Prologue..
Mujahid was visiting my home town (Ambur) after a long time (actually it is his hometown as well) so we planned our long pending trek to the yelagiri this week,
but I had never expected it to turn out a dirt trek of sort,
I usually return to my hometown every week from bangalore, this time during my return journey (on thursday night) I noticed from the bus that a hill was on fire from a far near vaniyambadi,
This I thought was some small hilllocks in which the dry grass were burning due to some sunburn, but as I neared the location, I kind of knew that it had to be yelagiri hills, and the scale of the fire set was actually huge,
pretty much the whole left side of the grassy slope and quite a few adjascent slopes near the hair pin bends were affected and the sight when I trekked it was that of a real mess.
I enquired the locals during my trek if the fire was man made and couple of them confirmed that it was the doing of some miscreants, and later when I googled I found it true that indeed done by some
underhanded folks... (though I don't know the reason..),
Now some of you reading this will be thinking, "hey wait up! are we reading some newspaper report on some domestic crime which this fellow is circulating for free! are we at the wrong place?? should I refresh my page to get the actual blog.. etc etc, so on and what not!"
well folks, I assure you thats not the case... although I'm very much against this henious act and believe me I sweared few inexplicable words against these miscreants...
The reason I'm mentioning this is because this incident had an impact on our trek though I must shamefully admit that it was a positive one...
Planning and setting out..
Since yelagiri is a considerably huge hill (read tall and 920 meters to be exact), we planned to have enough time to ascent/descent it, I estimated it to take around 4 hours, and this time we had a hard limit for our return which was around 11.15AM as there were some social gatherings to be attended back in town, so we planned to set out around 5.00AM in the morning which would give us around 6 hours.
This was night before trek and the night before trek is usually a lively one in my home as I would be generally goading few of my cousins and brothers to head out with me which would end up futile always,
and some are even shameless as they outright say "idu nambulku illae bai.." (its not for me dude), Tch Tch.. I mean where have the mens gone these days...(Am I the only one?)
even showing them a thousand "man vs wild" episode will not be enough to inspire them for an adventure or for that matter narrating the inspiring story of George Mallory...
They will just ask with a raised eye brow.. "George who?"
and its at times like this is that I'm thankful to mujju who atleast gives me company on these treks....
hmm... where was I again?
Anyways.. as planned we (Me and mujju) setout the next morning around 5.15 and this time it was a bus ride and reached vaniyambadi around 6.00, we desperately wanted to have something to fill our stomachs and could only find a tea kade (tea shop), so after a few tut-tutting about lack of food options at this hour of day and a cup of tea, we caught a town bus to ponneri village which is actually at the yelagiri hill base.
By the time we reached the village, it was around 6.20AM and were a bit off from schedule..and since there was no ride, we had to walk for about 2KM to reach the hairpin bend road..as we neared the hill base, a couple of youngsters zoomed past us in their bikes and they gave us a look which said .. "what the hell are these idiots doing? trying to walk up the hill? look how cool we are riding these bikes..", I wanted to take the nearest stone and hurl at these eye-sores..., I mean #$#@ 2#$#@ %&^%&.. ok ok, control control..
so effectively our trek started around 6.40.
Dead ends galore..
since this was supposed to be a proper hill climb we were conscious to avoid the road, but we wanted to trek adjacent to the road just to be safe, in hindsight this was a bad decision as the road to the hill top has been cut in a region where there are lot of thorny bushes..
our first attemt was in a small opening which we found near first hair pin bend, it looked like a narrow clear opening so we jumped up the fence and walked a bit far but found it to be rather dense and thorny after a few yards, we tried to find some clear path here and gave up after some time...
back again on road, a little further we found an old man cutting dry grasses just above the road, this time we thought for sure that there should be an opening and started climbing up, generally not accustomed to seeing trekkers asked us, "Yaen paa vandi varlae-aa?" (havent your pickup ride arrived yet?) mistaking us for tourists.. we had to set this notion false and enquired about the clear way up, he said its impossible to climb any futher as it thorny, true to his advise we found another dead end and made our way back to road..
