To acquire passes:
Forest department issues tickets in limited number every year during December-January time. You can book it online or acquire it by visiting
Wildlife warden's office in Thiruvananthapuram, PTP Nagar by submitting an application form along with copies of id cards and an amount of Rs 350 per head. Females are not allowed.
For any queries Call
wildlife warden's office +91-0471-2360762
To get there:
Trekking starts from Bonacaud.
Bonacaud is 52 km from Thiruvananthapuram and 101 km from Kollam.
To carry:
Wear shoes preferably trekking shoes. Knee guards, cap, painkiller creams, water bottles(you can refill it from streams en route), cameras, fruits, glucose, salt and thick blanket.
 |
This is approximately the trekking path, 28 km one side, through totally wild forest. Trekking level is hardcore!
|
Agasthyarkoodam is the place where sage Agasthya Muni meditated. Agasthya muni is one of the 'Saptharishis' in Hindu mythologies. It's a sacred place since very long time and pilgrims from Kerala and other parts of India came here to worship him. The place is atop a giant hill called Agasthya Mala and the pilgrims came here by trekking a good amount of forest path filled with huge rocks, gravel, frightening trees, river crossings, waterfalls, pure natural streams, vast grasslands and at last a huge steep mountain. Don't forget that this forest is famous for wild elephants too which occasionally finds pilgrims' way and harm them!
Agasthyarkoodam trekking tradition was started as a pilgrimage trek a long time ago and is continued even today. But many people are visiting this holy hills just to enjoy the three day trekking adventure which totally sets them free of their consumer-driven lives and submerge into the pure wilderness of the mighty forest.
Okay so that's for the short introduction and let's dive into our trekking story. I am basically a guy
who admire nature's beauty and want to go side-by-side with it. I heard of this place since my 10th standard when some of my relatives set foot at the hills. Then two years later again heard of the untold beauty of the place and since then I was longing to go there. Enquired whenever possible about the procedures and realised that the entry is permitted only to a few and it's a three day journey and is not meant for the faint hearted! Then again after a couple of years one of my friend's friends went there as a group of ten and I saw some photographs and bang, I felt in love with it without even going. They said that the trek is pretty arduous with huge rocky path to be covered and the source of water are the streams and waterfalls enroute. They got the tickets by reaching the forest office at Thiruvananthapuram at early morning 6am just to stand in the queue! The rate was Rs.300 per head. Then again after a couple of years I enquired about this to Mr. Shibu, system administrator at College of Engineering, Attingal. He is a damn techie and a traveler, he's been to agasthyarkoodam five times, ponnambalamaedu in sabarimala which is forbidden now, pakshipathalam in wayanadu and the list goes on. He told his experiences and the way he expressed the journey anyone will be wanting to visit there. This further increased my desire to have the holy trekking at any cost.
And finally the magical day came when the guys at IT section of Kerala Legislative Assembly planned the trek to the mighty Agasthyarkoodam. The group consist of 11 people and me too joined. Our mentor Shibu sir was unable to make it to the trek as he had some engagement and we badly missed his presence because he has went there five times and knew the forest path better than anybody out there in our group.
The guys are Anu (senior at Research division), Sarajith (SO IT section), Madhavan(system administrator), Gopiraj(system administrator), Vinod(tech), Syamkumar(tech), Syamlal(tech), Raju(tech), Arunlal(tech), Umesh(tech) and me. So come on let's dive into our story..:)
Day one
We started from vithura at 6am. On the way we stopped at small temple with a statue of Agasthyamuni where the trekkers pray and offer rituals to make the trek comfortable.
 |
| Small temple of sage Agasthya Muni |
 |
| We prayed there to make our journey comfortable |
 |
| These are the guys. From left Umesh, Shyamkumar, Sarajith, Syamlal, Raju, Gopiraj, Arunlal, Vinod, Anu and Madhavan. |
We also prayed and left. Reached Bonacaud at 6.45am and after the formalities by the forest officials we were ready to set foot to mighty Agasthyamalai. From the checkpoint they gave hard bamboo sticks to everyone to be used as a support all the way and trust me it was a life saver during the whole trek! At about 7.30am we packed everything, checked everything, got prepared and started our journey with a huge grin on our faces.
 |
| Pic from the starting point. |
On the way we saw some guys who were returning after their trek, the level of hardness is evident just by seeing their faces!
 |
| The path is neatly maintained to some distance from the starting point |
 |
| The thrill of starting can't be expressed by words! |
We continued in a decent pace enjoying the wilderness of the forest. Many streams, small waterfalls were enroute. The beginning path is well maintained and after that there is literally no path, just a trail which we need to find but since we had experienced guys like Anu sir and Sarajith sir it was not difficult to find the correct trails on the way.
