Friday, February 13, 2009

Kumara Parvata

A place where in i started my experience of being with myself in nature, kumaraparvata is like a challenge being one of the tallest peak in karnataka. Kumara parvata was my first trek around 5 years back after which i never looked back however i always wanted to visit the peak again, even though many a times i thought of doing this trek some how i always was attracted by various other places. However after 5 years back to kumara parvata and i can see that it has been a bit over exposed to the world.
I Justify Fullstill remembered the streams of water, green grass lands, the clouds, haunting chilled nights, burning sun and i cannot forget the batta's house he had quit subramanya and wanted to be alone in the woods far from everyone. So many things had changed it looked lot more commericalized and a place filled with plastics :-(.
As a normal routine we started on a friday night and we reached the start point near somvarpet at around 7 in the morning. I had not treked to the peak from this side last time, so it was something new for me. However the trek from this side is lot more easier and not really a big challenge. I was a bit sick the previous day and hence it did look a lot more difficult for me. My friends did tease me saying i have lost a bit of life to trek.
I kept struggling to walk towards the peak, i was getting tired the sun was bright and i was feeling the pinch for every step. I wanted to hide from the sun it was so bright and dry i felt like i had forgotten the habbit of trekking in the wild.
All the members of the team were pretty adaptable for tough conditions and no one really felt any difficulty in climbing the peak. We were on top of the peak by around 12-1. After a bit of rest under the few small trees left, we decided to pitch the tents so that we could get some good place. Well felt like we made the wise decission, after we pitched our tents we could see lots and lots of people coming. On that particular day i felt atleast 100 plus people had managed to reach the peak. Felt like once a glory was now more of a tourist spot. I am not against people visiting any place but defneity against people visiting these places who do not understand the value of these places.
Unlike few years back, this place now is more of a plastic dustbin i could see plastics lying all around and i was struggling to digest the fact of seeing so many plastics at this place. Adding to it was a few students in their teen had got a big sword with which they were chopping off the small trees for their night camp fire. Even though few of us did stop them at that moment later part of the day when we were sleeping in our tents they did go back brought lots of fire sticks for their camp fire. Could hear them sing and dance all night.
At times reality bites me a lot, i go to these peaks to be far from civilization and many a times i end up seeing the horrors of civilized human practises in front of my eyes. Its good to have more trekkers explore the beauty of nature but its a disastor to have unmatured non nature loving people exploring these places to spoil it. Anyway i am happy for the team i am associated with that each and every member of it are so concious of their actions in these places, even a piece of choclate paper and many a times even the biodigradable things would be brought back. It would be the responsibility of every individual to carry back all the things he carried.
After a good dinner at night, i still felt i was sick and needed some rest. I really dont remember when i got sleep but i was lost very soon. I expected it to be very cold and breezy like last time, however this time around neither i could see the strong winds nor the temperature was freezing i felt it was pretty normal. A strange thing on peak which i never expected.
We gotup very early in the morning and started preparing coffe/tea for the entire team inside my tent. I came out of the tent to see the beauty of clouds covering all the smaller mountains around, it was thing i had dreamed off for quite some time... even though i had seen picutures of it many a times i have hardly experienced this feeling a feel of floating on top of the mountains, a feel of being above clouds and best thing is, this moment is for very few minutes just after the sunrises these are gone.
We knew its going to get hot at the later part of the day and we decided to pack back and started to climb down by around 8 am. But now i felt like i had seen enough and wanted to give back some part of my energy in doing a small favour back to nature, in favour of which i felt lot more better this morning and i felt i had lot more energy compared to the previous day. On my way back i found a big plastic cover i picked it up with a hope to collect as much plastics as possible. I started collecting gutka packets, choclates rapers, and lots of other plastic wastes... all along it was very hard to bend every other step but it was a challenge which i had accepted for myself. I belive it was a beginning and probably in all my future treks i would be following this. One good thing was atleast many of my own team members did really got a bit of inspiration and they did help me a lot felt very happy that you always need a beginning and many a times rest just follows. It was not just our team i could see lot of other teams which did feel that they shouldnot atleast throw plastics. Well just like not every person is intelligent few are defnitely arrogant we did get teased by few saying ragpickers. I didnot wanted to mind for these mindless people as we knew what we were upto.
We reached batta's house at around afternoon. I remember last time Batta had setup up a beautiful place around his house in the middle of mountains. But this time his graden was a garbage filled with plastics. His house was more of a choultry with a big time businness running. I could see atleast 150 people waiting for food in his house. Did not really feel like i should have food here it was a mess. I felt soo bad that i didnot know how to react his garden had every thing biscut packets, choclate papers, plastic bottels... felt bad for him and we left the place very soon. Well i forgot to say that in between batta's house and the peak there is a small water stream one near the kallu mantapa and one almost near the peak. Both these water bodies have depleted a lot compared to last time and you can see its been terrorised by fellow trekkers to the core. We burnt lots of plastics and paper plates at this place as it was very unclean to carry and we had to empty our collection so that we can carry back lots more.
After batta's house we can get some cover from the sun and but still its lot more difficult to bend down to collect every few min. My head started to spin after bending for the whole day and finally with a km left for the end of the trek i gave up picking plastics. At the end point we laid down for some time and then we could see lots of water bottels and stuffs all around. Felt probably we can end the trek with a more meaning full decission. There was a small stream near by and we all had a good bath at this place to refresh ourselves and then we all got together to clean up the small field at the end point. We droped all our collection at the board showing the way to KP :-) hope some one would clean up from here as i felt we had done our work with great respect and sanity. I would like to thank all my friends and team mates who helped me in something which did trouble me in this trip.