Clear opening atlast..
we were reluctantly walking up the road desperately trying to deny the fact that its impossible to find a clear climb path...
and fortunately at the 2nd hairpin bend we finally found one, we hurriedly walked up to the clearing, but as we stepped into it, it was a huge layer of black charred up soil and this continued a long way up.., some locals were cutting down some dry twigs and they confirmed the reason about someone setting up the fire...
the whole site was a mess unlike to what I have seen of yelagiri in the past, the only thing I can see in my front was a rubble of rocks covered in black charcoal...
The locals again warned this time not to take this route and the reason was it would dirty your clothes.. I waived the suggestion non-chalantly... after all trekking does leave a few dirts on your clothes..
Fast climb..
Although an eyesore but the site of naked rocks piled up one above another gave off a feeling of appealing climb and we took up the challenge, we started the climb and
also shamefully reminded ourselves to have depended on the fire for a proper climb..
The climbing of rocks soon turned out to be an adrenaline rush and not having climbed a hill for a long time gave both of us a some sort of excitement,
I could feel the excitement of the clear unhindered climb, the first leg of climbing took us near the 4th hairpin bend road, but the excitment was such that we did not stop the climb one bit, in the process by the time we reached near 6th hair pin bend, we had negotiated some tough and difficult rock climbs and this was turning out to be one fun ride.
by this time we were out of breath and some rest was in the offing..
while resting mujju pointed to my pants and it was a horrible sight, the whole lower half part was covered up in dirt lines of black charcoal from the unburnt twigs,
probably this is what the locals referred, and there were traces of black dirt in back of the t-shirt as well, this was the first time to trek in such a dirt and hence I call this "Dirt trek"
Dead end again..
We hoped the clearing to lead us to some considerable height and we continued our trek again in the the rock rubbles, only after some time we started noticing some unburnt thorny bushes showing up..
we continued our trek into these bushes as they were not so dense, hoping it would clear out after some height, but some how we ended up in dead end.., we tried couple of alternate openings further to the left and finally found ourselves surrounded by some of these bushes with narrow chance of escape,
we sat down here and contemplated as to what to do? this was the fifth time in todays trek we had come up at a dead end, it was as if the hill was signalling that today is not the day...
we took the narrow escape route out of this bushes and decided that we will give one final push to see if we can find a further path to climb up and explored a bit more to the left.
Open valley! a ray of hope...
further left we found the edge of the hill and there was a valley running in between this edge and the other, these valleys are usually dense as water will run down it during rainy days, but the summer heat had thinned this considerably, on any other day without the fire this scene would have looked spectacular with the the hill slope covered in grass, and from this point we could see the bridge connecting these two edges (This probably would have been around 10th hairpin bend around 600-650Meters), but this just wasn't our day, as just further up some bushes were again hindering the path,
The time was now around 9.00 and that hardly gave us about 1 hour to complete the climb, the other hill edge which was in front of us was actually the grassy slope now barren, and this is the slope which should have actually been taken by us as there are no hindrances there, we were discussing if we should restart our trek on the other slope and checking for routes to reach it... the phone rang..
Leave to climb another day...
hmm! wait am I giving a mysterious intent here?, The phone rang but this call was not some black mail call or anything like I have to do X to avoid Y and end up doing Z, this call was from mujju's father to make it in time for the social gathering... Damn! why do these mobile tower work in hills, Next time I should bring a jamming device along with me to avoid such calls, anyways it was probably time to give up on one thing and we decided to give up the successful ascent, probably it was not worth climbing a charred hill, so as sometimes battles end up in dead lock situation and the warriors return to live and fight another day! we both had to leave to climb another day...
The descent took another 45 mins and by the time we reached ponneri village it was around 10.15 which gave enough time to make it back in time.
but the battle is not over yet and hopefully we will return to complete the trek on a yelagiri which will give extra challenge with its grasses
here is the complete gallery of the trek
PS: after returning I proudly showed off the dirt on my pant! and I got an earful from my mom and she downright turned down to wash it,
These are the comments after seeing my pant..
Mom: "Teri joru ku bol ko dho.." (ask your wife to wash it) (I doubt she will though..)
Grand Mom: "Yengeda poi vandaen.. yadavadu oole malai ku pone aa?" (where the hell did you do, did you go to some cheap hill)
Cousin: "rai muzzu! kaan re lidko aaya?" (hey muzzu, which dirt did you roll over?)
and some more sarcasm... aah! its tough being an adventurer..
by the way the pant was still lying unwashed last seen, wonder if I should frame it?
