Trek to Makutta Range of Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary_ 8th & 9th Feb 2014

A heaven within a heaven, a world within a world,  that's how I can describe this place. Makutta range of Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka, bordering Kerala, is  highly enriched with flora and fauna. I have been visiting many dense forests of Western Ghat. But this place is one of the wonders to me. I have seen huge trees, tree trunks, thorny bushes so dense that Sunlight struggles to reach the base of the forest. But here in Makutta range what amazed me was the leafs which were of almost half of a hand size.

This was the first trek with CATT, I was organizing.

The team (from left): Aravind, Suresh babu, Harsh, Shirisha, Hemanth (forester), Srinivas and
our trek Guide (in red shirt)

To reach Makutta forest office we traveled 20kms from Virajpete on Kannur road.

Our trek route: Makutta forest office -> Potacheparai APC -> Neelampolle - back to Potacheparai APC & night halt.
Potacheparai APC -> Pottimalai -> Back to Potacheparai APC and exit.

Total trek distance: 35kms.

8th Feb: We reached Makutta forest office at around 6:30 AM. A very peaceful place surrounded by hills and large trees, in between the road goes towards Kannur. As usual after finishing all the important activities we started the trek at 9 AM.

We started the trek

As we started moving inside we got a warm welcome by large tree line, the melodious songs by birds and other creatures. The entire range was fragrant. That's one of the added decorations happen during summer in these evergreen woods. And this fragrance was very addictive. Sometimes I feel that, this fragrance keep attracting me so much that I keep going to these wander land repetitively.

Nicely decorated jungle path...

large woods

A very soothing place

We halted for a while at the stream, got ourselves cooled down and moved on. It was so refreshing that I felt sleeping over. We were walking almost on a flat zone, a proper jeep trail, surrounded by large tree lines. Our path was in between Karnataka and Kerala. It was completely a different feeling, sometimes to be in Karnataka and sometimes in Kerala jungles. On the other side of the mountain, a dam was under construction. They were using JCBs to break stones and boulders. That created a very bad sound pollution. The noise kept haunting us until we reached to an APC, built during the British era and now abandoned.

An abandoned old APC, build during British era

This APC was surround by large trees an awesome place. We moved ahead. On the way we were being greeted by flocks of butterflies. I have never seen so many butterflies together. At some of the places we were walking through flying butterflies. Another wonderful experience. We were walking at our own pace and they were flying without any disruptions. No one has seen Heaven. Probably the Heaven can not be more beautiful than this.

Butterflies sucking the water from ground

From here we started walking a little up and forest continued to be more dense. Soon we reached to a point from where we got the first view of river Barapole. The entire range was looking exactly like Himalayan mountains and the river flowing in between the valleys.

Walking up...

View of river Barapolle

We were about to reach the Potachiparai APC soon.

While started, we were told that we have to cross a bridge over Barapole river. We thought nice hanging bridge properly roped. But......

We reached in front of the bridge which has been bent severely by a tree fall...

We did a lot of circus to cross over this bridge....

Little more circus....

Barpolle river flowing under the bridge

The tilted bridge

After a little steep hike we were about to reach Potachiparai APC

After we reached the APC, quickly we finished lunch and left for visiting Neelampole. Around 2 PM we started the trek to Neelampole.

En route Neelampole

En route Neelampole...we were walking through a huge flock of butterflies....like a butterfly park...

En route Neelampole

First sight of Neelampole river

Fishes coming out of the water to catch flowers...

We witnessed a very astonishing event at the bank of Neelampolle. There were many trees which were full with tiny blossomed flowers and the flowers were falling on the stream. Fishes were jumping and coming out of the water to catch those falling flowers. A lovely phenomenon, never experienced. We spent around 1 hour enjoying this. It was completely a different atmosphere all together. The reason, I would like to describe this place as a heaven inside a heaven. Soon we moved on and started coming back to the APC at Potachiparai.

The day ended at Potachiparai APC

9th Feb: The day started in a relaxed mode. We had to again cross that bridge to reach to the point from where the climb to Pottimalai begins.

and we reached the point from where Pottimalai climb begins....

Climbing Pottimalai was 3 hours steep ascent surrounded by huge tree. I thought we would be squeezed out completely, but it was an amazing cool and shaded path up to Pottimalai.

Before the final steep climb

And we were about to be there...

We reached the Pottimalai peak at around 12 noon. The glimpse of golden colour peaks with green coverage until the peak just refreshes the soul  and fuels to keep moving.

@ Pottimalai

Litter clearing @ the peak...

Final time of crossing the bridge

On the way back to the APC we took a dip into the Barapole river. By 4 PM we were back to the APC. We had a quick stomach filling session by Maggie. Our vehicle somehow  reached near to the APC previous evening. The driver had a big time to drive the vehicle till time point.

We left the Potachiparai APC by 6 PM

We walked to cross over mud road where the driver had bad time. By 6:30 PM we were on the rode and ready to leave for Bangalore. On the way to the main road there were still some of the wonders to watch.

It was an amazing experience on the way out to the main road from the pristine forest of Brahmagiri Wildlife Sanctuary.

More pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/117144221978749494916/TrekToMakuttaRange