HPSS Volunteers: Girish G, Hari Prakash, Sandesh, Mahesh, Anantha Prasad, Anantha.A
We started our journey towards Kodachadri on Friday the 20th @ 10 PM and it was very inspiring to see enthusiastic volunteers enjoying every bit of our journey
It is imperative that every noble work should start with the blessings of the almighty and rightly our first stop was at Ramachandra Mutt, Hosanagara. After spending few hours at the temple we started towards our Drop Point ( Few Kms from Nittur)
With all the hiking gear saddled, we headed towards Idlumane falls. It was disgusting and painful to find plastic strewn all around and the volunteers swung into action and collected the plastic waste enroute
All the collected waste was dropped at a small shack on the way where the shop keeper was glad to burn it for us
We reached the base of the falls and we were in for a rude shock. The sight of broken liquor bottles, plastic bags, waste clothes and careless visitors trying to make the most of the water falls was truly disgusting
I had seen this falls around 6 years ago and what we saw today was a poor but true reflection of how human race had so shamelessly and effortlessly destroyed every bit of this pristine beauty
We carried on without stopping at the falls and continued our laborious climb to the peak. We reached bhattaru's house by 4:30 PM and decided to rest for the night.
Next day morning we started towards the Sunrise spot, the euphoria of watching the never-before visual treat was distorted when we saw some educated camper's littering the mountain tops ( Empty watter bottles, plastic waste etc), after educating the guilty, albeit in a little tough way :)
Post breakfast, the actual action began and the gunny sack's were out, we started hiking down towards Karekatte: The mostly commonly used trekking route and started collecting the plastic litter, in less than a hour all our bags were full, and were trying to make the most of every little space in the bag
What was really encouraging were some pilgrims who joined hands with us in picking up the plastic and some senior citizens who appreciated our work
we reached the base and the owner of the small little hotel took the ownership of burning down the waste
We reached Kollur by 3 PM and visited the temple and headed towards Bangalore
All in all it has been a terrific begining for a noble cause..... However there is still a very long way to go
For more pics visit https://picasaweb.google.com/girish.gopalarao/HPSSProjectCleanKodachadri#
Cheers
Girish Gopalarao