Mujahid was visiting my home town (Ambur) after a long time (actually it is his hometown as well) so we planned our long pending trek to the yelagiri this week,
but I had never expected it to turn out a dirt trek of sort,
I usually return to my hometown every week from bangalore, this time during my return journey (on thursday night) I noticed from the bus that a hill was on fire from a far near vaniyambadi,
This I thought was some small hilllocks in which the dry grass were burning due to some sunburn, but as I neared the location, I kind of knew that it had to be yelagiri hills, and the scale of the fire set was actually huge,
pretty much the whole left side of the grassy slope and quite a few adjascent slopes near the hair pin bends were affected and the sight when I trekked it was that of a real mess.
I enquired the locals during my trek if the fire was man made and couple of them confirmed that it was the doing of some miscreants, and later when I googled I found it true that indeed done by some
underhanded folks... (though I don't know the reason..),
Now some of you reading this will be thinking, "hey wait up! are we reading some newspaper report on some domestic crime which this fellow is circulating for free! are we at the wrong place?? should I refresh my page to get the actual blog.. etc etc, so on and what not!"
well folks, I assure you thats not the case... although I'm very much against this henious act and believe me I sweared few inexplicable words against these miscreants...
The reason I'm mentioning this is because this incident had an impact on our trek though I must shamefully admit that it was a positive one...
Planning and setting out..
Since yelagiri is a considerably huge hill (read tall and 920 meters to be exact), we planned to have enough time to ascent/descent it, I estimated it to take around 4 hours, and this time we had a hard limit for our return which was around 11.15AM as there were some social gatherings to be attended back in town, so we planned to set out around 5.00AM in the morning which would give us around 6 hours.
This was night before trek and the night before trek is usually a lively one in my home as I would be generally goading few of my cousins and brothers to head out with me which would end up futile always,
and some are even shameless as they outright say "idu nambulku illae bai.." (its not for me dude), Tch Tch.. I mean where have the mens gone these days...(Am I the only one?)
even showing them a thousand "man vs wild" episode will not be enough to inspire them for an adventure or for that matter narrating the inspiring story of George Mallory...
They will just ask with a raised eye brow.. "George who?"
and its at times like this is that I'm thankful to mujju who atleast gives me company on these treks....
hmm... where was I again?
Anyways.. as planned we (Me and mujju) setout the next morning around 5.15 and this time it was a bus ride and reached vaniyambadi around 6.00, we desperately wanted to have something to fill our stomachs and could only find a tea kade (tea shop), so after a few tut-tutting about lack of food options at this hour of day and a cup of tea, we caught a town bus to ponneri village which is actually at the yelagiri hill base.
By the time we reached the village, it was around 6.20AM and were a bit off from schedule..and since there was no ride, we had to walk for about 2KM to reach the hairpin bend road..as we neared the hill base, a couple of youngsters zoomed past us in their bikes and they gave us a look which said .. "what the hell are these idiots doing? trying to walk up the hill? look how cool we are riding these bikes..", I wanted to take the nearest stone and hurl at these eye-sores..., I mean #$#@ 2#$#@ %&^%&.. ok ok, control control..
so effectively our trek started around 6.40.
 | |
| Road from ponneri to hill base |
Dead ends galore..
since this was supposed to be a proper hill climb we were conscious to avoid the road, but we wanted to trek adjacent to the road just to be safe, in hindsight this was a bad decision as the road to the hill top has been cut in a region where there are lot of thorny bushes..
our first attemt was in a small opening which we found near first hair pin bend, it looked like a narrow clear opening so we jumped up the fence and walked a bit far but found it to be rather dense and thorny after a few yards, we tried to find some clear path here and gave up after some time...
 |
| 1st dead end near 1st HP bend.. |
 | |
| Old man collecting grasses... place we tried second opening.. |
 | |
| returning back to road after 2nd failure.. |
Clear opening atlast..
we were reluctantly walking up the road desperately trying to deny the fact that its impossible to find a clear climb path...
and fortunately at the 2nd hairpin bend we finally found one, we hurriedly walked up to the clearing, but as we stepped into it, it was a huge layer of black charred up soil and this continued a long way up.., some locals were cutting down some dry twigs and they confirmed the reason about someone setting up the fire...
the whole site was a mess unlike to what I have seen of yelagiri in the past, the only thing I can see in my front was a rubble of rocks covered in black charcoal...
