Green Route trek aka Sakleshpur Railway Track trek - Part 1
Posted by Anantha | Posted in Sakleshpur Railway Track , Trekking | Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009
It was 10’O clock in the chilling night of Yedakumari. The corridor of the old railway station with algae coated walls and leaking roof was providing shelter for six of us with few other trekkers. The railway platform was facing the gigantic rock covered with thick moss and other bushy plants. Two railway tracks were lying cold between the rock and the platform. The moon was playing hide and seek behind the dark clouds. The pattering drops from the edge of the roof of corridor were rhythmically causing ripples on the stillness of the night. We were resting on the floor with our towels and half dry jerkins protecting our backs and asses from the cold concrete floor. The railway officials had switched off the 4 tube lights that were lighting up the entire stretch of railway platform after their dinner; they had dozed off in their cozy rooms remaining indifferent to the guests sleeping outside.
The six of us had just finished our ‘royal’ dinner consisting whole wheat bread slices with pickle and sauce with some Haldiram’s bhujia for garnishing. Sharath was lying left most next to Byre. Narayan was snoring next to him. I was involved in nonsensical talks with Pujar and Chetan to my right. I had held my bright torch up on my stomach pointing upwards to the white roof with many yellow and greenish patches, that serving as the only bright source of light after a dimly lit incandescent bulb at the other end of the corridor. To our left there were few other trekkers from Bangalore, most of them were tired and half dead after trekking on the Green Route for 20+ kms whole of that day.
A thought occurred in my mind. It was a Saturday night; all the 6 of us could have been on our cozy couches of our warm rooms in our respective houses in Bangalore, if we had wished to. But instead, we were lying curled up in some remote railway station in the windy and chilly Western Ghats waiting for the arriaval of a train @ 11:30 PM to that station. The railway employees there had said that train which usually does not stop in that station was stopping to our luck that day due to some signalling problems. Our calf muscles were tested to their best and our soles were paining every millimeter after walking on the gravel of the railway track for 20+ kms and other 10 kms on road. I had 4 boils on and in between my toes caused by my not so comfortable shoes. I just thought, was this misery worth in the name of thrill and adventure? Then my heart said, it was worth every penny of the pain! My mind was filled with the picturesque landscapes, fog covered mountains, innumerable streams and waterfalls, pitch dark tunnels, mind numbing metal bridges and fresh green vegetation that we had seen while trekking on the railway track that day.
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A trekker’s CV in Karnataka is incomplete if s/he has not been to Green Route aka Sakleshpur Railway Track trek. This has been a long pending plan for us. When we were searching for places to visit in monsoon, Green Route was last of the options. People and expert trekkers warn it as not a safe thing to trek in the monsoons on Sakleshpur Railway Track. With some hesitation and queer enthusiasm, 6 of us had gathered in the Majestic KSRTC bus station on Friday night.
The 6 trekkers are,
Pujar: He is in search of a Mexican Lingayat girl to marry and is very particular about this specification
Chetan aka gungru [not ghungroo]: People who have seen a recent Kannada movie Eddelu Manjunatha would know the reason behind calling any person gungru and are free to laugh to their heart’s content :)
Sharath aka Techie: The proud owner of D-SLR camera and the most organized guy in the gang
Byre: Toughest guy amongst us. Kannada movie director Suri is thinking of casting him in the sequel to Junglee
Narayan: The silent killer had grown thick stubble on an insistence from some hot aunty
and
Me: the loaferest loafer of the gang :)
Carrying enough food items and all the other necessary equipments for the trek, we boarded the famous red KSRTC bus to Sakleshpur. Chetan and Narayan preferred Volvo bus, but Byre chose Red bus over Volvo as he wanted this to be a tough trip preparing us for the tough trek of the next day.
The bus was relatively less crowded. We occupied 6 seats in the middle rows of the bus. The bus left Majestic exactly at 11 PM as scheduled. We all were pulling each other’s legs, cracking PJs bigtime and sipping Sprite, were just 5 hours away from what could be called the best trek of our lives.
(to be contd..)
Hello Umesh,
Thanks for dropping by and commenting..
freak...! I lost your comments while modifying this post :(
Rightly said anna,
A trekker's CV is not complete without the "Green route trek". We were very lucky to have it as the first in our list of "done" routes and are proud about how we managed to live after that. In fact, I have written almost an entire diary about that one day. Maybe i will post the same some day when I get time
The build-up you have given is nice! Will waste no time in going over to next parts.
@Shashi,
First of all, thx for the comments re Deva (implicitly voicing how desperate I was for reader's comments ;) )
Im just wondering if Im the last to trek this cos, all my trekking enthusiastic friends have trekked this stretch already, at least once!
Ill be looking Fwd for ur experience of trekking this stretch.. post it soon!
Hi Anantha,
Was nice reading your writeup. Do check out the Green Route trek marked on a map here http://bit.ly/93lTP4. You can embed this route on your blog post here and help visitors plan a trip there!
Would love to hear your feedback about www.TripNaksha.com (I built this website as a means to making adventure travel in India easy).