A devotional hike to Velliangiri

Velliangiri. A mountain that has evaded us for a long time due to issues ranging from permissions from the forest department to clash of schedules.

Last December, during our winter expedition to the Western Ghats, we decided that we would climb Velliangiri somehow in 2015. We decided to do this in the month of May when the monsoon sets in in the Western Ghats which also coincides with the decrease in the number of pilgrims who climb the mountain. We had checked with the forest ranger at Velliangiri last year and he had told us that the mountain would be open to treks between the months of January and May.

After my exams were over on 18th May, I called up the forest ranger again to confirm the availability of permissions for the trek. To my surprise, he told me that the mountain was currently off-limits as the pilgrim season had ended and also because there was heavy rain in the region. When I tried to persuade him, he told me to come there with the team and that he would decide based on the weather and other conditions. Kailash, my cousin was joining us this time. He checked the permit issue with his uncle in Ooty who had attempted the climb just a few days back. His reply made me worry further. Apparently, the forest ranger had stopped him from climbing as the weather was bad.

However, we decided to go ahead with the plan and give it a shot leaving the permit issue to the mercy of Mother Nature. I also prepared a couple of backup plans so that we could trek to some nearby areas if in case we were stopped from trekking to Velliangiri. Even though it is possible to climb the mountain without getting permits, we decided not to trek that way as Velliangiri has plenty of wildlife and there are many not-so-good encounters with animals often in this area. When we finally set off from Chennai for the trek, I checked with my friend in Isha Center about the weather and he told me that the rain had stopped. There was finally some hope.

We were waiting for the 5:30 PM bus to arrive but somehow it went missing and we decided to board the 6:15 PM instead. In the meantime, we spotted a conductor whose whistles were extremely similar to that of a sparrow. Boy, he was impressive!

The next day morning, we waited at the Gandhipuram bus stand where the first bus to Poondi, the base of our trek never arrived. While trying to walk towards one of the platforms, a mentally-ill lady who was sleeping on the platform started to yell at me and my teammates made fun of me with that for at least the next four hours. The bus arrived almost an hour late and we reached the Isha yoga center at the base of Velliangiri hills. We met my friend Gokul, a full time volunteer there who showed us around the place. We were also relieved to see clear skies there. Rain was no longer going to hold us back from proceeding with our trek. However, we were a bit shocked when Gokul told us that a herd of four elephants had been spotted on the trek route. We were worried as forest department officials usually do not let people climb under such conditions.

We reached the temple at the base of Velliangiri hills and were relieved to see the forest ranger letting people go ahead with the trek. He inspected our bags thoroughly and trashed every bit of plastic he saw. He also offered us with paper wrappers to carry stuff that were previously in plastic covers. I was really happy to see this and was sure that Velliangiri will never become another Sathuragiri.

We started our climb and reached the top of the first hill in less than forty minutes. The shopkeepers remarked that we would take less than two and a half hours to finish the remainder of the trek. We proceeded at a steady place and decided to skip collecting water at the first water point as we found it to be a little dirty. We reached the top of the third hill soon enough and we filled our water bottles there. This place had a cleaner spring and we also made some Glucon-D. Sidharth and I were the 'master-chefs' for this :P We were trekking at an amazing pace till this.

Soon, we reached 1400 meters and the landscape changed to open grasslands that offered amazing views of the Siruvani dam and the Nilgiris Biosphere. We had a change of heart here and decided to stay at the peak that night. We trekked at the pace of a snail after that taking photographs for every ten steps we took.

After some time, we reached the sixth hill and this is where we had the glimpse of the final peak. Man! Photographs really don't do justice to this mountain. It was huge and I was sure that it was going to take a lot of effort to climb this peak. We started our climb and were soon engulfed in clouds. The wind was also getting heavy. There were pretty good signs of rain. Sidharth started to experience nasty cramps after this so we slowed down a bit.

After a few minutes of heart-pounding climbing, we reached the temple at the peak that was marked by saffron flags and a lot of trishuls planted along the temple boundaries. We offered our prayers at the peak. A saint at the temple offered us some prashadh and it tasted really yummy. He also suggested us to get down as fast as possible as the weather was turning bad and it might be extremely risky to stay at the peak. It was also getting pretty cold and we were not sure about whether we could survive a night in those temperatures. So we decided to go ahead with the descent.

It was almost 4 PM in the evening and there were only about two hours of daylight left. Sidharth and Rohith started early as they felt they climb slow and the rest of us took a few photographs before going ahead with the descent. At this point, I spotted fresh bear dropping and it worried me a little. A shopkeeper had told me about a bear encounter the previous week where a man had been injured. He had been trekking at an odd time and a bear had ripped his abdomen. Luckily, there were people nearby and they took him downhill where he was given medical treatment and survived the ordeal.

I decided to climb slow and reach the third hill instead of trekking fast and finishing the descent before sunset. I believed that there was a greater risk higher up in the mountains and far from civilisation rather than in the first three hills where there were people to come to our rescue if anything bad happened. We tried to signal Rohith and Sidharth who were about 400 meters ahead of us to stop but for some reason they started to run the moment they saw us. I instructed the rest of the team to stay close and pay attention to the surroundings. We trekked at a slow but steady pace and reached the third hill at about 6 PM. After this it became dark pretty quick and we had to use our torch lights to trek.

At this point, Karthik started to experience nasty cramps. He was struggling to even lift his leg and the sharp rocks were also taking a toll on his soles. Skin was just peeling away and we tried our best to help him (footwear was not allowed in the mountain). To make matters worse, Kailash's torch failed and we had to improvise soon. Karthik gave his torch to Kailash. We rearranged ourselves a little. I was leading at the front with Karthik very close to me and we were now sharing my torch. Deepak and Kailash were following us. All this delayed us a lot and we were almost an hour behind Rohith and Sidharth as we would find out.

We finally reached the base at around 7:40 PM and then proceeded to have yummy dinner at the base. We were back in level ground and it was a mission accomplished :)