Amedikallu is rough name given to this peak wrt the appearance of the
boulders at the top. Aame means Tortoise in Kannada & Tulu.
Dikallu means Stove. Whatever the name, the stone formations are just a
beautiful sight and it leaves a lasting image within your mind as to how tiny
you are to the universe. It's not the peak which we conquered but it's the peak
which conquered us with its natural beauty and toughness to cover the trail.
Amedikallu can be reached from Bangalore -- Hassan -- Gundya Cross -- Kokkada -- Shishila. Shishila is the start point of the trek where we can start our hike with the guide.
We were a group of 10 and it was a big lively team and went on Dec 10/11th 2016
Aravind
Sumanth
Deepti
Aniruddh
Rajeev
Bharath
Chethan
Abhilash
Goutham
And yours truly Anantha
We took the KSRTC sleeper bus to Kokkada ( Dharmastala) on the Friday night and were blessed with a conductor who had anger management issues. He literally made us jump off the bus at 5:15 in the morning. It was a good morning wake up. From Kokkdada to Shishila we had booked a Jeep run by Suresh, who came within 15 minutes. Suresh : 9480059423
There were 2 people in the jeep and us 10, while we were wondering how all of us can get in, he managed to push all of us into the jeep (sort off ). He was literally sitting outside of the jeep and driving, while my legs too were out of the jeep. It was a warm up session of the cold chilly night we would face up the peak.
Shishila is 20kms from Kokkada and there are limited facilities in this village. There is a hotel run by Shekhar who arranges for breakfast lunch or dinner and also packs food for the trek. He also has 2 rooms that can be used to freshen up. The rooms are neat. He can be contacted in advance for making these arrangements. Shekhar : 8762921154
By 7 00, our guide Chenappa turned up. He is truly a warm hearted person and with the way he smiled and communicated, made us feel at ease with the person who is going to guide us for the trek. He gave us a rough plan of the hike and what we needed to pack for the stay at the top
Some dipped in the kapila river for a bath while the rest used the attached bathroom to freshen up. Shishila is a religious place with a temple for Shishilanatha and Matsya. Fish are abundant here which are revered and worshipped. We had the darshan of the lord and moved towards having our breakfast
Breakfast was served with Idli & Mangalore buns accompanied with Chutney Sambhar. It was kind of unlimited, had our fill.
The base to Amedikallu is about 6kms from Shishila, hired 2 autos to reach to our destination, mid way went to Chenappa’s house to get the vessels required for cooking in the night. His house is a small yet complete in all senses. 2 dogs welcome you with loud barks as not to enter. The home is mangalore tile one which keeps it cool. Has a nice front yard to relax, arecanut are put to dry around the house, hens walking all around with his arecanut farm behind his home.
All done and set, to enter the forest from the base point. All of us rearing to take the plunge into the forest route, we were quick to start off and the excitement was in our voices, we nudged through a fairly open route initially and the starting looked good. Slowly the forest terrain began to get tough, good inclination and the team slowed down yet there is nothing that could put us down. All of us marched through the forest trail some gasping for breath while some looked ever so cool.
At some point Chenappa said, if you want to refill your water bottles do it here, by this time the water we had in our bottles had nearly been empty. while we were wondering where the source is, he just pulled out a water pipe(installed by villagers for their water needs) from the forest floor and asked us to refill. This was the point, where real mineral water entered the body, it was just so pure the body needed some time to get used to the taste. Every drop was just so tasteful. Yeh dil mange more but cannot carry too much water, just adds to the weight.
We moved on and reached the grass lands and could clearly see the Amedikallu peak from this point. The sheer height, inclination and distance did send out a message to my mind “How insignificant are we to the universe“, YES!! It gets philosophical at many edges.
From this point onwards it was more of a uphill task, the trail was through the grass lands and the having worn hiking shorts, the blades of the grass are good enough to make a cut if the angles are correct. Many minute cuts on my legs and hands, better to wear jeans in such a situation. The temperature and the sun beating us down did not help our cause. Apples, Citrus fruits, Nutrition bars were giving us the much needed energy to keep going.
There is a water source midway and we had our lunch there and refilled. Every drop was such joy !! I guess these treks give you lessons to learn to appreciate smallest of things which we ignore in our day to day life. Our lunch was Pulav packed from Shekar’s hotel. Our heads were still looking up to see how far we need to go and we moved on.
By 3:00 we reached a place called vaikuntapura, which has a big boulder shade, and a water source nearby, however due to drought this year, this water source was completely dry. We moved on, but from this point onwards the trail was also not clearly marked, Chenappa was asking us to move to a point and we trudged through the thick grass to make it to that point. At one point, while I was about to take the next step, a green snake just slid through the grass. Every step is important and be careful to land your foot.
