A trek through the beau­ti­ful hills to Mul­layan­giri — Karnataka’s high­est point and Babubudangiri

I felt quite dis­ap­pointed that I missed the neela kurunji flow­ers. Thou­sands of them cov­er­ing the hill­sides like beau­ti­ful blue car­pets — what a sight it must have been!

But apart from that, every­thing else on the Mul­layan­giri and Babubuda­giri trek was per­fect! The weather, the com­pany (Cyber­scor­pion, Apra and Deep­san and the place : the hills of one of Karnataka’s most beau­ti­ful dis­tricts : Chikmagalur.

My ear­lier trip to Chik­maglur had left me cap­ti­vated with lovely mem­o­ries of a really enchant­ing place. This time, we head towards another part of Chikmagalur.

From the base, a place called Sarpad­hari (snake path), the climb to Mul­layan­giri is quite steep. Also, a grim reminder of my dis­mal level of fit­ness! The rick­shawalla deposited us there at about 5.30 am in the morn­ing. A time when most smart peo­ple are cosily set­tled in bed. We started our ascent about half and hour later and just about 15 min­utes into the climb, we could see before us dawn break­ing and the chang­ing colours of the morn­ing sky.

I had to stop often, since I couldn’t stop gasp­ing at the sight unveil­ing in front of me. Hills all around as far as the eyes can see and multi-coloured strokes streak­ing across the morn­ing sky as the sun makes its appearance.

I took sev­eral breaks while the oth­ers forged ahead. We took a food break of jam sand­wiches and snacks an hour or so into the climb and then resumed. By about 8.30 in the morn­ing, huff­ing and pant­ing (me mostly) we had reached Karnataka’s high­est peak : Mul­layan­giri (MGiri). The views are amaz­ing from here and you can also see, in the dis­tance, the nav­i­ga­ble road to the top.

The tem­ple on the hill
There’s a small tem­ple sit­u­ated the top and once we reached, they served us tea and we even man­aged to get them to give us lemon rice that we packed for the onward jour­ney. We sat inside the lit­tle tem­ple and sipped on strong black cof­fee and played with the cat in the com­pound. After an hour or so of rest and a quick snooze and tak­ing direc­tions, we started off on the sec­ond leg of our trek. From MGiri to Babubu­dan­giri (BBGiri), they tell us the trek is around 13 odd kilometers.

The skies are a vibrant shade of blue as we start off. From our point of descent we can see the trail snaking through the hills and val­leys. The kurunji flow­ers have dried now, but I could just imag­ine how beau­ti­ful this place would have been a month or so ago.

The scenery and view as we walk is cap­ti­vat­ing. There’s a minor set­back as I twist my ankle while walk­ing enthu­si­as­ti­cally up one hill. The track soon meets the road and a few kms down the road, a friendly jeep dri­ver feels sorry for us march­ing in the after­noon sun and offers us a lift.

We are dropped off at Athi­na­gundi. There we find a place which serves us rice, dal and omlettes and since we were all quite hun­gry, we man­aged to demol­ish a few between us. From there, we find out that the walk to BBGiri is not very far. I think my ankle will not dis­in­te­grate and we decide to make the trek.

So after lunch, around 3 pm, we climb up another hill and a few more after that. By about 5 pm, we’re in the small town of BBGiri. From there we take another road to Lake Galikere, another 4 kms more. We’re nearly there!

Lake of Winds
We camp at Lake Galikere for the night. The lake is actu­ally a pond try­ing to mas­quer­ade as some­thing big­ger, but in the evening light it def­i­nitely looks rather roman­tic and beau­ti­ful. Deep­san and Apra find us a nice spot on the adjoin­ing hill where we will get a good view of the sun­rise. For a while, we talk under the open skies and star filled heav­ens above us, enjoy­ing the peace and beauty of the place.

It’s an early night and it’s not long before every­one is tucked in for the night. The next day, we wake up in time to enjoy the sun­rise. The val­ley looks beau­ti­ful before us. You can see a range of moun­tains stretch upto the hori­zon and scat­tered in between are water bod­ies of dif­fer­ent sizes.

We take another nap and then have break­fast : whatever’s remain­ing of what we car­ried and that includes a lot of bread that Cyberscorpion’s car­ried. By about noon, we pack up to leave the camp spot.

The other par­ties who had camped for the night have already left the place. Some unfor­tu­nately have left the rem­nants of the night’s rev­el­ries behind : really sad. We make our way back to BBGiri and find out that the bus is only at 3 pm. So there’s not much to do except sit and wait till the bus arrives, which it does around 1.30 pm. We quickly book our places we are to find out that it gets really crowded and peo­ple can travel on the roof also.

The bus gets crowded slowly and we finally leave at 3 pm. Two and a half hours later we are at Chik­ma­galur. We head to the Planter’s Court. The restau­rant opens only at 7.30 pm so we freshen up and make full use of their lobby. After din­ner, we head back to the bus sta­tion and leave by the 11.15 bus. The end of yet another mem­o­rable trip!

Get­ting There: KSRTC Bus to Chik­ma­galur, reaches by about 4–5 am in the morn­ing. Rick­shaw (charged us Rs 300) to Sarpad­haari or local bus that starts around 7 am. From the base, the trail is well marked. From the top of Mul­layan­giri, ask for the direc­tions to BBgiri and Galikere.

Fol­low the trail till the road and then to Athi­gundi (not sure of the spelling, but that’s where we had lunch). From there, you need to take the nar­row trail beside the mosque to BBGiri (ask the locals again). The trail is well marked here too. You can camp any­where around the Lake Galikere area. And of course, if you’re trekking, make sure you get back your lit­ter with you and dis­pose of it responsibly!