Along the western Ghats - Ascending Kodachadri..
Trek route: If you
are going from Shimoga, traverse on the road reaching kollur. On the way, you
will hit a small village called Nittur; you need to continue on the same road
till you find small mud road towards your left with a sign board of Karnataka forest
Dept. and this place is called Karakatte Gate (Kari Ghat Gate), just 14 Kms
before kollur.
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| Karkatte Gate |
Trek starting in below map with point marked A.
If you are travelling by public transport then you can get down at Karkatte Gate and start your trek. If you are travelling by private vehicle then you can travel till "Hotel Santosh". Distance between Main road and Hotel Santosh is around 5.5 Kms. one can find basic food here. Actual trek starts from this point. Distance between "Hotel Santosh" and "PWD guest house" is about 4 Kms. Initial part of this stretch is much steep. You need to trek inside forest where, you will find a lot of leeches in post monsoon. Most of the times you will come out of the forest and again your trek trail enters to the forest. After trekking 4KMS you will find the temple on the top with few houses and a PWD Guest house. From PWD Guest house there is a common path till peak. Distance between kodachadri peak (Sarvagnapeetha) and PWD guest house is around 1.2KMS.
If you are travelling by public transport then you can get down at Karkatte Gate and start your trek. If you are travelling by private vehicle then you can travel till "Hotel Santosh". Distance between Main road and Hotel Santosh is around 5.5 Kms. one can find basic food here. Actual trek starts from this point. Distance between "Hotel Santosh" and "PWD guest house" is about 4 Kms. Initial part of this stretch is much steep. You need to trek inside forest where, you will find a lot of leeches in post monsoon. Most of the times you will come out of the forest and again your trek trail enters to the forest. After trekking 4KMS you will find the temple on the top with few houses and a PWD Guest house. From PWD Guest house there is a common path till peak. Distance between kodachadri peak (Sarvagnapeetha) and PWD guest house is around 1.2KMS.
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| On the way to Hotel Santosh |
Best time to trek: From October to February.
Food, Accommodation & Transport (Jeep) :
Nagendra Bhatt - 9449500806
Sitaram Bhatt - 9632847302
Ramesh - 9481009983
Food, Accommodation & Transport (Jeep) :
Nagendra Bhatt - 9449500806
Sitaram Bhatt - 9632847302
Ramesh - 9481009983
Kodachadri around 14 Kms from the famous temple town of
Kollur is in Shimoga district. At the height of 1343 meters above sea level, its
majesty stands along the splendid evergreen forests. The place is around 115
kilometers from Shimoga town.
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| Nodi Swami navu irodu heege !! |
We started the journey from Bangalore in a train to Shimoga
town ( TALGUPPA EXP departs from Bangalore @ 23:00 and reaches Shimoga @ 5:00 Am), from there we
took a bus to Kollur(Private bus service start early morning ) and alighted at
a point in the ghat called Karakatte Gate (Kari Ghat Gate / Karikatte Gate) and
started our trek. This is approx. 1.5 kms after Sigundur cross towards Kollur.
Take left from Karakatte gate.
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| March-fast |
The initial walk through the ups and downs of the forest
path is bit easy. After walking through the plains for almost an hour we
reached an inhabited area, with a malayalli hotel there, where you can get
puttu and kadala (steam cooked rice cake; we usually call it as kadubu and
chana). We rested here for almost half an hour and headed to climb up.
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| Commercial break |
Initial ascend, though steep, was through the shades and was less sapping.
After one and half
hour climb, then it was a walk through the mountain side, covered with grass,
almost green everywhere.
It was an astonishing view.
We finished our
packed lunch here and for the next half an hour it was an easy trail. We caught
our first glimpses of the hill top. It was just 10 mins of climb up hill but
that became a real climax.
By this time the clouds were just above us and it started raining. All of us
where inexplicably tired, but still managed to drag on. In the end, we managed
to reach there but at last the hell broke loose and it was so heavy rain that
we were almost drenched. With not much circus, we reached the destination, were
there is a temple, a guest house and a couple of houses of the local priests.
PWD guest house was not in good condition during our visit
and we stayed in one of the priest’s house where, we had booked our accommodation.
Later we had the dinner as the rains did not provide us an opportunity to go
watch the sunset. So went to bed praying to be able to get up in time for the
sunrise as the rain did not allow us to see the sunset.
At around 6:30 in the morning, we got up and rushed up to watch the sun going up. It was indeed a race with the Sun., with enough time to spare to catch glimpses of the beautiful sunrise...
At around 6:30 in the morning, we got up and rushed up to watch the sun going up. It was indeed a race with the Sun., with enough time to spare to catch glimpses of the beautiful sunrise...
We paid a visit to Sarvajna peetha dedicated to Jagadguru
Sri Shankaracharya. It is said that the Jagadguru had visited this place, meditated
here and he also established a temple on the hill of kodachadri and another at
Kollur dedicated to Sri Mookambika Devi.
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| Sarvajna-Peetha |
A small temple called
Sarvajna peetha, built with stone is dedicated to Guru Adi Shankaracharya at
the top of Kodachadri. There is a cave with idol of lord Ganesha, famous as
Ganesha Guha on the way to Sarvajna peetha. An iron pillar of about 40 feet
length can be found in front of Moola Mookambika Temple near peak of Kodachadri
and it is believed that this is the trishula used by goddess Mookambika to slay
a demon called Mookasura as per tradition.
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| On the way to Sarvajna-Peetha |
Overall the trek was one of the hard and most exciting trek,
I ever had.