The trail started to get more tough with inclinations reaching 50 degrees quite easily. When we reached near the final peak, a big mammoth wall of rock atleast 200 ft in height welcomed us. Its sheer size and volume held me in awe of its beauty, solid black rock nearly 90 degrees. We had to go around the base of this mammoth rock face to make an ascent. This was tough as it was through a forest cover, steep terrain and loose stones. It took us some time to make a circle and come to one place where we could make the final push to the peak.
Finally we were on the top of the peak by 5 30 in the evening. Amedikallu was captured. Wait did we capture Amedikallu or did Amedikallu capture us, guess the latter is true. There is a survey stone put by the British to mark it as the highest peak in the region, close by you can see another peak Yettina Bhuja. Ombattu gudda, Udayagiri parvata, Minchkallu, Devaramane. The sights were awesome and the camera’s went shuttering away.
The tents were put up and by this time it was kind of dark as well. We started off to cook our dinner, these were MTR ready to eat food packets which needed to be boiled in hot water. Maggi was also cooked and it never tasted better than having it piping hot in the coldness engulfing the place.
By this time, we were aware of news that there was a forest DFO/SFO who would be visiting this peak and in no terms could we be seen by them. Chennapa made it very clear that we had to start very early in the morning and ensure by 10AM we had to reach a point where we needed to take a detour to escape being caught. We got up early and by 7 we started our descent down. Chenappa was very helpful in making the descent easy for team members who found it difficult to climb down at pace.
Mid way he showed us another path to get down and this route was far more steeper than the ascent and it was not used by people in usual situation, but this time chit chats helped to cover the route. Finally we touched base by 2 30 in the afternoon.
Just to infuse more energy, boys called in a running race and it was fun running after just finishing the trek. We cooled off in the kapila river which is flowing right behind the Guide’s home,had freshly made soup just by the river side and headed to Shishila.
In Shishila, Shekar served us lunch at 4 30 J and we were just cooling off with our jokes and amusements while having tea, coffee and masala soda. By 6 we headed to dharmastala and having the darshana of Lord Manjunatha, we boarded our bus back to our destinations.
It is better to have a guide to this trail and the knowledge of these mountains does help laymen like us also it gives them some sort of revenue. Chenappa with his in & out knowledge of the mountains is a perfect choice to be hired as a guide and also his stories about treks are a good learning. He can be contacted here
Chenappa : 9481735895
Amedikallu can be reached from Bangalore -- Hassan -- Gundya Cross -- Kokkada -- Shishila. Shishila is the start point of the trek where we can start our hike with the guide.
We were a group of 10 and it was a big lively team and went on Dec 10/11th 2016
Aravind
Sumanth
Deepti
Aniruddh
Rajeev
Bharath
Chethan
Abhilash
Goutham
And yours truly Anantha
We took the KSRTC sleeper bus to Kokkada ( Dharmastala) on the Friday night and were blessed with a conductor who had anger management issues. He literally made us jump off the bus at 5:15 in the morning. It was a good morning wake up. From Kokkdada to Shishila we had booked a Jeep run by Suresh, who came within 15 minutes. Suresh : 9480059423
There were 2 people in the jeep and us 10, while we were wondering how all of us can get in, he managed to push all of us into the jeep (sort off ). He was literally sitting outside of the jeep and driving, while my legs too were out of the jeep. It was a warm up session of the cold chilly night we would face up the peak.
Shishila is 20kms from Kokkada and there are limited facilities in this village. There is a hotel run by Shekhar who arranges for breakfast lunch or dinner and also packs food for the trek. He also has 2 rooms that can be used to freshen up. The rooms are neat. He can be contacted in advance for making these arrangements. Shekhar : 8762921154
By 7 00, our guide Chenappa turned up. He is truly a warm hearted person and with the way he smiled and communicated, made us feel at ease with the person who is going to guide us for the trek. He gave us a rough plan of the hike and what we needed to pack for the stay at the top
Some dipped in the kapila river for a bath while the rest used the attached bathroom to freshen up. Shishila is a religious place with a temple for Shishilanatha and Matsya. Fish are abundant here which are revered and worshipped. We had the darshan of the lord and moved towards having our breakfast
Breakfast was served with Idli & Mangalore buns accompanied with Chutney Sambhar. It was kind of unlimited, had our fill.
