an early morning trek to tadiyandamol

I had been to this peak an year back. Tadiyandamol, the second highest peak in Karnataka, in Coorg district. But this time, we chose the night time to trek. Our plan was to be there in time to watch the sun rise from the top. I was sure excited after figuring out that the night would

 be close to a full moon night.

Starting little early from office on a Friday seemed little tricky. But we all managed to start at around 5:30 or so. 16 of us. The journey was 6 hours from Bangalore. With travel breaks, we reached the base point, i.e. Kakkabe-Aramane, little past 02:30. 

Everything was so silent at that place. Almost everyone had a torch in hand along with other precautionary stuff. We were lucky to be there on a full moon night. I expected our trek to take atleast 3-4 hours. Last time, it was day light, with many photo breaks in between, we had taken around 6 hours to reach the top.

The walk up to the top was great. Surrounded by darkness, with our path lit by torches and at times, moon light. I helped myself with the path lit by others'

 lights. We did not miss some of the wonderful sights of the night as this snail in the pic. I was careful not to use flash. This pic was taken with the help of LED torches :-)

For those unfamiliar with this peak, there are dense woods little below the top. We made sure that we walk as a group here, without making any awkward sounds. Alas, fortunate or unfortunate, we never found or heard anything better than a frog croak beside our path !!! 

We managed to reach the top within 06:00. Little before the actual sun-rise time given by the Met dept. I was little disappointed not to see t

he complete sunrise, owing to the cloudy weather on the peak. But the view and the feel of cold winds at around 5400 feet above sea level is simple unexplainable. It can just be experienced :-) We spent a wonderful 4 hours on the peak, taking snaps, climbing on rocks, standing at the tip of the valley, feeling on top of the world.

We started back around 10 o clk. The first 200 metres of descent was tricky and one had to be careful. Rest was good. We were lucky to find an empty Jeep going down. We finished the last 2 kms of the down trek in it. We were too tired for the next day. After having lunch at Madikeri, we went to Nisarga Dhama, a place where river Kaveri splits into two, before joining again, forming an island in between. Little interested we were in that. Spent some time before starting back home. A weekend spent well.

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How to Reach:

Bangalore -> Mandya -> Virajpet -> Kakkabe - Palace Estate (Base Point) [300 kms]

Food:

Pack something from your place. Kakkabe is a pretty small place, with just one hotel. 

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