Our Journey to the Hills⛰

 

THE CHECKLIST

 

Climbing a part of the glorious western ghats fold mountains near my hostel was one of the first to-dos I added to my checklist when I joined college (yeah, I maintain a checklist in my mind, not on paper). It was also my only to-do, which took a lot of time to get a tick mark. I love traveling to new places and exploring different cultures and people. It gives me real-life experience and makes me a better person from the inside out. It gives challenges for you to face and solve on the go and is far better than any bookish knowledge (don't get me wrong, I like books, I just don't read them much).

The main reason for this trip was my little wish. This idea was always there in my mind, and one day doubtfully, I asked my friend Ajith if he was interested in going, and he said, "Okay, we'll give it a try". Then I called some of my other friends who like adventurous trips. Me, Justin, Prasanth, Ajith, and Abhishek were the team. We never had a good plan about what our trip should be like or what should be packed for the trip. We simply just planned and started packing whatever we thought would be useful. As a precaution, we took some medicine, sweaters, newspapers (for igniting a campfire on the hilltop, we thought we couldn't find anything dry there in the mountains as it was too cold, but we were wrong) and a Thermo-steel flask full of coffee with us (it was that nasty hostel coffee, meh).

ON THE GO

 

We left the hostel about 4 0’clock in the evening and searched for an auto-rickshaw on the road. That time, one auto driver came to us and asked us where we were going and said he’d drop us in the place. We told him what we wanted to do to Poondi. He said, ok, and we started our journey. We had a lot of chats about the situation that could probably occur on our journey to the hills. On the go, I was working on the mobile GPS saving enough offline maps and collecting some screenshots of the location where we were going because there won’t be any signal available once we were in. In between that, the auto-rickshaw driver told us some precautions to take care of our own safety and gave his phone number to call him if needed a return drive.

 

FIGURING IT OUT

 

We reached the temple on the mountain foot and started searching for the way to the mountains. By seeing us roaming around the temple, one Swami asked us, “what you guys are doing here?” (in Hindi), my friend Prasanth is good in Hindi, and he replied to him, “We are here to climb the hills”. Then he showed us the main gate, and it was closed. Swami said: “A wild elephant is out, and it is dangerous to climb the hills at this time, so people are not allowed to climb the hills now”. We were disappointed and were standing there without knowing what to do next. That time Justin and I were searching for another way to get into the hills and found a narrow way on the backside to the temple. Ajith said, “Should we take this much risk? it’ll be good if we go back…” but I said, “anyway, we came here to climb the hills; it will be better if we finish it off now itself ”. Everyone was then okay with climbing, and we finally decided to go on.

 

JOURNEY BEGINS

From the time we reached the temple, a small dog followed us. Initially, we didn't mind it that much, but after starting our walk through the small unclear stony path, we noticed that the dog was walking in front of us. "It may be showing us the correct way to the hills," I thought. After some distance, we found the main path to the hills. To get there, we had to climb some rocks without making any sound because we didn't want anyone to notice us climbing the hills, with a lot of effort somehow we got into the main path which is safer than the other one.

For completing the journey, we had to climb seven hills. Even if we walk continuously, it'll take about four-five hours to reach on top. As the sun took a deep dive, the hills were getting dark. The only light we had was an electric torch and our mobile flashlights. The first hill had steps made of cut-down rocks, and when we reached halfway through the first hill, we heard some sound of an animal walking through shrubs. We were standing still like a statue, waiting to know where the noise was coming from. Later that sound slowly faded away, and fortunately, we didn't encounter any animal that time.

SOME HEAT

 

After a long walk of about two and half hours, we reached the top of the fourth hill. We had a lot of fun walking through the mountain with a cool breeze and hearing the ambiance of the forest. Whenever we find a place to rest, I check our GPS position to make some mental calculations for the time it'll take to reach the hill. That dog is still helping us with the way, he only takes rest if we do, and we gave him some Kerala-made cookies to eat and got him refreshed.
We were almost tired when we reached the fourth hill, so we decided to rest there. It was so cold there with full of darkness. We searched for some dry wood and leaves that could set a fire. We found some wood pieces already there; maybe someone collected them before making fire. As the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure". We never had to use the newspapers we got with us. The wood and dry leaves helped us ignite the fire, and we kept ourselves warm from that thick cold temperature around us. Then we sat around the fire and started a log chat. This time, the doggy was sleeping on Aju's bag.

 

MAKING IT TO SIX

 

We waited there until the fire burned out, and then we started walking again. On the go, we saw some deer resting under the shelter of trees and some monkeys on the branches. As the distance increased, the path became narrow, and also the way was nearer to the edge of the hills. It may look cool, but it's really dangerous.
Soon, the way also became weirder; each side had Y-Shaped sticks fixed to the ground, used by Swamis and other holy people. The way became more slippery because of the moist grasses there, and we had to climb on some big rocks to go ahead. After a long walk, we reached the top of the sixth hill. From there, we can only see the seventh hill like a shadow since it was night. Then we planned to rest there till morning and make a small campfire. It was so cold there, making it even harder for us to sleep, but somehow we managed to take a small nap.

 

CHECKMATE

 

I woke up after two hours and sat near the fire to make my body neutral from the temperature, and waited for the sun to rise. After some time, my friends also walked up, and we together sat around the fire. Then we had some hot coffee that we took from the hostel mess, but now it tasted better, and it made us comfortable from the freezing temperature. When the time reached 5 a.m., we started walking to the seventh hill and reached there within thirty minutes.
There was a temple on the top of the seventh hill. We waited there to see the sunrise. We were actually at some height above the clouds, and we could see it floating below us. After the sunrise, we found out that the hill was entirely covered with thick green grasses and it was so relaxing to watch them. Then we clicked some photos of the beautiful hills and took some selfies. After having a lot of fun, we started our journey back. We reached back to our hostels about noon. This journey taught us one thing, and that is “Life is like a mountain hard to climb, but once you get there, the view is so beautiful”. You will understand this only when you try climbing one.

Here are some images :)

 

 

 

🏃‍♂️I'm Outta here