 |
| Took a small stop for resting |
Then we reached a waterfall but there was another group bathing in it so we skipped that one. We continued and reached a stream, drank water from it and filled our bottles. Yeah you read it right, we drank water from the streams, its pure water coming from the mountains.
 |
| Streams are the source of drinking water! |
We took a dip in another gorgeous waterfalls on the way with water falling from a good height. The dip was very refreshing one because we were tired walking a good distance and some great distance needs to be further covered too. After the bath we ate lunch by a river side, it was Attayar river. We brought lunch items, fruits etc with us because you won't get anything to eat untill you reach the base camp which is 20kms away from the starting point.
 |
| Stopped for having lunch |
 |
| A small waterfall in Attayar river |
Again we continued and the path gradually become diffcult to cover and after a couple of kilometres the path opened to a vast grassland. Our tiredness just went away after seeing the natural beauty of the place. It is nature at it's best.
 |
| Wind is very strong |
 |
| Trekking through the grasslands |
 |
| View from the grasslands are breathtaking. |
We can see people at a very long distance like a small dot moving up a hill. My jaws hit the floor after realising that we need to cover that amount of distance. Anyway I managed to continue with the peppy other guys, I don't know from where they got this much energy. The sceneries were awesome! Trekking through such arduous tracks with picture-perfect sceneries is something to be experienced,
words or photos alone is not enough to express it. After some hard but scenic trekking the grasslands were covered just to know that next item to cover is another hill, it was the last one before the base camp, but another hill, what the heck!! We continued and this was a harder one for us, the eatables began to finish in a good pace and so is the glucose.
We rested there for a while, mixed glucose with water and gave one bottle to everyone and continued. Encountered another stream enroute drank and filled the bottles again and moved slowly.
Finally after covering 20 odd kilometers we reached the base camp at 4.30pm. There were many people from different parts of Kerala. There's a small canteen from where we booked kanji for the night. This canteen setup was built recently and earlier the trekkers need to bring cooking utensils, rice and all for there meals! This canteen is pretty handy and made life easier for the modern trekkers. From the basecamp we can see the Agasthyamalai as it is in the foot of the hills.
 |
| The base camp. It's condition is very pathetic, that it's standing like it may fall in any time.! |
 |
| View of Agasthya malai from the basecamp. That's the main target we are chasing tomorrow morning. |
After relaxing for some time we went to a waterfalls near the basecamp. We didn't know the exact location, just followed the trail and after trekking some distance reached a small but good waterfall, took a dip and left.
 |
| Panoramic view of Agasthya Malai |
 |
| Chumma.. veruthe..:D |
 |
| That's crazy Sarajith sir |
 |
| Views are damn awesome. You need to witness it with the naked eyes. |
There was a small cave near the falls which Sarajith sir claimed that it's cave of a bear. Anyway we didn't spot any bear near the place and the time was 6.45pm, it was getting darker so we left the falls
immediately and reached basecamp by 7.30pm.
 |
| Top of Agasthya Malai. Everytime the top will be covered with clouds, may be because it's divine |
The climate became pretty freezing one after evening, we were shaking even wearing sweaters!
Then had kanji from the canteen and prepared for sleep early because we need to start trek to the top of Agasthyamalai by 6am and we need to reach Bonacaud the same day evening because the next day there was a harthal. So we slept but the whole atmosphere was a damn frightening one with non-stopping heavy wind blowing through the windows, freezing cold weather and above all the fact that 8kms of steep rock climbing was running through the mind. All these made the sleeping miserable
anyway we managed to sleep. Then after sometime what we saw was everyone screaming and standing and became a pandemonium situation. I frightened to the core as I thought elephant or tiger had came there! But the thing was a snake which find its way to our camp, one guy took care of it and the situation went back to normal again. Then again we resumed our sleep.
Day 2
We got out early 5am in the morning, took bath and got prepared for the final mountain climb. Yes! We gathered together, discussed about the checkpoints on the way to top and prepared our minds ready. At about 7 am we started after praying to agasthyamuni, there's a small statue of him in the starting point of the final path.
 |
| The starting point of final trek from basecamp. |
Ok so here we go, the path was extremely different from the ones we covered, this one is pretty steep with some big rocks. At first it was the 'muttidichaan para' which means our knees will hit our head while climbing! That didn't happen but our trek was extremely hard the only driving force was the beautiful hills and valleys that took our mind. This area is well known for elephants, but since it is the trekking season we didn't find any. Next big stop was 'Pongalappara' which is a big hill providing some great visual treats to us. Those who can't advance the trek further will rest here.
 |
| The great Pongalappara, main resting place in the final trek |
There's a huge stream flowing all way down from the hill, and we took a dip before making our final trek. The dip was extremely soothening, wiped all tiredness that we faced on the way and we took some rest, clicked photographs and moved on. Then again we can see people at long distance continuing the path. We continued with eagerness because such was the visuals, oh boy the sceneries are stunning!
