Silent Valley
Let me update you with yet another trekking trip to a place called "Silent Valley". This place is a protected forest, This time I ganged up with some serious trekkers from a adventure club called "Mars Adventures", the gang consisted of 7 people incuding me, Kamesh (the trekking guide and adventure guru), John, Devki (john's wife) , Vikram (John's and Devki's son), Kala and Girish. It was amazing to see John and Devki, who would be close to my parents in age, get into adventure trekking.
Anyways, we started of to "Silent Valley" on friday late night, after a very uncomfortable ride in Sumo through the night, we reached, Anekatti(the village near Silent Valley) in morning 10:30. Since no one of us had ever been to Silent Valley before, the place turned out to be a disaster inspite of natures beauty. The officials there were under the impression that "trekking" is sitting in a jeep and having a ride in wilds. They had never heard of some one walking in wilds, just like that.Even after much hassles, we could get the permit to trek or camp in the jungle, to make the matter worse we had to be accompanied by a stupid guide of theirs who was there just to insure that we dont roam around in the jungle and we dont litter. We got totally frustrated by the behaviour of the officials and came back out of silent valley.
Now we had the problem of finding a camp site, luckily one of the locals came forward and offered us his wooden cottage, which he made himself for us to stay. within half an hour, we cleaned up the place, lit a camp fire, made a small kitchen and were already started with the dinner preparation. Right across the road was a hill, which was supposed to be kerala's highest peak, which looked very very tempting. By the night we were unanimous that we were going to attempt to climb that mountain next day.
In morning we got hold of a local guide and started off on trek, for the first time I was trekking with more than 25Kgs on my back, which was a painful experience. By noon we ran out of water and went looking for water source, we found a place where there was water seeping from the rocks, and we did what the tribals do, we took a bamboo and held it against the water seeping, that way we filled up more than 9 litres of water and started back on to the summit. As we were closing to summit the path became more and more treacherous, at quite a few places we had to use a sickle to cut our way through the bamboo jungle, and at other places we had to walk on slopes on which a foot slip could have sent you tumbling down the mountains for about 100 to 200 fts. By 1:30 we were at the summit, and trust me, to me it felt I have conquered Mt everest, for no non-local has ever went to that peak. The view from the peak was breathtaking, with hills all around and a valley in between those hills with a small river flowing through it was like a national geographic channel's documentary.
We had our snacks at the peak and headed down, way down was much fun, the same path which was so difficult because of the slippery slopes was a cake walk while coming down, me, vikram and Kala started our skiing on the slippery slope much to dislike of john and kamesh. We did fell on our bottoms at more than few places but it was a fun which I was not ready to miss. By evening we were near the river and we spent much of time till sunset, playing in the water. After that we were back to base camp, cooked our dinner on camp fire (I forgot to mention here, that I was assigned the responsibility of campfire, I was termed "the fire boy"), We started back to bangalore to be back in the mundane routine, smoke filled traffic jams and concrete jungle.
I am eagerly waiting for the next trek with "Mars adventure". Till then this trek would be the most memorable trek of my life.
Anyways, we started of to "Silent Valley" on friday late night, after a very uncomfortable ride in Sumo through the night, we reached, Anekatti(the village near Silent Valley) in morning 10:30. Since no one of us had ever been to Silent Valley before, the place turned out to be a disaster inspite of natures beauty. The officials there were under the impression that "trekking" is sitting in a jeep and having a ride in wilds. They had never heard of some one walking in wilds, just like that.Even after much hassles, we could get the permit to trek or camp in the jungle, to make the matter worse we had to be accompanied by a stupid guide of theirs who was there just to insure that we dont roam around in the jungle and we dont litter. We got totally frustrated by the behaviour of the officials and came back out of silent valley.
Now we had the problem of finding a camp site, luckily one of the locals came forward and offered us his wooden cottage, which he made himself for us to stay. within half an hour, we cleaned up the place, lit a camp fire, made a small kitchen and were already started with the dinner preparation. Right across the road was a hill, which was supposed to be kerala's highest peak, which looked very very tempting. By the night we were unanimous that we were going to attempt to climb that mountain next day.
In morning we got hold of a local guide and started off on trek, for the first time I was trekking with more than 25Kgs on my back, which was a painful experience. By noon we ran out of water and went looking for water source, we found a place where there was water seeping from the rocks, and we did what the tribals do, we took a bamboo and held it against the water seeping, that way we filled up more than 9 litres of water and started back on to the summit. As we were closing to summit the path became more and more treacherous, at quite a few places we had to use a sickle to cut our way through the bamboo jungle, and at other places we had to walk on slopes on which a foot slip could have sent you tumbling down the mountains for about 100 to 200 fts. By 1:30 we were at the summit, and trust me, to me it felt I have conquered Mt everest, for no non-local has ever went to that peak. The view from the peak was breathtaking, with hills all around and a valley in between those hills with a small river flowing through it was like a national geographic channel's documentary.
We had our snacks at the peak and headed down, way down was much fun, the same path which was so difficult because of the slippery slopes was a cake walk while coming down, me, vikram and Kala started our skiing on the slippery slope much to dislike of john and kamesh. We did fell on our bottoms at more than few places but it was a fun which I was not ready to miss. By evening we were near the river and we spent much of time till sunset, playing in the water. After that we were back to base camp, cooked our dinner on camp fire (I forgot to mention here, that I was assigned the responsibility of campfire, I was termed "the fire boy"), We started back to bangalore to be back in the mundane routine, smoke filled traffic jams and concrete jungle.
I am eagerly waiting for the next trek with "Mars adventure". Till then this trek would be the most memorable trek of my life.
posted by NimitZ at 9:26 PM
4 Comments:
awesome!! we await pics dude!
Pics uploaded on http://nitssphotos.fotopic.net/
If I go trekking, I'll need one prson to pull me and another to push me." Silent valley" sounds damn good.
@Arunima: dont worry, it really doesnt happen that way. if you can trust me, try it once. Outdoor activities like these change your whole outlook towards world. I have seen people who wouldnt even get out of their cars, doing these stuffs.. Infact to be particular, I am talking about Mrs Devki in the above context..
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