When I completed the Agastyakoodam trek two years back, I had decided to visit this awesome place again. It happened this year about two months back.

This time it was a group of 6 friends, including me. We were very much fortunate to get the entry permit on the first day of the trekking season. This gave us the forest in a much more pristine and virgin form. Because, as people start coming forest loses its glory!

There is not much to write as I have already explained about the trek in my previous blog entry. But I’ll highlight the differences that happened this year.

This year onwards, permit is being sanctioned online by the Kerala Forest Department. This saved us a lot of hassle and we got the permit for the first day itself(the season started on Jan 15th this time).

We started on January 15 and completed the trek in 3 days, unlike the last time where we did it in 2 days. The result? We enjoyed the trek much more. It was a relaxed trek and we enjoyed it to the core. We took ample photos and videos too, something we couldn’t so last time because of time constraints :). I would recommend everyone to complete the trek in 3 days.

This time our gang was in a uniform (except one - he could make it only at the last moment, and so couldn’t have the luxury of being in our uniform). See our uniform for yourself. Bhakti exploding :D

In fact, the forest warden in the base camp told us seeing our uniform that we had immense Bhakti inside us :D Little did he know that it was just a show off. Any way, this uniform was one of our best decisions. Trekking wearing this attire was the most comfortable thing!

So here is the trip in short - we started on Jan 15th morning at about 11:30 (we reached their late) and reached the base camp by 6 PM. The next morning we started the ascend to the peak at about 7 in the morning. This time since we were not at all in a hurry, we took enough time in enjoying each step ;). We reached the top at 2 PM! (thats’s too late by any standard, they want you to start the downward trek by 2:45PM max). Unlike last time, it was not at all windy, also it was too hot at the top. We started the downward journey by 2:30PM and reached the base camp by about 5:30PM (ya, downward journey was completed pretty quickly). We rested off the night. Next day morning, our departure was delayed by unexpected rains. So we could only start by 9 AM. We reached forest outpost by about 3:30PM. And thus our trek was done.

We had tracked our journey with GPS. I’ll update this post once I get the track details from my friend.

Keep Travelling :) Enjoy the world. :) Don’t disturb what’s left off the forest and don’t leave any traces :)