We a group of 6 after lot of planning, re planning & mail exchanges, met @ KSRTC bus stand which began our expedition to Kodachadri Let me have the privilege to introduce my friends Mahesh Patil (Timken), Satish Kittli (Sat yam), Jaylokanath (Scan dent) & Rahul, Nixon & myself (Think3) Tickets were reserved much before as there were Christmas holidays. And we started off on 23-12-05 (Friday night).

There are couple of starting points for the trek,

» Sampekette :-It’s around 1.15 hrs before Kollur,may be this route somewhere connects the route from Gowrikerre or may go via Gowrikerre itself

» Gowrikerre:- This is the place were there is a left deviation to Kodachadri , its approximately 3 kms before Nittur also called as Kodachadri cross, this is the only motor-able road up to the kodachadri temple it’s 15 odd kms from the main road half of the road is tar road & the other half is a mud road. Also one can go to Hidlumanne falls from here, for this one has to walk approx for 1.5 kms from the main road to get a school @ your left ,here take a mud road to your right this road leads u to Yemmehonda junction(here this road meets the approach road from Marakuttaka)

» Marakuttaka:- Get down at Sigundur cross 3.5 kms after Nittur again trek back towards Nittur for 1 kms, just before the bridge, at your right u get Marakuttaka bus stop follow the mud road to reach Kodachadri via Hidlumanne falls

» Karrakette: - This is approx 1.5 kms after Sigundur cross towards Kollur. Take left from karrakette which goes via Valur it’s roughly 9-10 kms to the temple, up to Valur it’s motor-able road from there a narrow trail uphill, Valur to temple it’s 1hr ascend. One can even go to Arshinagundi falls from Valur but only with an local guide because there is no pakka trail

There is a good amount of state transport available to get to these places. There is a bus to kollur @ 8 pm which goes via Mangalore, Kundapura it’s better to catch 8.30 PM bus as we can get down at planned trek start point itself there is no need to go to Kollur

After considering all trek routes which were not very clear to us at that time and even there were many misconceptions about the routes. We opted for the Marakuttaka route as it was more daring than the other routes. KSRTC bus driver/conductor were of no help to us in deciding were to get down at. We got down at Sigundur cross 3.5 kms after Nittur at 6.00 am. We had to walk back 1 km towards Nittur, just before the bridge at our right we got Marakuttaka bus stop which was mentioned as the trek start point in one of the write up which I got on net.

From Marakuttaka follow the mud road there are lots of smaller routes connecting this road ignore them follow the broadest road, after 1km or so u get a “Y” fork both the roads are almost same in width,

here there was a bit of confusion but eventually we took the left route which is bit ascending, after 2kms from here u get a stream cross it, 1.5 kms after the stream there is a village called Yemmehonda ,few minutes of walk from here leads to Yemmehonda junction take a right turn here and after few yards u get Yemmehonda school this means u r on the right trail. After few yards there is another “y” fork keep left, u also get a kette here written 2 kms to Hidlumanne falls in Kannada continue straight for another few minutes and the road ends at Hidlumanne (house) here contact GURURAJ for further directions. One has to cross Hidlumanne fields and take the forest trial from there. This trail leads u straight to Hidlumanne falls.

Hidlumanne falls can be divided into 7 falls 1 & 2 falls are very small, one has to scale them which is easy but slippery task, somewhere here at the left side is the route to Kodachadri but finding it is just close to impossible. 3rd fall is medium height at the right side very close to the fall there is a small trail to reach the top of the fall its not easily noticeable follow instincts, after reaching the top of the 3rd fall move further and cross 4, 5 and 6 falls and after few yards (slippery zone) u find the awesome Hidlumanne main falls which stand 50ft high one has to go to the top of the falls and take a left route to Kodachadri From the base of the main falls follow the trial which is at your right as u ascend few feet trial disappears. (here we got confused and took further right deviations but found no trial anyhow we ascended further only to climb the false peak) Here the trial is blocked by a boulder one has to cross the boulder and resume the trial to reach the top of the falls, after reaching top follow the stream until u get a pakka trial at left side there are many trials here and to pick the correct trial is very difficult. I personally suggest taking Gururaj of hidlumanne till here to avoid misadventures (gururaj is a gentleman 27+ years and never demands any money for his services) follow the correct trial which goes through the forest, this trial leads u to main jeep track approaching from Gowrikerre. Take right at the jeep track and 2kms latter u finally reaches the peak.

At the Mookambika temple which is 30mins walk below the peak there are two hotels providing poor quality food, one PWD guest house and also few rooms are provided by the temple authorities, here we found the temple ppl combined with hotel ppl and the jeep ppl are charging exorbitantly to the tired folks especially from Bangalore. At this place kindly do not reveal that u r from Bangalore.

From the temple the peak is roughly 2 kms, peak can be approached from two different routes from left or from right of the guest house, left one been shorter is more steeper compared to the longer right one. On the way to the peak Ganesh Guha & Agastya Theertam (small water fall) are worth a visit. At the peak u can see Shankara Peetha and a Mantapa which is an ideal spot for camping. Just behind the summit on the western side, a path precariously leads u down into the forest (1/2 hr) to the holy, Chitramoola Cave. Mesmerizing landscape and breathtaking sunrise, sunset will be etched in your minds the rest of your life reminding u of KODACHADRI

Notes:
• I personally feel that this write up will help guys planning to trek Kodachadri
• Lot of other details regarding Kodachadri have been written by many others which can be found on net , I have stressed more on the details not mentioned in other write ups.
• Carrying one’s own food will be more sensible option.
• I suggest taking Marakuttaka route to ascend and coming back to Karrakette
• There are only two main routes up to the temple, one is the motor-able jeep route and the other is Karrakette route via Valur all the other routes intersect these two routes at some or the other point

~ mudassar.khan
mudassar.khan [at] think3.com