Tadiandamol : A walk among the clouds into Pristine Paradise

Fact : "Highest Point" as called in Kodava language, the highest peak in COORG district(Karnataka, India), Tadiandamol(TM) stands apart at 1750 m above sea-level; and maybe a few feet below Xanadu( Paradise).

Best time : Summer (between April till July end); mainly as you can avoid the leeches and also since there is no better way to avoid the tropical heat, unless you soak in the picturesque atmosphere and chilly weather, and of course with the freedom of spending your entire day soaked up in the river with an option of canoeing and water-fall rappelling strewn as candies to a 5 yr-old.

Trek Details : Around 6 kms from Base takes 4 Hrs up and 3 and half Hrs down… of course, if you do not include those hour or two where you would have been lapped up in the sheer beauty enveloping you ;). “Moderate climb”, we of course did a night trek(with only torch-lights) .. and 100% recommend the same to everyone … more details below.

Essentials : Loads of Water and a pinch of salt (the only solution to the fevicol bond of the leeches), Torches & Tent(defn. for night trek), Sunscreen, DSLR camera(none else can capture the sight)

Getting there : our brief route was Bangalore – Mysore--Hunsur(take the by-pass via Ranganthittu onto State Highway 88) --gonikopal -- virajpet --Kakkabe(Kakh-Bay) take the first left tar road from there.
There are also options of taking BUS(KSRTC) till Virajpet and then use some local transport(hardly 20 Kms)

Sages, Rishis and Munis it is said have sat in meditation for atleast hundreds of years just to experience the taste of paradise… unfortunate for them; we found a short-cut… A trip to Tadiandamol !!!
So here were we, the 9 of us armed and ready, with a minute detour to Mysore to pack up our tents; we reached the JUNGLEMOUNT basecamp exactly 2 PM on Saturday, hungry both for physical appeasement and also craving for adventure. Just as we finished ravaging upon the simplistic Rice curry, we were tempted by the river flowing nearby… and splash we went (rather a much bigger splash for Ranga and Prakash)… It was finally around 7 pm we got out like hippopotamus, and quickly brushed up the intricacies to put up a Tent, and then we were off
8 pm… it was pitch dark, with only light illuminated from our torches and the clear sky above(the crescent shaped moon had little to offer) we started our journey across the stairway to heaven. One great thing about night treks is that you never feel exhausted and the misty clouds surrounding you makes you feel divine indeed. Reached a flat spot around 10 pm and then we camped… well, if you could call it a camp ;)
Bonfires were replaced with Candle sticks, and by the time we set up a single tent we were exhausted and found that we lacked pins for the other two tents…. Set-up our mobile music device, and off we danced and laughed with gentle bantering, almost like elves rejoicing the Christmas night.
Then came sleep time, myself, Murali and Vijay decided to roll-over a giant rock, by spreading the tent material over it and covering ourselves with the wind-sheeter; it there were words to describe the beauty of the sky… there would have been poets of everyone of us.

Stars instead of being simple dots, were shining beacons;
Clouds instead of covering us like a blanket were cushioning us from below;
Shooting stars in abundance, counted ten within my fingers;
Nascent and pure the air that flowed, iridescent radium within our body glowed;
Mightier than the clouds, with the sun beneath our feet;
Nothing else but the sky awaiting us, awaiting our touch, awaiting our tete-a-tete.

At around 4 Am we started again on our trail; and reached our final destination by 5 Am, to find the sun rising below us beneath the clouds to fill the space of darkness with pellets of golden rays, slowly as we observed awe-struck … maybe this was how Buddha would have himself attained realization. Almost forgetting to take pictures, we were sitting with everything below us; and we posing like might gods.
Then we started back, around 8 pm; this was a calculated effort since we knew that the sun would start beating back upon us around noon and we were quite hungry because of the effort.

1 Guava and a couple of Jamuns :
On the way down, we were accosted by huge trees bearing naga pazham (Jamun fruits) and immediately the monkeys in us spread out our jackets on the grounds and we started pounding stones upon those goliath branches… sweet was the reward, and sweeter were those sweets. Of course, myself and murali also chanced upon a guava fruit which we devoured rather slyly… ;)
Reaching the base camp, we soaked up in the river canoeing and plucking Raw mangoes (acidic sour) from low-lying branches.. and then we got ready for WATERFALL RAPPELLING, a cool 200 ft steep recline with the waterfall accosting us merely reduced to a drizzle… the experience was pleasant but not exactly what we expected.
All set we started back to our monotonic software engineering lifestyles at around 4 PM… everyone dreading the next day at work!!! Of course, karthik was officially acknowledged the MOKKAI-PATHI (Poor Joker). A few of his lingering insights :-

1) Right when we were asking for directions, every villagers retorted “3 kms” … suddenly Karthi came up with his brain-storm… he said… maybe “3 km was the town name” … pretty cool huh … “take right and 3 Km” … “ “Just a couple more and then 3 Kms” … damn you can never tell the difference.

2) As we were recollecting our previous adventures, Yelagiri came up as being quite a short tour… and then the wise-crap summoned up… “yeah dude, even I was wearing shorts for that journey”

Enough said and done… this was a journey you would never forget… but make sure that you make this travel to Tadiandamol only during summer , cause this is what happens during a rainy season trek….

Contact details for JUNGLE Mount Adventure club: sagar (08272238341/9845831675)
Total Expenses : 1500 (including 700 for the club and the remaining for food and Vehicle expenses, for 2 days)
Additional Blogs : Prashanth , Dream routes