The journey started from Bangalore @ 10:30 PM on Friday, a group of 9 enthusiastic trekkers. From 11PM to 1:30PM the TT was filled with songs and dance until one of my friend screamed out of fear, we all turned and fell dumb stuck – our TT driver was leaning to the door and sleeping and the TT was running at a speed of 55 to 60 . Then started the actual fun, to keep the driver awake we had sit next to him sing songs, ask him to sing songs, asked about his family, life etc… it was so in detail that I started wondering if I ever knew so much myself. At 5 finally asked him to stop at a place and all of us slept till 6 AM. We reached sakleshpura at 7:30, freshened up. Our starting point for trek was 12 kms away from sakleshpura which we reached at 8:45. There was a small hut, the lady in the hut casually warned us about the wild elephants and tigers and it scared half of our group who remained with scary looks at the forest for the rest of the journey.
“Donigal” our starting point was filled with mist even at 9 in the morning . First 2 kms was plain and then we hit the first bridge, as we began to cross the bridge we realized the challenges ahead. But until much later, we wouldn't know that it'd get only tougher and tougher from there on! As we reached the second bridge there was small torrential river below with a hut on the bank… we walked down to the river freshened up a little… filled our stomachs with Omlets and upittu made by people in the hut. Resumed the journey after a 45 min break, as we continued we started encountering longer bridges… worst part was the morning snow had made the planks slippery.
There was no support to hold on both sides of the bridges(except for few long bridges which had safe points here and there to stand when a train comes). The scary part here is you never know when a train comes! There are no timings for goods trains… so when a train comes you will have to run back from the bridge to save your life. A train running at 30 km/hr behind you and you running on the slippery planks!! Sounds exciting? We kept passing pitch dark tunnels and bridges with wonderful view of the forest, Western Ghats or a stream flowing. Then came the best part: bridge 20… this one is the longest (275 mts) and the tallest (atleast 350 ft deep), as if that was not enough, iron strip between the rails was missing at some of the most crucial points.A wrong step would directly take u to the bottom of the gorge.
To make the matter worse there was the deafening sound of the stream below to shake away the crucial confidence that might have left in you. I and another friend crossed 80% of the bridge when a trolley came on the opposite side, the guy on the trolley was not ready to allows us to step on the trolley and cross it. There was one safe standing point between us and them. There were 4 rods connecting the safe point to the bride and it had one old cement slab to stand which looked to break the moment I step on it.So we had 2 options one go back or cross to the safe point. You hav to place 2 steps on the rods before you can reach the slab, the gap between the rods was so much that I was sure 1 ½ times of me would fit in easily. With all difficulty I crossed, and helped my friend.I was back on the bridge, my friend held my hand and placed his foot on the rod when he moved his body a little…water bottle in the bag side pocket slipped and fell between the rods, watching the water bottle for next 6 sec was the scariest thing I have ever seen in my life… I could feel the fear all over my body, the scary look on my friend’s face and his shivering hand. We finally managed to be back on the bridge. Then found a way to go down the stream had a bath, njoyed for another hour. The water was so freezing cold and current was pulling us away. Finally after crossing 18 tunnels (587 mts being the longest) and more than 20 bridges we reached “Yedukumeri” at 6:30. 
The station had no power supply, no communication system to other stations, no mobile connectivity. There was only one bulb in the station masters room which runs on generator. It was very dark and we could see moon on the horizon.
And most important of all I saw the best starlit sky I had ever seen. We could make out the outline of mountain ranges backed with a beautiful dark sky. Our plan was to trek 6 kms through forest in the morning to reach the NH-48 where our TT would be awaiting us, but it had to change after we got to know that the route was blocked due to landslides and elephants. The station master told that there is a passenger train to subramania in the morning at 4, we decided to catch that train, visit the kukke subramania temple. Reached subramania at 6 freshened up in a hotel room. My dharshan was done in 15 min after which at 10:30 we started to sakleshpura to get our TT, in a KSRTC bus. After 20 kms the bus got a break down, we caught another bus, stood all the way till sakleshpura.
