Trek to Gutherayan Forest

While I was looking for a break from the mundane corporate life, Sha’s mail about a trek to Gutherayan Peak, some 70 kms away from Bangalore, came as a welcome relief. A couple of mails exchanged, phone calls made, last minute camping arrangements done and we were all ready for the D-day! I was all the more thrilled since I would be driving for a long distance for the first time!!

Shan was again late and had justifications to back it up as ever. We started at about 5:30 am on Saturday, 4th of April and picked up Avishek on the way. I drove as fast as I could to pick up our organiser Sha, who threatened to leave us in case we were late, only to find the man himself late by some good 30 mins! Not that we spared him of our frustration for the lack of sleep but the grin on his face and Guru waiting to picked up made us shift our focus.

Encouraged by the compliments on my driving skill we reached Denkanikottai and stopped at Shankar Café for breakfast. Here we were joined by two other members – Sudhakar (who drove down from Chennai) and Karthik. Recharged after having the fluffy idlies and the hot poories, we decided to pack some for the way and headed straight to Aiyur FRH in two cars. Once we arrived at the FHR a huge rooster (I could almost imagine it on the barbeque) and a tree house caught our fancy and we quickly captured it in our cameras. Parking our vehicles at the rest house, we started the trek at 10 am and after walking steadily for 3 Kms we took our first break at Sami Eri. The cool breeze and shade of the bamboo trees by the lake was truly inviting and what was supposed to be a 5 min break ended up being 15 mins (almost)! Sha, who by now had won the title of ‘The President’, kept reminding us of the distance we had to cover and the difficulty we might face due to the increasing heat. The guy surely knows how to get people on their feet!!

Once again we started walking on the tar road that looked pretty uninteresting for a trek. We amused ourselves with the villagers’ contradictory verbatim about spotting elephants ahead and the confusing milestones that never gave us the correct distance. But all this subsided soon as the sun’s intensity increased, our water storage started diminishing drastically and our legs refused to walk further. To add to all this, suddenly someone had a feeling that we missed the turn leading to Kodakerai! We enquired with few villagers on the way and were quite relieved to find that we were on the right track! President located the mud-track opposite to the hand-pump on the road and we happily took the deviation. This path was little more interesting than the tar road given the winding roads inside the forest and the beaming sense of adventure within us. By this time the breeze had picked up and helped us walk a little faster towards our destination. At this point we decided to take a lunch break. Not that we were all extremely hungry but this atleast would make our bags lighter and would translate into walking faster.

But our energy levels & stamina was challenged the moment we came across the never ending up hill track. Avi, Shan and I gave up and pleaded with the rest for another break. Just when everyone seemed to agree and we happily dropped our back-packs, President voiced his annoying desire of walking further before we stop. Our jaws dropped and faces turned pale but the three of us stuck together and parked ourselves at that very spot while the other carried on. Avishek quickly took out his Glucose packet from the bag and gulped some before handing it over to us. Wondering how much difference would it make in regaining our stamina, we all followed him without much thought and readied for next (dreadful) leg. Panting our way up the hill we reached a point where we not only caught up with the rest but also got a mesmerising view of the Spider Valley (Reserve Forest known for its 10 inch big spiders!!).
To our relief came the easy part of the trek…downhill…where if you don’t feel like walking, you can just choose to roll!! What seemed to be an endless walk came to an end when Sudhakar gave us a thumbs-up and we rejoiced at the idea of reaching Kodakerai. Sha, Sudhakar and I quickly reserved a place under the shade of a tree and splashed some cool water on our faces. A glance at the water we were going to drink made our spine shiver. Sudhakar, a doctor by profession, in his true style made us the guinea pig and waited for us to drink. After being sure of the consequences, he took out his own bottles and re-filled them for the rest of the journey. Guru on the other hand was busy watching birds with his binoculars and flaunted his knowledge without a doubt. Being tempted I volunteered to be his apprentice but at the end decided to trust the vision of my naked eyes to the advancement of technology.

