2nd December 2009, 02:24
| #1 | |
| BHPian  Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Campus @ IIMA !
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| 'Xing'ing around ! - A weekend trek to Mukurthi Peak near Ooty... Ooty seems to be the flavor of the season and this was a trek through the Mukurthi national park which is very close to Ooty. This was done over the weekend of 28th & 29th Nov 09. Mukurthi National Park is sandwiched between the Mudumalai National Park and the Silent Valley National park. Wikipedia says: Quote:
 The park is named after the distinctive looking Mukurthi peak, which at 8,379ft is the fourth highest peak in the Nilgiri range. This 1852 water color painting by a British artist captures the unusual shape of this peak... resembling a pointed nose!  (Pic courtesy - British Library) A trek to Mukurthi was on our to-do list for quite a while and our old friend Mr.Chandrashekar coordinated for the permits, logistics and took care of all the ground work. The dates were confirmed and we were quite excited and looking forward to the trip... but it turned out that Sangeetha had to go to New York on an official trip and she had to drop out :( The group planned to meet up near Majestic Bus stand at around 9pm on Friday evening. I rushed home from office, Sangeetha had already kept my bag packed... a quick dinner and I caught an auto. Having had a tiring day, I slept through out the journey, waking up only when we were close to Ooty. After getting delayed due to some blocked roads / traffic jams on the ghat sections, we reached Ooty only by around 6.30am on Saturday morning.  We stopped at the Ooty youth hostel for freshening up and a light breakfast.  James, the caretaker of the Mukurthi fishing hut, would join us only at around 9.00am, so we had some time to kill.   The guys exercising their SLRs with the customary macro pix!  After James joined us, we went into Ooty town to buy some provisions. Ooty town is quite commercialized, crowded, noisy & polluted. Here is a typical scene, complete with a garbage truck, the milling crowds, haphazardly parked vehicles... and a cop screaming at the top of his voice!  But there are quite a few areas in around the town which are quite picturesque...  Shopping completed, we headed off towards the Porthimund dam from where our trek would begin. On the outskirts of Ooty, we found mountains alright... mountains of garbage that is.  Bad roads... really bad roads!  After about an hour, we reached the Porthimund dam.    A Nilgiri Langur...  We distributed the provisions between a couple of us to prepare for the long walk ahead...  Public transport! 5 men on a bike.  After a chai in the village shop, we started off into the jungle...  The scenic backwaters of the dam...   Progress was sometimes slowed down by the fallen trees...  And the narrow path through the undergrowth...  Our first glimpse of the Mukurthi peak - The sharp pointed peak at the distance, right in the middle of the pic...  Most of the path was through a jeep trail...   Found lots of signs that elephants too use this route frequently...  More flora and fauna...   A small waterfall alongside the track; close to the fishing hut...  The Mukurthi fishing hut. Trust the British to find the most picturesque locations to build a house!  Contd... | |
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2nd December 2009, 02:42
| #2 |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Campus @ IIMA !
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| Trek to the Mukurthi Peak This place was once home to a gentleman named Richard Radcliffe, who was a Vice President of the Nilgiri Wildlife & Environmental Association...   Very basic accommodation, with 5 beds in total; and the rest of the gang would have to sleep in the hall in their sleeping bags...  James set about preparing lunch...  Post lunch we headed down towards the lake...   A stream that feeds into the lake...  Crystal clear...   A group photo...  A mushroom...  A mirror image...  We walked alongside the lake for quite a while, taking pics while the sun was going down...   And the moon came up...  Skipping stones across the lake...  As the daylight slowly faded away, we decided to head back to the hut...  Had a simple but hot & tasty dinner and by around 8.00pm we were ready to bed down for the day. Some of the braver souls decided to try sleeping outside!  By around 9.00pm the temperature had fallen so low that even the water in the taps was painfully cold. It was quite comforting to sit next to the fireplace in the living room...  It was 9.30pm and I finally tucked into my sleeping bag. At around 10.30pm I was woken up by sounds of the guys who were sleeping outside rushing back inside since the temperatures outside were unbearably cold! We were up at 5.00am, freshened up, had a light breakfast and headed out at 6.45am...   The night temperatures must have fallen to around 4 degrees or less, since there was ground frost all around. Even at around 7.30am it was cold enough to keep the frost intact.  A frozen spider and its web...  We could catch occasional glimpses of our destination. The sharp peak is quite unmistakable...  Defreezing back to life...   There were patches of wooded areas...   The ground continued to remain frozen wherever there was no direct sunlight...   Contd... |
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2nd December 2009, 02:56
| #3 |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Campus @ IIMA !
