks and what not, we reached the picnic pool. It was a beautiful, spacious place to accommodate large gangs, cooking or laying. We had a nice time splashing water, and moving around calmly. The next destination was Dead end pool. In my journey towards it, I encountered a very difficult situation. On one side, lay the deep stream and on other side lay the rock. There was no way out than to climb the rock.
There was a very small protuberance from the rock where one could keep his foot. I partially transferred my weight there twice just to check if I am slipping or not and both times I slipped. Failing twice, I thought of transferring my complete weight this time. Before that, trying to be funny, I said to my friend Shishir, "Tell my parents that I love them a lot" and then tried again to climb over it and I made through it. Later on Shishir told me that he controlled his laughter that time because it was actually a pretty difficult situation.
Anyways, we kept on moving and we could reach the dead end pool, hunger was at its peak. It was about 4 in the afternoon. We cooked some popcorn and ate whatever was left with us. We proceeded further, where we encountered dead end pool. And as the name says, Dead end pool had no other way to cross it then to swim over it. We swam across the dead end pool and kept moving ahead.
Till this time dawn had fallen completely and it then became a night trek. It was quite different from the morning and afternoon session as we were walking in the dark with LED torches in our hands and we regularly stopped in between to insure no one is missing. For the very first time, we were all going together and it felt safer than morning trek. All gratitude to some experienced people in the group, who guided us through the right way. Finally, came an exit from the T.P. Kota dam at about 9 pm and then moved towards the village where our van was parked.
It was the pretty different experience for me. Walking through the way with no trail, climbing dangerous, stumbling rocks with stream on the other side, zipping through steep hills cutting bushes, jumping over the slippery rocks, crossing the stream giving out the helping hands, swimming across the stream, diving in gorgeous pools, sleeping by the side of the stream and relaxing in the arms of nature. The place was beautiful and so was my experience with it. Jumping, hopping over the slippery rocks we fell many-a-times. During one such time my friend fell and needed a helping hand. Stretching my arms I said, "
Dude!!! Don't worry. If you ain't falling, you ain't doing it right."
Go out and see places!!!
