Weekend Mania/ Republic Day Mission: Nagalapuram Exploratory Trek

It was 24th January 2014, 4.40 pm. I was waiting at CMBT for my good friend Aruna and right on time he arrived in a Verna. We were going on a trip to Nagala! But the thing was, neither of us knew what the plan was. We got into Aruna’s car and drove up to Siva’s place. Our organiser and great friend joined us with an all-intelligent holy aura about him. We drove off to a waiting point where we were joined by 2 other cars and we drove on past toll booths to Nagalapuram, a famous trek-site in Andhara Pradesh. We were going to have a star party! Siva is a genius/geek when it comes to astronomy. He is a member/co-founder of Chennai Astronomy Club whose members where the people in the other two cars. It was going to be a star party at the Nagala West peak’s base. A star party, for the people wondering what that is, is a night where astronomers set up their telescopes and gaze into the heavens identifying constellations, rare sights, meteors, galaxies, clusters..oh well you get the idea. A dog there came with us and I was pretty sure he was sweeping me ;) We reached the first pool by 6.45 am after a lot of walking and talking.

First Pool

We had a nice lie-in and some group photos (It was republic day then!!) before parting ways with the rest of CAC at the first pool. We started trekking and reached the second pool soon enough. It was a glorious sight!

Second Pool

I had a pedicure session with them fishes before we started uphill once again. After that it was going to be a lot of exploration because we didn’t have the trail to follow after second pool. We went past Cascade falls and reached the third pool soon enough and we were awestruck.

Third pool.. Looks can be misleading.. This place has a lots of deaths to its credit..

The third pool has a depth of more than 50feet which is pretty deep and Dangerous. It was going to be a one-time drop with our heavy bags if we were not careful. So, after seeing nature up close, we went on and past another pool and reached a pretty awesome falling from d heavens falls...;) ! We searched for the trail all around and ended up with dead ends. We didn’t want to risk it and decided to have an awesome time instead. We shot our Republic day mission photo at the centre of Mini-kutraalam and proceeded downhill.

Mission Republic Day

It was nearing 10 am. We went near Cascade falls and where we had our breakfast while Siva had a dip. Then we went on to the lovely, enchanting second pool where Aruna and I went for a swim. It was Aruna and me swimming with the fishes, quite literally! After that cold refreshing swim, we went on downwards looking up at the Nagala west peak, towering at 850 metres above us, childishly playing peeka-boo when we were just 200 metres short of it. We knew another weekend at Nagala was gonna be up when we would reach the western peak! We got downhill fast enough, met the doggy(We are naming him Aravindh, on the request of one of our fellow travellers who has the same name J ) on its way up with another group of trekkers, reached the car and started back home. I reached home at 2pm in the afternoon. We didn’t summit yes, but we did have hella lot of fun, which was our mission for the day ;) Green rays from the 2nd pool kept reflecting in the back of my head as I dozed off.