The base to Amedikallu is about 6kms from Shishila, hired 2 autos to reach to our destination, mid way went to Chenappa’s house to get the vessels required for cooking in the night. His house is a small yet complete in all senses. 2 dogs welcome you with loud barks as not to enter. The home is mangalore tile one which keeps it cool. Has a nice front yard to relax, arecanut are put to dry around the house, hens walking all around with his arecanut farm behind his home.
All done and set, to enter the forest from the base point. All of us rearing to take the plunge into the forest route, we were quick to start off and the excitement was in our voices, we nudged through a fairly open route initially and the starting looked good. Slowly the forest terrain began to get tough, good inclination and the team slowed down yet there is nothing that could put us down. All of us marched through the forest trail some gasping for breath while some looked ever so cool.
At some point Chenappa said, if you want to refill your water bottles do it here, by this time the water we had in our bottles had nearly been empty. while we were wondering where the source is, he just pulled out a water pipe(installed by villagers for their water needs) from the forest floor and asked us to refill. This was the point, where real mineral water entered the body, it was just so pure the body needed some time to get used to the taste. Every drop was just so tasteful. Yeh dil mange more but cannot carry too much water, just adds to the weight.
We moved on and reached the grass lands and could clearly see the Amedikallu peak from this point. The sheer height, inclination and distance did send out a message to my mind “How insignificant are we to the universe“, YES!! It gets philosophical at many edges.
From this point onwards it was more of a uphill task, the trail was through the grass lands and the having worn hiking shorts, the blades of the grass are good enough to make a cut if the angles are correct. Many minute cuts on my legs and hands, better to wear jeans in such a situation. The temperature and the sun beating us down did not help our cause. Apples, Citrus fruits, Nutrition bars were giving us the much needed energy to keep going.
There is a water source midway and we had our lunch there and refilled. Every drop was such joy !! I guess these treks give you lessons to learn to appreciate smallest of things which we ignore in our day to day life. Our lunch was Pulav packed from Shekar’s hotel. Our heads were still looking up to see how far we need to go and we moved on.
By 3:00 we reached a place called vaikuntapura, which has a big boulder shade, and a water source nearby, however due to drought this year, this water source was completely dry. We moved on, but from this point onwards the trail was also not clearly marked, Chenappa was asking us to move to a point and we trudged through the thick grass to make it to that point. At one point, while I was about to take the next step, a green snake just slid through the grass. Every step is important and be careful to land your foot.
The trail started to get more tough with inclinations reaching 50 degrees quite easily. When we reached near the final peak, a big mammoth wall of rock atleast 200 ft in height welcomed us. Its sheer size and volume held me in awe of its beauty, solid black rock nearly 90 degrees. We had to go around the base of this mammoth rock face to make an ascent. This was tough as it was through a forest cover, steep terrain and loose stones. It took us some time to make a circle and come to one place where we could make the final push to the peak.
Finally we were on the top of the peak by 5 30 in the evening. Amedikallu was captured. Wait did we capture Amedikallu or did Amedikallu capture us, guess the latter is true. There is a survey stone put by the British to mark it as the highest peak in the region, close by you can see another peak Yettina Bhuja. Ombattu gudda, Udayagiri parvata, Minchkallu, Devaramane. The sights were awesome and the camera’s went shuttering away.
The tents were put up and by this time it was kind of dark as well. We started off to cook our dinner, these were MTR ready to eat food packets which needed to be boiled in hot water. Maggi was also cooked and it never tasted better than having it piping hot in the coldness engulfing the place.
By this time, we were aware of news that there was a forest DFO/SFO who would be visiting this peak and in no terms could we be seen by them. Chennapa made it very clear that we had to start very early in the morning and ensure by 10AM we had to reach a point where we needed to take a detour to escape being caught. We got up early and by 7 we started our descent down. Chenappa was very helpful in making the descent easy for team members who found it difficult to climb down at pace.
Mid way he showed us another path to get down and this route was far more steeper than the ascent and it was not used by people in usual situation, but this time chit chats helped to cover the route. Finally we touched base by 2 30 in the afternoon.
Just to infuse more energy, boys called in a running race and it was fun running after just finishing the trek. We cooled off in the kapila river which is flowing right behind the Guide’s home,had freshly made soup just by the river side and headed to Shishila.
In Shishila, Shekar served us lunch at 4 30 J and we were just cooling off with our jokes and amusements while having tea, coffee and masala soda. By 6 we headed to dharmastala and having the darshana of Lord Manjunatha, we boarded our bus back to our destinations.
It is better to have a guide to this trail and the knowledge of these mountains does help laymen like us also it gives them some sort of revenue. Chenappa with his in & out knowledge of the mountains is a perfect choice to be hired as a guide and also his stories about treks are a good learning. He can be contacted here
Chenappa : 9481735895