 |
| Trekking level: serious hardcore!! |
 |
| The valleys offered a visual treat. You can see some guys in the pic.! |
Then came a much steeper part of the mountain and fortunately there's a rope attached to the top, so it's the rope climbing session! Each one of us climbed one at a time, took some rest at the top, then again came another rope climbing session climbed it and once again took some rest.
 |
| Rope climb session. Not for the faint hearted.! |
 |
| It's pretty steep |
So we arrived much nearer to our destination only a couple of kilometres remaining. We continued and the path was through a group of bonsai trees, yes bonsai like trees everywhere! On the way saw a muni like pilgrim, he's been there for 28 years and gave some tips to keep in mind, like he said "just concentrate on your next step not the whole steps, that way your mind will not get tired so is your body".
Gradually the path opens to wide open area and yes we made it to the top! There where many pilgrims doing rituals and enthusiast trekkers as well. The views, oh my goodness, it was like a heaven, a dream, a wonderland whatever the sceneries were picture-perfect. Finally we prayed to make our return trek comfortable, had photoshoots and prepared for the downhill climb.
 |
| Agasthya Muni idol on the top. We prayed for his blessings. |
 |
| That's our team. |
Since we need to arrive at Bonacaud the same day evening, the return trek was like a marathon! We were moving at a good speed though we were totally vanished and the climb down puts immense stress on my knees so I was lagging. Anyway we returned the base camp at around 2pm and I was totally vanished and the remaining 20 kms was like mission impossible to me! But there's no way other than going because if we stay there we can't reach our home tomorrow because there's harthal. Then took some rest for 10 minutes and had lunch, which was delicious, I never had such tasteful food in my life, maybe because I am tired to the apex. Ate lunch and we were ready for the
departure, remember we need to cover 20 kms of forest path of which some are downhill. Keeping that in our mind we moved on. The lunch was great, it made my elecrolytes to replenish, haha, like 'Amruth' in puranas. We were moving through the paths that we covered yesterday at a good pace, said googbye to Agathya malai, base camp and everything on the way. Then came the grasslands and we saw two local forest watchers going to base camp. On seeing us they began angry and said that we need to move quickly otherwise it's extremely dangerous, elephants can be spotted and won't make it to Bonacaud before 7pm. We want to run but we can't that's our body situation, but we managed our best. Crossed Attayar river, where we had lunch yesterday. Then came the waterfall that we took a dip yesterday. On seeing that waterfall, Madhavan sir wants to take a dip again! What a time to take a dip, it's about 6pm and we need to cover another 8-10 km, so he agreed to go on.
Light is becoming dimmer and so is our vision. Then Anu sir took a deviation and said it's a short-cut, we too followed. It scared the hell out of us, because there's literally no path. But that did the trick, it indeed was a shortcut and joined the right path sooner. Then came another instance that scared us. We were hearing some noise like breaking tree branches, it became louder and louder as we are moving, time is around 6.30 and we finalised that it may be either an elephant or a bear so
prepare for anything once we see it! Anu sir even took us a lecture on how to escape from elephants, they have very poor vision and so on! But fortunately it was a group of foresters cutting a broken tree. We took a deep breathe and relaxed ourselves, it was actually a great moment! Finally we reached Bonacaud picketstation from where we started our trek with a huge smile on our faces. Gave the bamboo sticks which saved my life at several occassions, took some rest enjoying the memories we had with a 'kuttan chaaya'. We didn't spend much time there and went to our homes.
 |
| Our team |
That was our story..:) To be honest, this is a place which you should go atleast once in a life time. The amount of hardwork we done, sharing of food between us and to other fellow trekkers, awesome scenaries coupled with fear and stress, everything made this a lifetime experience. Really great place and wilderness guaranteed!
To acquire passes:
Forest department issues tickets in limited number every year during December-January time. You can book it online or acquire it by visiting
Wildlife warden's office in Thiruvananthapuram, PTP Nagar by submitting an application form along with copies of id cards and an amount of Rs 350 per head. Females are not allowed.
For any queries Call
wildlife warden's office +91-0471-2360762
To get there:
Trekking starts from Bonacaud.
Bonacaud is 52 km from Thiruvananthapuram and 101 km from Kollam.
From Bonacaud one needs to cover 56 km by foot( 28 km one side). Walking through rocks, grasslands and steep mountains, the minimum time required to finish the trek and come back is two days. But three days is the optimum time.
|
| This is approximately the trekking path, 28 km one side |
To carry:
Wear shoes preferably trekking shoes. Knee guards, cap, painkiller creams, water bottles(you can refill it from streams en route), cameras, fruits, glucose, salt and thick blanket.
So what you are waiting for? Plan your next trek to this holy hills.!
