Last weekend, my trekking gang and myself went to Kumara Parvatha – the place I had heard so much about – “the toughest trek in Karnataka”, “the 2nd highest peak in Karnataka”, and so on. It turned out to be all that and much more.

Unlike many of our previous treks, this trek was preceded by a lot of preparation – from amount of food and water to take, the sleeping bags and mats to the bus seat booking and also getting permission from the Forest Department to trek to the top.

Our plan was to climb up from the Kukke side, reach the top, sleep there in the night, and then get back down from the Somwarpet side.

The Day 1 trek from the Kukke side to the top was 15 km and was especially gruelling because of the scorching sun heat. Since I have gotten used to trekking and daily jogging now, I didn’t feel tired soon, but after a few hours of trekking, my goal was to catch up with our frontrunners of the group and that was indeed the toughest part of the trek for me. I had resigned myself to be second best many a time, but I kept trudging on and I reached them eventually.

The scenery from this place was breathtaking because we were at such a height and best of all, we could see the trail that we were taking but couldn’t exactly see the trail in front of us, because as soon as we reached a peak and followed the trail, we see another peak to conquer.

After a simple and nourishing lunch at the famous Bhatta’s house, we continued on, and after nearly 8 hours of trekking in the day, we reached the top, and it was a magical place. It was literally a “walk in the clouds” and we the clouds were moving in between us. The last time I had experienced this was the Mullainagiri trek. After forcing ourselves to eat only chapatis since we had run out of water, we curled into our sleeping bags and slept as we watched the clear sky lit with countless stars. It was b e a u t i f u l.