N14 - Trip to the Nagala hills (01 Mar, 2009)

What a way to start this March. It was my resolution last year to continue my treks, but unfortunately didn't do any. This year trekking was not in my list, and here I am just back from one of the best treks I've ever done.

Nagala hills (aka Nagalapuram) is a group of hills located about 100 kms North of Chennai on the Tamil-Nadu Andhra border. I hadn't heard of this until about a few weeks back, thanks to Chennai Trekking Club (CTC). I joined this group a few weeks ago and was monitoring the activities closely. This one day trek suddenly caught my attention, and there was nothing much on my agenda the following Sunday, so I saw myself enrolling to this one. This trek was christened N14, as this was the 14th time the group was trekking this hills.

11.30 pm 28 Feb, 2009: My room

I was busy packing my bags for tomorrow early morning departure. I was packing against a checklist mailed by Peter Van Geit (moderator of the CTC group). I had to catch up some sleep too since I knew the next day would be a long one. Off I went to sleep in a few minutes after packing my bag.

3.45 am, 01 Mar, 2009: My room

I could sleep no longer at the thought of joining the group at 4.30 in Koyembedu. So woke up, freshened up, picked my baggage and hopped on my bike and reached Koyambedu by 4.20. There was just one guy (Sekar from Photon Infotech and later came to know we had 3 common friends !) and we had a 4.30 deadline for 100 of us to assemble, I didn't see it happening though. Steadily people started trickling in and most of them seemed first timers. Then around 4.45, the whole area outside Nathan's cafe in Koyambedu was buzzing with CTC cars and bikes & CTC regulars cladded in shorts, bermudas and trekking outfits. There were some last minute attendance counting going on. There were enough cars so 8 bikes were asked to drop and I promptly did so. In all we were a group of 100 trekkers in 15 cars and 15 bikes.

5.30 am, 01 Mar, 2009: Koyambedu

I got into a car which had a relatively younger crowd, a group of 4 guys, all SRM college passouts. We were prompt to exchange introduction formalities. I remember just the 2 names , Selva and Gokul. In a few minutes, we were hitting the Chennai ring road heading towards the Nagala hills. It was a very pleasant morning and daylight yet to set in, our convoy of 15 cars and 15 bike progressing on the Chennai-Calcutta highway. As we reached the village roads, we rolled down our car glasses. The air had a scent of green freshness, it was the kind that felt suffocating after spending many years in the city pollution. It was now that most guys from the cars peeped out of the cars and waved frantically at the rest of us. This was when I realised this crowd was a daring one, and not the conservative type that I first thought. We finally reached the Nagalapuram village at around 8 after about 2.5 hours of drive. This was where we had to park our cars and pick up our food packs and other baggages for the rest of the day.

I munched a quick pack of "Upma" and "Vada" for breakfast and picked my baggages and followed that crowd that was walking in a direction that led to some mountains far far away. Seeing the distance, I thought we're going to wander around the base of the hills the rest of the day, but that was not what fate had in store for us today. We were told that this N14 had 7 main hurdles to cross, I was already looking forward to them.

The Dam:

After about 4 kms of walk we reached our first pitstop. It was an artificial dam hoisted to prevent mountain waters from flowing into the nearby villages. The first little challenge (not hurdle) was to climb over that 30 ft incomplete dam. It wasn't much of a challenge but the sand-filled descent and poor grips on my shoes made me a little jittery. The entire bunch of 100 crossed over the dam and took the only group picture of the day. It was here that we picked a couple of local guides, village dogs who accompanied us till our first hurdle.

Into the jungle:

After crossing the dam, we started walking into the forest and this is when I stopped tracking time, and was focussed on enjoying the serenity of the forest around me. It was seemingly quiet, the kind I miss in the city.

The trees were so dense and bushes so bushy, that we hardly felt the sunlight on us during the entire course of the trek. We also noticed several rivulets by now which meant plenty of water up the hills.

