Lost in the moonlight

Darkness had fallen all around like a silent blanket. The full moon lent an ethereal beauty to the Kudremukh forest and the air was thick with the sound of the crickets. Vamsi and I were trying hard to walk as fast as we could in the feeble light of the one torch we had. My shoes were wet and my feet felt heavy , slipping at every instance. I followed Vamsi blindly , using my hands to save myself from slipping down as we stepped on the wet stones and boulders . How far were we from Rajappa's house? We could only guess. We had lost the other four in our group a while after we climbed down the second peak into the grasslands. “ I hope they did not take the other way around the stream” - I told Vamsi. The forest was a maze in the dark , like an unmapped territory with a blind turn around every corner. We were crossing one stream after the other , hoping this was the last one. Finally , it was the last one. We stepped into the water to cross it.The leeches were the last thing on my mind. I could not risk falling on a stone again. My cheek was already swollen and bleeding from my last fall. And I knew this stream perfectly well, it was here when I fell the first when we started the trek:).

Outside,a man from Rajappa's house was waiting with a torch . We trudged back to the farmer's house as fast we could.“ You are late!” - Rajappa said disapprovingly. We had already opened our shoes trying to wash away the leeches with salt. Damn these leeches! Vamsi tried calling up one of the others' cell phones - “No use , no network!” he said. We checked with Rajappa if he could send someone for help, and he immediately sent two men to look for the rest of the trekkers.

We had split into three groups on our way back – Varun, Mansi, Neeraj,Soumyajit , Balaji and Santosh (our guide); Avisek,Ambika,Puneet and Rohan – the other four from whom we split unintentionally as we had walked fast ahead and lost them. Mansi had sprained her ankle and we wondered how far the first group had been able to come , but atleast our guide Santosh was with them. “The other four should have reached by now,I hope they have not lost their way”- I said. “ I guess we can only wait “ - said Vamsi as we sat down silently in the moonlight. Out in the forest then, my prophecies were turning out to be true.

“ Aren't we crossing stream after stream?” one of the four asked. It had been two hours since they lost sight of Vamsi and me and they were nowhere near the final stretch to the farmer's house. As they looked around they suddenly saw something familiar – a peak which looked like the one we had climbed during the day. Had they simply encircled the summit and come back to the same place? A sinking feeling began to creep in – they were probably completely lost. They walked ahead , clueless, untill one of them spotted the tree -”Hey,isnt this the tree where Mansi had clicked a photo. Check your cameras!”. Yes, it was - the tree where Mansi had stopped to get a photo clicked when we started the trek. So, they werent close to the peak , they were somewhere near the final destination , but which was the way?? They looked around desperately for help, running around till they saw a hut. But how do they tell them where they wanted to reach? They fished around in their cameras – someone may just have clicked a photo of Rajappa's house. Luckily Ambika had; the photo was shown to one of the boys who quickly identified it and the lost trekkers were finally led through a maze of paddy fields back to the farmer's house.

Mansi was in pain. Her ankle had now twisted and sprained again. How was she to walk back with the rest of the group? They had managed to cover the steep descent from the second peak. The others had been asked to go ahead and not to wait for them. She had been taking small steps helped around with the rest of the guys. But this time around , the sprain was bad. And she could not move an inch. There was still some distance to be covered inside the forest at night. Luckily , help from Rajappa's house was on it's way and they reached just in time. Mansi was carried by one of them for the final stretch through the forest.

The wait finally ended ,and the last group of the disbanded trekkers reached home. We sat around the bonfire, beneath the moonlit sky to share our tales of the night in the forest. As they say,all's well that ends well:)!

Lessons from the trek:

Shoes, shoes and shoes!: Carry the right set of shoes. Even if you have trekked in the north , remember forest treks in south india are a completely different terrain .Your shoes need to have a very good grip on wet land/stones ( Unless you are like our experienced guide who kept hopping around like a rabbit in his pair of chappals). I personally had a very bad experience with Woodland shoes , so did two of my fellow trekkers , and would highly recommend against them.

Leeches: You cannot avoid them. You will inevitably get a couple of leech bites through the trek. In case they like you (or your blood as the case maybe), you will end up with more (10-12 in my case).It helps to walk fast,especially through highly leech infested areas. Sometimes sprinkling tobacco or snuff powder around your shoes may help.Dont stop everywhere trying to remove them, you will end up with more! If you choose a monsoon trek , God bless you;).

Sense of direction: Very difficult to build a sense of direction inside a forest , even if you do , post sunset is a different story all together. A lot of us built a sense of direction in the forest connecting it to events which happened around places. Best tip is to complete the trek in daylight to the extent possible.

Local language: At least learn the basics for survival. You may not have cameras and photos of the right places clicked everytime for pictographic communication.

Super quotes of the trek:

A highly guilty Mansi inside the Kudremukh forest at night :“Guys, I think I am impending your pace. I will stop and camp here,you can pick me up in the morning” (Sure Mansi , you can have a pyjama party too)

Rohan, hallucinating after the four lost their way in the forest :“Dude, I think I just heard a tiger roar” (it was the sound of a plane flying overhead)

Puneet, to the group when they were trying to figure out if they had lost their way:“ I am confident we have lost our way”. (Optimism redefined)

Santosh, to the group while they were inching closer to the first stream :“ Three more and we will reach Shireen's stream "( If you are trekking inside Kudremukh forest, and you want a stream named after you, just make sure you fall down into it.)

*Photo credits to Avisek

[More information on Kudremukh national park : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kudremukh.

I also discovered a photo of a vine snake taken inside the forest , check this out on Kalyan Varma's blog here: http://kalyan.livejournal.com/191352.html]