हमारे गाइड पीटर का पत्र ट्रेकिंग संबंधित (पार्ट 2)

ट्रेकिंग पर हमे गाइड करने वाले बेल्जियम के रहने वाले थे जो पिछले 10 सालों से चेन्नई में हैं.. उनका नाम पीटर है.. ट्रेकिंग और एडवेंचर तो जैसे उनके रगों में रचा बसा हुआ है.. पीटर इस हफ्ते भी येलगिरी जा रहें हैं ट्रेकिंग के लिये, दो बार दिल्ली से लेह-लद्दाख बाईक से घूम चूके हैं.. दो बार चेन्नई से गोवा बाईक से जा चुके हैं और फिर से 1 अगस्त को दिल्ली से लेह-लद्दाख जाने की तैयारी में हैं.. आज थोड़ी देर पहले मुझे उनका मेल प्राप्त हुआ जिसमें उन्होंने लगभग सारी बातें संक्षेप में लिख डाली, और उनका मेल पढने के बाद ही मुझे पता चला की जब रविवार की रात में हम सभी एक-एक बूंद पानी के लिये तरस रहे थे तब पीटर के पास जी.पी.एस. मशीन पानी में भींगकर खराब हो चुकी थी और हम लगभग रात के समय में जंगल में खो चुके थे.. उनके जैसे प्रोफेशनल ट्रेकर की नजर में भी ये ट्रेकिंग बहुत मुश्किलों से भरा हुआ था..

आप भी ये पढें..


पीटर किसी ट्रेकिंग में दूसरों की मदद करते हुये

History repeats itself they say.

We required two attempts to scale the Tada Mountain. We required two attempts to climb the Nagari Peak. (also known as Oluru trek) In both cases we had to search for the proper trail and ran out of time during the first attempt (weekends are too short for CTC ;-)

The same happened for the Nagalapuram Mountain climb. Last week we reached the bottom of a 300m high falls (just imagine!). We tried climbing up at the immediate right and left side of the falls but eventually had to give up due to the steepness of the terrain. On both sides we reached vertical rocks after getting above the forest cover.

This weekend we remained 500m away from the falls and followed a mountain stream (similar to OG - boulders, big rock formations, dense jungle on both sides and light forest cover on top) which took us to the Northwest side of the hill from where the waterfall originates. On the way we did a 1 hour "monsoon trek" trekking through heavy rains (as usual several mobiles, electronics got spoiled or lost during this trek ;-) From the Northwestern there we were able to scale the mountain at a 50degree angle. We reached the top at the right time (fall of darkness) and set up tree self-made pyramid tents from plastic sheets, each covering 1o people. Everyone fell asleep exhausted and soaked.

The next morning we trek around at the top of the hill (around 2km long x 500m wide) and were amazed by the breathtaking view on all sides - East the Nagalapuram inner mountains bordered by higher peaks on all sides, West we saw the plains of Tamilnadu (we could see Pulicat lake 50km away due to the clear skies). We discovered a (dry) mountain stream on top which we followed all the way till the top of the 300m waterfall where we found running water - cooking, swimming, relaxing in the shade of the stream, sunny blue skies on top, taking in the beauty of the underlying valley from a 300m high vertical rock. Amazing it was. One of the best spots CTC discovered so far. After lunch we proceeded South to start our descent from the 600m high
mountain to the main river in the valley - a 450m drop in altitude. Initially the terrain was steep (60 degree slope) - open space with loose rocks and sparse small tree vegetation.

However soon we got caught in dense bush which made our progress very slow. We had to cut our way through the thorny bushes with our sickle. We were running late and soon the night fell and it was getting pitch black. To make matters worse my GPS got wet and did not work anymore so we were navigating on instinct now, in the dark night, covered by trees, in dense (and I mean DENSE), thorny vegetation, down the slope of the mountain, climbing over boulders in the mountain stream, arms and legs bleeding from thorny cuts, clothes are drenched in sweat due to lack of breeze, throats extremely thirsty (we were out of drinking water for at least 2 hours) and with a large group of 31 people, many new to CTC... This was definitely one of the most intense trekking experiences we had recently in CTC. Progress was very slow and after some time the bush became too dense so we decided to make a horizontal escape from the stream and its surrounding dense vegetation to the a more open slope of the mountain. From there things started looking better again and we proceeded downhill Northwest under the bright stars of a clear night sky towards the base of the Nagalapuram valley, hoping to find the stream to clench our thirst.

After walking for another 30 minutes we finally reached the stream - we jumped into the cool water (for the third time that weekend) - the feeling was amazing - submerged in cool water after a sweaty, exhaustive trek since 8am that morning. Wow, this was living life to the maximum.

Amazing trek,

Peter.