Not sure of the route to Gutherayan Forest, we enquired the locals there and soon realised that we were 1 mile away from the actual Kodakerai village! This meant gathering ourselves and mentally preparing to walk that extra mile again! It was our guy from Thirunalvelli, who entertained us and made our walk easier. He acted as the interpreter (although the real work was being done by Sudhakar & Karthik) on suddenly realising that our summit was in his own homeland –Tamil Nadu! If this was not enough he used his charm to impress the Kodakerai chicks and lured us to have dinner at their home. Supported by President we committed the heinous crime of snubbing the budding love story between Shan & the beauties and decided to continue further. The bright colours of the houses and the warmth of the villagers greeted us and we happily settled down for a hot cup of black tea (although the colour of the tea reminded me of a rosé wine) followed by some photo sessions. This was our longest stop amongst the innumerable ones and our bodies gave up as we got closer to the summit.
At this point the village headman insisted that we take Lingappa (another locale) for our remaining journey through the dense forest. This was the real difficult part of the trek! The whole route was steep and we had to cover another 2 kms before we reached Gutheri Lake. And even before we realised, it was pitch dark! We took out our torches and kept walking in complete silence. Lingappa cautioned us to stay together so that we don’t get lost and we followed him obediently. Our pace was faster with no breaks and we all had a sole objective. At 7:30 pm we finally reached the rocky bed, in the middle of the Shola forests, overlooking Gutheri and that brought a smile on everyone’s face. We voiced our unanimous decision to camp there for the night but President had other plans! He tried to motivate us to walk down to the lake and then choose. Quite reluctantly we all went down and scrutinised the place. There seemed to be a high possibility of sighting wild animals, which was not a very comforting thought for most. We had a vote and all of us gave different reasons to opt for the previous camping spot. But the most interesting was the one cited by Shan. He had found a broken piece of a bangle next to him and that changed his entire expression. As per Shanalysis (a term given for all of Shan’s analysis) it could have belonged to a female who was molested & murdered in the forest. And the possibility of her soul wandering in the wild shook up the otherwise brave guy. We decided to return to the camp site but lost our way. After about some 15 mins of search we found the route back to the site and crashed around the campfire with Vodka, biscuits, cakes, sweets and juice. The comfort of the rocky ledge was far superior to the sophisticated beds, the power of the moonlight might have put technology to shame and the innumerable stars of various sizes made the perfect ceiling to make one sleep blissfully.

At about 3:30 am Sudhakar and I were woken up by the sound of a gunshot. The possibility of poaching came to our minds but we were too frightened to find out the real reason at that time of the night. In the morning the chirping of the birds and the smell of toasts made on the campfire (by Sudhakar) dragged us from our sleeping bags and we enjoyed our breakfast with jam and fruits. Given the time, we had to deviate from our original plan of trekking up the Gutherayan peak and instead decided to explore the forest around the lake. Contrary to what seemed the previous night, the lake was mystical and wrapped one in the silence around it. The same morning Guru mentioned about a growl that he heard in the bushes close by and we were all thrilled and scared at the same time. Although we did not see any animals, we came across a tree that had more than 25 bee hives, saw a rare species of eagle, made friends with unknown people who were united by common interests and passion and brought back fond memories.

Aiyur, we returned to our camp, packed and headed towards Kodakerai village at about 9:00 am. Some locals mentioned about a Sumo that had come to fix the bore-well and could us drop us to the mainroad. The scorching heat and our tired legs immediately caught on to this idea and we waited patiently while sipping tea (milk tea this time!). However the owner for some unknown reason refused to accept us as his passengers. In the meantime another villager mentioned about a Tempo that was expected and we once again became hopeful. Thankfully this time we were allowed to climb in and we reached the FRH within 45 - 50 mins. We picked up our vehicles, stopped for lunch of hot rice, delicious sambar and crunchy vadas on the way and headed straight towards Hosur for beer. For the first time in our lives we were served chilled beer in lukewarm tumblers at a star restaurant here!!!!!

This trek took me back to 2004 when 5 friends set out for some adventure in the forests of Panchalingeshwar, Orissa without the knowledge of parents...