Day hike to Alagalla

Hi everyone, . So the hike plan begins @ office as usual. I was out of office for 1.5 months on training and the team had planned a trip to Alagalla. People plan the trip and invite us, and finally it is only me & Pasindu who do the hike while the ones who planned it are dropped off which happens most of the time. So what we say to them is, “we will be leaving in this train @ this time, if you are coming, please come on time for the train”

For me, it was a night shift on Friday night and I had gone to office with my backpack and camera ready for the hike in the morning. Pasindu planned to join me from Polgahawela in the train. After office, I hurried to get hold of the Badulla 5.55 am train and was on time. As planned, Pasindu joined me & off we went on a packed train to Ihala Kotte. The trail can be done from Pilimathalawa, which is a little easy compared to Ihala Kotte, But we did not know of it. Anyway, I would suggest starting from Ihala Kotte and descending to Poththapitiya to experience both the routes.

We got off and had a quick breakfast and started our climb immediately.

A few steps starting from the railway station

It is a daily hike to the villagers from the railway station to the nearest village up in the hills.

Pasindu & Myself

The last place where you will find water

Passing the above the tank, you will find a U turn to your left and then you will come across a house. You can ask for water from them too. That is the last house until you reach the peak and come back.

Going through the tea estates. Saw a tiny cobra on the way back here

From here onwards, it is dense forest. Leaches are abundant during the rainy season

On our way, villagers warned us about leaches because it was the monsoon season which was slowly fading away. So Pasindu bought a packet of shampoo and applied it on his legs. I thought applying shampoo on your legs was gross and didn’t apply it and also thought that there might be a few leaches which I will take off one by one when I see them crawling up on my legs during the hike. So off we went, after a good scolding & warning from my buddy.

Path was covered with bushes. Aftermath of the monsoon.

The forest patch started with a muddy entry point and undergrowth which surprised us. We didn’t think that it would be so tough after the rain. The ascend was so slippery that we couldn’t imagine of our descend.

How far do we need to go? No idea machan.

From the point where the forest starts, I saw a leach on my shoes and took it off and started to go forward and I didn’t even walk 10 meters when I felt a few stings in my legs and to see, within a few seconds, there were many leaches on my shoes and legs. And surprisingly, I saw leaches flooded on the ground. I was shocked, I didn’t have time to stop to take off the leaches, so we proceeded. Off we climb and more and more leaches get onto my shoes and sneak inside my shoes. It was really painful but I couldn’t help but proceed with the leaches sucking my blood. More than that, what irritated me was Pasindu scolding me for not listening to him.

On some places, the mana bushes were taller than us.

Time for a quick pic

Those poles helped us from slipping during this hike along with easing the pressure on our knee joints, while the straps of my backpack lost grip and was falling back.

Couldn’t find the path we came from. These were way taller than us.

After the thick forest, you will come to this patch of Mana grass and then you will see a small rock where you can rest a bit. The first thing I did after reaching this particular rock was, take out the leaches from my feet and legs.

A few who remained before saying bye to me

While I was pulling off the leaches, I remembered to take a few pics. But by that time many of them were already taken off. When I went home and counted the number of wounds, I had 35 of them and as you can see in the pictures, for one wound there were not just one leach, for some wounds there were as many as 8 leaches sticking together and sucking blood from the same place. So I can imagine about 50 plus leaches on my body on that day.

There were 8 of them in that particular blood sucking well.

Aftermath.

This is the rock I had told you about which is just before the peak.

Finally at the base. Pointing the railway station of Ihala Kotte

Ihala Kotte railway station zoomed a little bit.

It was a nice view from here

Some fresh air to breathe

After reaching the base of the peak, you will have to climb the rock. But we did not attempt it because it was still slippery. Rather, we tried to find a safer way to the peak by going down the rock from its east.

If you slip, you can imagine the impact.

This is the way to the peak if I’m not mistaken

The peak.

Trying to find another way to the peak.

Beautiful mountain on the west of Alagalla

Both of us.

He came on this hike with a broken toe

What a nice view

We were relaxing a bit, eating biscuits and then thought of descending because we ran out of water. On the way back, we met a few students from a University and we told them that we are from Lakdasun and apparently they were from another hiking group called “Awidinno”. We spoke with them for a few minutes and bid them farewell and continued our descent.

I slipped and fell 8 times

Though he was laughing at me when I fell, he fell 5 times as well.

The last picture after clearing the forest patch…Can see how tired we were.

On the way back we took the Poththapitiya route and then took a bus from there to Pilimathalawa and then back to Colombo.

So until the next hike, be safe and have a nice day everyone and thank you for reading my trip report.