Trek to Mullayanagiri and Bababuddangiri

The weather forecast for the weekend was good, so we decided to do another BMC (Bangalore Mountaineering Club) trek. This one was a 2 day trek to Mullayanagiri which is in Chikmagalur. Chikmagalur is a hilly region to the West of Bangalore which is one of the centers of coffee production in India. Mullayanagiri is the highest peak in Karnataka at 1930m.

As with most of the weekend treks, pick up is at about 10pm the night before from Bangalore. Our homestay was about a 5-6 hour drive from Bangalore. It was a really popular one this weekend with 36 people on the trek, so there were 3 minibuses! Which was lucky as we got a puncture (shredded tyre really!) and had to get the spare off one of the other minibuses. The journey was also stretched out a bit by an hour and a half stop at the entrance to the hills as the area doesn't open until 5.30am. Anyway, we arrived at the homestay at about 6.30am. It was very basic, and really too small for the number of us, but we coped OK. Not the best organisation from BMC this time, there were just too many people really. 

So, after a bit of a freshen up, and some breakfast, we left at about 9am and drove to the start of the trek. It was a pretty cloudy day and the tops were shrouded in cloud, which was a blessing in that it wasn't very hot, but equally it was have been good to get a bit of view! 

In the cloud!

 Finally, the cloud breaks a little

They had decided to do the walk backwards as there is a check post between the Mullayanagiri peak and the ridge you walk along to get to Bababuddangiri. Previously they have had some problems with getting permission at the check point to walk along the ridge, so if we did the ridge first, then nobody could stop us! The clouds broke a occasionally as we started along the ridge and it started clearing more the further we got along.

Looking back along the ridge

The ridge then came down to meet the road where our lunch had been delivered, a very tasty veg biriyani and raita in a huge tiffin box. Then the sun came out properly, unfortunately our suncream application came a little late, we had already got quite sunburnt, sillybillys!  From there the temple at the top of Mullayanagiri looked pretty close, but it was one of those where you reach the top of the first hill, only to find that there are 3 more before you reach the actual top! It was a nice 8.5 mile hike.

From the top of Mullayanagiri looking back the way we had come, the ridge just about visible in the clouds.

We got back to the homestay at about 6pm and there was the usual amount of hanging around until dinner. We didn't last a whole lot longer than after dinner and I think we were in bed by 9! An overnight bus ride and a day of hiking will do that to you!

The following day we went to see a waterfall before heading back to Bangalore. I don't know the name of it, but as waterfalls go, it wasn't too bad. To get there they hired jeeps to drop us down to it, it was about a 2km walk down a very rough track, there was no way the minibuses would have made.

At the waterfall

The boys having fun! 

I slightly wish Ben and I hadn't been quite so sensible and had gone for it too, but I'm not sure the trip back in the bus would have been much fun!

On the way back up there was an excellent display of some of the most annoying things about India! One of the jeeps ran out of diesel on the way up, so was blocking the road. Of course, everyone rev'd their engines a lot and hooted, got as close as possible and tried their hardest to go around. It was plainly obvious that the only way to get past was for the jeeps coming up the hill to back down to a junction and then push the broken down one out of the way at the junction. But it took a good half an hour of discussion and hooting to come to this conclusion. As soon as that jeep was out of the way off we went up the hill again. Of course, there was clearly another one on the way down, and nowhere to pass, but we went anyway! When we got to it there was another 10 mins of stand off followed by a lot of reversing and maneuvering to get past each other. It's really no wonder this country has such a traffic problem, the number of cars is only 1/2 the problem! Finally they were all completely scuppered as a large truck slightly further up the road had stopped to unload some kind of building material and wasn't going anywhere. From there we had to walk! Luckily it turned out not to be that far by then, a few of the girls had very sore legs.

So then it was back on the minibus for the 5 hour journey home, urgh!