The locals again warned this time not to take this route and the reason was it would dirty your clothes.. I waived the suggestion non-chalantly... after all trekking does leave a few dirts on your clothes..
 |
| 2nd HP bend where we found clear opening |
 |
| but it was rubble of rocks covered in black charcoal |
Fast climb..
Although an eyesore but the site of naked rocks piled up one above another gave off a feeling of appealing climb and we took up the challenge, we started the climb and
also shamefully reminded ourselves to have depended on the fire for a proper climb..
The climbing of rocks soon turned out to be an adrenaline rush and not having climbed a hill for a long time gave both of us a some sort of excitement,
 |
| It was a fast climb up the rocks.. |
I could feel the excitement of the clear unhindered climb, the first leg of climbing took us near the 4th hairpin bend road, but the excitment was such that we did not stop the climb one bit, in the process by the time we reached near 6th hair pin bend, we had negotiated some tough and difficult rock climbs and this was turning out to be one fun ride.
by this time we were out of breath and some rest was in the offing..
while resting mujju pointed to my pants and it was a horrible sight, the whole lower half part was covered up in dirt lines of black charcoal from the unburnt twigs,
probably this is what the locals referred, and there were traces of black dirt in back of the t-shirt as well, this was the first time to trek in such a dirt and hence I call this "Dirt trek"
 |
| resting near 6th hairpin bent |
Dead end again..
We hoped the clearing to lead us to some considerable height and we continued our trek again in the the rock rubbles, only after some time we started noticing some unburnt thorny bushes showing up..
we continued our trek into these bushes as they were not so dense, hoping it would clear out after some height, but some how we ended up in dead end.., we tried couple of alternate openings further to the left and finally found ourselves surrounded by some of these bushes with narrow chance of escape,
we sat down here and contemplated as to what to do? this was the fifth time in todays trek we had come up at a dead end, it was as if the hill was signalling that today is not the day...
we took the narrow escape route out of this bushes and decided that we will give one final push to see if we can find a further path to climb up and explored a bit more to the left.
 |
| But we found ourselves tangled between thorny bushes |
Open valley! a ray of hope...
further left we found the edge of the hill and there was a valley running in between this edge and the other, these valleys are usually dense as water will run down it during rainy days, but the summer heat had thinned this considerably, on any other day without the fire this scene would have looked spectacular with the the hill slope covered in grass, and from this point we could see the bridge connecting these two edges (This probably would have been around 10th hairpin bend around 600-650Meters), but this just wasn't our day, as just further up some bushes were again hindering the path,
 |
| Opening with a ray of hope |
 |
| Contemplating a way to reach other slope |
Leave to climb another day...
hmm! wait am I giving a mysterious intent here?, The phone rang but this call was not some black mail call or anything like I have to do X to avoid Y and end up doing Z, this call was from mujju's father to make it in time for the social gathering... Damn! why do these mobile tower work in hills, Next time I should bring a jamming device along with me to avoid such calls, anyways it was probably time to give up on one thing and we decided to give up the successful ascent, probably it was not worth climbing a charred hill, so as sometimes battles end up in dead lock situation and the warriors return to live and fight another day! we both had to leave to climb another day...
The descent took another 45 mins and by the time we reached ponneri village it was around 10.15 which gave enough time to make it back in time.
but the battle is not over yet and hopefully we will return to complete the trek on a yelagiri which will give extra challenge with its grasses
here is the complete gallery of the trek
PS: after returning I proudly showed off the dirt on my pant! and I got an earful from my mom and she downright turned down to wash it,
These are the comments after seeing my pant..
Mom: "Teri joru ku bol ko dho.." (ask your wife to wash it) (I doubt she will though..)
Grand Mom: "Yengeda poi vandaen.. yadavadu oole malai ku pone aa?" (where the hell did you do, did you go to some cheap hill)
Cousin: "rai muzzu! kaan re lidko aaya?" (hey muzzu, which dirt did you roll over?)
and some more sarcasm... aah! its tough being an adventurer..
by the way the pant was still lying unwashed last seen, wonder if I should frame it?
 |
| Framed |
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