Deepadakallu and JenkalguDDa!

Three times before have we set out from Blore to reach this peak. Twice it was thwarted by an enigma of a peak called Ombattugudda. The third time we lost our way and found ourselves on top of a new peak called SubbichenDguDDa.

This time we got another opportunity, as we had completed Amedikallu on Saturday itself. This time, instead of starting from the Lakshmi-Saraswathi estate, we decided to try out some other route to get to the peak. Last week from the top of SubbichenDguDDa, we had seen a temple very closeby and also a neat-looking path to Deepadakallu from there. The temple, named by us as "Duplicate Bhairapura" back then, is in fact Bettada Bhairaveshwara temple.

How to get there? Bangalore - Sakleshpur(right turn towards Mudigere) - Hanbal - Maragunda - Bhairaveshwara temple.

Walk a little on the same road from the temple and you will reach a place where you will see two peaks in front of you. Dipadakallu on the right side (with a large stone on top, can't miss it) and on the left hand side, higher than any other peak in it's vicinity... the JenkalguDDa.

As Subbu says, if a peak is visible, half your conquest is done. Continuing on the same road, we got to a place where there were multiple paths. After a heated discussion, we decided to take an obscure looking path which looked like leading directly to the Dipadakallu, but passed through a forest. And oh boy, did we do a good thing or what!? When we got to the other side of the forest, we realized we saved more than an hour of walk by taking the obscure looking path. From thereon, it was hardly half an hour's walk to the peak of Dipadakallu. Unsurprisingly, all along the way, we could see EttinaBhuja (yes, another profile) and we reached the peak from the temple in about 1.5 hours.

The final climb to Dipadakallu..

The Dipadakallu peak..

As it has been with our recent treks in the region, we were welcomed to the peak by a cool breeze and misty weather. On top of Dipadakallu is a stone structure. If you haven't climbed up this one, you haven't peaked Dipadakallu :-). "Intelligent-looking" Mahesha, as usual, pointed at an arbit jeep track and called the nearest peak Ombattugudda. On one side we could see EttinaBhuja, another side SubbichenDguDDa and on another side, very close to us, was the JenkalguDDa, which looked high and majestic in front of us. Five of us from the group, Subbu, Mahesha, Jagga, Sand and yours truly, decided to check out JenkalguDDa while the others, decided to by-pass it and started heading towards the temple.

The climb to JenkalguDDa!

The climb to JenkalguDDa from Dipadakallu hardly takes 45 minutes but the last few minutes of the climb is very steep, to the point of slippery. As if to make up for the steep incline to get to the peak, the top is a flat land and has a small stone for a shrine. There is a belief among locals that if you drop a coin here, the coin appears on top of Mulliangiri and vice versa. From the top, we could see Dipadakallu, EttinaBhuja and Amedikallu, all in a single line!

The first few minutes of our stay at the top was very peaceful with only the gusts of wind on our faces to interrupt the sound of silence. But, slowly and gradually, almost stealthily, we were swarmed by honey bees! It was then that we realized why the peak is called so!! But before the bees gathered in large numbers or could attack us, we started our descent on the other face of the peak, which would lead us directly to the temple, instead of going back to Dipadakallu.

Before we could get to the temple, we had to cross a small strip of thick, and I mean thick forest. There was a round-about path which could take us to a jeep track on the other side of the forest, and since we were descending, we could see the jeep track. Adventurous as we are, it was unanimously decided that we take a short cut into the jungle and come out on the other side. Needless to say, we lost our way and took about an hour to wade through the thorny thickets of just about 100 meters. When we came out on the other side, we got a little disoriented, and ended up taking a route which was longer by about 3 kms! Finally, we got to the temple at 1730 hours where our TT was waiting for us to take us back to Bangalore...

Photos of the trek are here.

Thus continues the quest...