After about an hour of walk, we reached our first water catchment. It was cold, clean and sweet. We took turns diving and jumping into the pristine waters. Infact the organisers had to save couple of fellows from drowning on two occasions. Such mountain waters are very dangerous as the rocks beneath make walking on them very uncomfortable and most often they suddenly get deeper. The last time I was in such cold waters was in the Kolli hills couple of years back. After about an hour in this water, we headed to what would be our first hurdle of the day.

The First Hurdle:

It was a placid water catchment between huge rocks. The only way to move forward would be to swim through this 40 ft water. The huge count of 100 members was of little help, because it meant more non-swimmers and more bags to be transported. We were 10 volunteers who got into the water first. With the help of sleeping mats we transported the non-swimmers first and later the bags. My right leg was cramped with too much swimming here. I must have done about 20 laps transporting people and baggages here. I played the role of a sweeper here, ensuring that no baggages were left. Even tried calling our local guides, the dogs to cross, but they seem less interested in coming along. After 2 hours we finally made it through the first hurdle !

Our next question to Peter was, is this the toughest hurdle or more to come. He didn't answer that one.

The later hurdles were not that tough, and included walking through water about 6 ft deep, then crossing rocky boulders with water stream flowing beneath us. A small slip would have landed us into the water stream and down to the rocks and a vertical climb with the support of small boulders and tree roots.

We finally rested for lunch at around 2 pm. After about 30 minutes, Peter came close to where I sat, and I asked him what our next route would be. I was hoping he would point me to a trail right next to where we lunched. But he instead pointed to a 90 degrees vertical hill and the only way to climb it would be by holding to the tree roots. There was about 30 ft to climb. It was not the climb that scared me, but the slippery 20 ft trail later that I had to cross. The poor grip of my shoe bothered me now and I even tripped a small rock that went crashing to the rocks and water stream about 50 ft below. I leapt onto a tree and went further, considering myself fortunate to have made it inspite of my shoes poor grip.

We had already made it through 6 hurdles by now. The seventh was cancelled off as we were short of time. We then walked through the highest point of this hill. What surprised me here was the lush green atop the hills. So far it was a bushy and thorny trail along the water rivulets. Now we were strolling through the bright green 4ft bushy grasses. We walked for about an hour until we reached a water stream where we refilled our empty bottles. By now, I was bruised all over my hands and legs, thanks to all those pokey thorns and branches. There were plenty of red ant bites on me as well. I knew it would bother me tomorrow, but who cares, I had better things to enjoy for now.

The entire group rested here for an hour and then we stared our descent. We reached the first water catchment area, and as before with no second thought, dived into the cold water, which seemed even colder with darkness closing in. We were here till 6 pm. The sweepers of the trek collected all the plastics and burned them off. Our bit to polluting this environment, but then leaving them behind would prove even harmful. The organisers carried on with the account settling process and at 6.30 pm we stared our final descent.

This time I was among the first few to lead the pack. As darkness grew, I realised I did a mistake by not bringing my torch along. Fortunately there were enough torches behind me that helped me move on. The walk back was a long one about 7 km in total. By now, the hurt in my feet began hurting me more.

As I walked in the dark I noticed the moon casting my shadow on the ground. I don't remember the last time I saw my shadow created by the moon. The sky was radiant with the bright stars and could see a bunch of constellations including the Ursa Major and Orion which were brightly visible over my head. I felt wondering what took me so long to rejuvenate my interest in trekking.

Finally we reached the car park at 8.30 pm after what seemed like an eternity of walking. After some last minute account settlement, the convoy started hitting the roads again and back we were driving our ways back home. It was now that Sanju called me to inform that he's become a dad to an adorable little girl. What a fitting news to end a perfect day at trek for me.

What seemed like an end of journey to me, was the beginning of a journey for my best friend !

Highlights of this trip:

Drive till Nagala, Zero Degrees of separation among the 100 enthusiastic members, Water rivulets, Dip in the cold mountain waters, Sweet mineral taste of the water, Red ant bites, Fishes nibbling our skin, Long walk under the starlit sky.