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| Trek to Mukurthi Peak Ice on my shoes!  A caterpillar...  Mukurthi was still quite a long way to go. Took this pic with some zoom...      Came across these pug marks near a stream. Took pics with my watch next to them to provide a scale...    Through the grasslands...    Closer to the peak...   A stream coming down through the sholas...   The going got steeper and the sun got hotter...    The view got better and better as we gained altitude...   While looking at the peak I saw some movement at the distance. Zoomed in to catch a herd of Nilgiri Tahr bounding down from the peak...  They had heard us approaching from well over a kilometer away and slowly grazed their way away towards the other side of the peak...   A rest stop...   Contd... |
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2nd December 2009, 03:22
| #4 |
| BHPian Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Campus @ IIMA !
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| Mukurthi National Park Trek The rolling hills and the towering mountains...   As we made our way up to the peak, the last stretch was quite steep...    Is this why they are called the 'Blue Mountains'?  The Mukurthi Lake...  We finally reached the peak by around 11.15am!     After spending around 45 minutes on the peak, savoring the amazing view all around us, we started our descent...  A photo that was hanging on the wall in the fishing hut shows three tigers walking along a path at the base of the peak. [Since Tigers are solitary animals, this might be a pic of three almost grown-up cubs that have not yet gone their own separate ways; or might be a composite image from three shots of the same Tiger]  What looks like a path is actually a gully cut across the hillside by rain water...  Another waterfall along the way...    We reached the hut at around 3.00pm, had lunch and started walking back towards the dam where our vehicle was parked.  Ok, the last couple of kilometers turned out to be another mini-trek. We were walking alongside James, who asked us if we wanted to take a 'short-cut'. A shorter route it certainly was... but it was again a walk up a hill and through the forest.   Some of us were contemplating whether to stop over Ooty to pick up some home-made chocolates etc. But considering the fact that the Bandipur route would be shut at 9.00pm, we decided to skip the shopping and raced off to cross the check post before it was shut. Made it across into the Bandipur road with plenty of time to spare, stopped for dinner at Gundlupet, later that night a short stop at the Coffee day on Mysore road and we were back in Bangalore in the wee hours of Monday. |
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2nd December 2009, 03:46
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2nd December 2009, 10:07
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2nd December 2009, 10:38
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2nd December 2009, 10:42
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2nd December 2009, 11:07
| #9 |
| Senior - BHPian  | Wow!!! Great pics Sanjay. Looks like you had a whale of a time. I was planning to go to Mukurthy this October, but could not manage to get permissions. I even went to Ooty to talk to the Forest Office there, but could not meet the in-charge person and all others were saying permissions are not given  . Let us know what was the procedure you guys took to get permissions.Btw, I just completed the Parambikulam Tramway trek last weekend, the same day you went to Mukurthy. It was finally off my list after postponing it a few times  . Thanks a lot to you & your travelogue for introducing me that place. I loved every moment of it.EDIT: Even I found pugmarks of an Adult male Tiger on the Tramway trail. Talk about coincidence!! Last edited by addyhemmige : 2nd December 2009 at 11:10. |
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2nd December 2009, 11:08
| #10 |
| Senior - BHPian Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Hyderabad
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2nd December 2009, 11:21
| #11 |
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2nd December 2009, 12:12
| #12 | |
| BHPian  | Quote:
 This is a fantastic trip log hotstuff. More info on how you got the permissions and the contacts would be highly helpful | |
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2nd December 2009, 14:22
| #13 |
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2nd December 2009, 20:38
| #14 |
| BHPian Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Chennai
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2nd December 2009, 20:44
| #15 | |
| Senior - BHPian  | @hotstuff, Awesome pics, i liked the one of Makruthi Lake  .Can you please post the details of where to get the permission,etc. I have already started to plan on this. Quote:
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