Adrenaline junkies take to walking in Western Ghats

Monsoon chasers from across the country who intend to head to the Western Ghats are in for a bitter disappointment this year. The monsoon chasing circuits around the ghats are riddled with huge craters owing to heavy rains in the region, ringing in a bad spell for adventure-seekers.

Monsoon chasing in the Western Ghats has always been a huge draw among enthusiasts, who come from as far as North India and the Persian Gulf to Bangalore and Hyderabad down south.

Negotiating the tight hair pins of the ghats on SUVs and motorcycles and chasing the monsoon in the wilderness of various landscapes, including Agumbe, Hulikal, Shirady, Charmady, Sampaje, Subramanya, Gundya and Someshwara, is touted as a high-value tourist activity in the region.

All this has taken a backseat this year with the word spreading that the roads have deteriorated in the ghats. Even specialised tour operators have started downplaying monsoon chasing. But all has not come to an end for adrenaline junkies, who have an alternative in the form of ‘rain walking’.

“It is more like rediscovering your feet while walking through fields, forests, villages, and river banks, under a blanket of dense mist and most of the time under steady rains,” says Nataraj Arvind, a techie from Pondicherry who went on a trek from Gundya reserve forest camp to Pushpagiri peak on Saturday with a local group of rain walkers.

For the uninitiated, the Mangalore branch of Youth Hostels Association of India organises rain walking camps during monsoons, and it has emerged as a fad among the youth.
“We get an overwhelming numbers of youth from cities like Bangalore, Mysore and Mangalore.

I remember a particular group that had 53 trekkers. We have a number of trekking tracks that pass through dense forests, river banks, fields, villages, animal habitats, Shola forests, grasslands and peaks.

Though the main event is trekking, our thrust is to get the participants close to nature in the pouring rains when everything they see and experience is different from summer treks,” says Keshav Suvarna, leader of a rain walking group.