Agasthyarkoodam: Mystical Mountains & Sacred Trails

“Trekking: where the soul finds its rhythm and the earth its melody, every step is a story, every trail a new chapter.”

Few months ago, Manohar shared this information about a three-day trek in Keralam known as Agasthyarkoodam. A trek company by name Journey craft organises it. The pictures and videos were amazing with the trails full of waterfalls. Some of us were keen to do it, but were not sure when the announcement would come. Manohar kept following up with Journey craft. Their peak season is January-February and off season is till March. As I had other commitments in early march, we chose March 14-16 and got the approval from journey craft. Initially six of us registered, but as Guru dropped out, five of us remained. We discussed about different ways of getting there, and finally decided to take Sujith’s Lodgy with a driver. Hari had found a driver who seemed expensive, I found one, who cancelled couple of days before the trip. Finally, Sujith found one from his office.

The trek is managed by Keralam forest department and there are formalities. All of needed medical forms filled in prescribed format. Leader of the group had to give an affidavit. When we booked, ours was the last batch. Later due to high demand, the date is extended till April! I feel summer may not be a good time to trek Agasthyarkoodam. Booking amount with food was Rs 5700/-.

Journey craft made a WhatsApp group based on the date of the trek. While the group had 20 people, we couldn’t find anyone while trekking. Whereas, there were 100 people (permitted number per day is 100) who came through different channels, many directly registered at Keralam Forest Department website.

The Agasthyarkoodam (1,868m) trekking is one of the most challenging and rewarding trekking experiences in the Western Ghats. The peak is in Agasthyamalai range of western ghats and the Neyyar Wildlife Sanctuary. The peak is a ~50 km, physically demanding trek, recommended only for those with excellent fitness. According to reports, a 3-day trek allows better exploration compared to a rushed 2-day schedule. The trek starts from a place called Bonacaud 61 Kms from Thiruvananthapuram. We had seen some videos that looked fascinating. It is also a pilgrimage with a shrine for sage Agasthya on the peak. Sage Agastya is a prominent figure in Hindu ancient history, both in Ramayana and Mahabharata. He is considered as the father of south Indian mysticism. Please refer to the links here to find out interesting tales about Sage Agasthya’s life: (https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/compilation/puranic-encyclopaedia/d/doc241351.html, https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/agastya-muni-story, https://www.fablesrus.com/post/the-mystical-magical-sage-agastya).

This peak is frequented by many pilgrims, mostly from Tamil Nadu. Everyone has to go through Keralam Forest department, in the predefined time slots.

Day 0, 13 March 2026: Manohar came to my home at 15:15 and parked his two-wheeler. Sujith came in his car with Shashank and the driver (Bayalappa) around 15:40. We took the Nice Road and picked up Hari near electronic city. We then visited Chandapura where my brother had house warming for his new home. The road to here was bad. We spent few minutes with them, and left. There was a huge traffic jam due to a village fare. It took some time to get to the highway. The route was through Hosur, Selam, Madhurai, and Rajapalyam. At 4:00 in the morning I took to driving in order to give some rest to Bayalappa. After driving for about an hour, there was big traffic jam where I handed over driving to Bayalappa. We reached Vithura, a major town near Bonacaud. We found a place to freshen up and also a room for Bayalappa to stay for two nights.

Day 1, 14 March 2026: We were supposed to pick up our breakfast and packed lunch at a restaurant called Pothikai, we saw the board, but missed the place and reached the Bonacaud check post. At the check post, people had lined up and were going. The authorities promised us that they will get our food in some time. We lost a couple of hours in this. Once the food came, we had the breakfast (Appam) and added the lunch pack to our rucksack. The forest officers checked our documents and later at another counter they checked for plastics. Some snack that was in plastic carry bags was transferred to paper bags that they sold. Whatever is let in, is noted and a Rs. 100/- per item was collected as a deposit. It was 11:10 by the time we started the trek. Initial path was a nice canopy with mostly flat trail. In about 40 minutes, we were at camp 2, Lathimotta. We continued our journey through the green trail with the background music of crickets chirping. After crossing Camp 3, Karamanayar, we came to a waterfall around 13:00. Many people were taking bath here. We had our packed lunch, spent about 45 minutes here and continued for 15 minutes to reach camp 4, Vazhapainthir. After about an hour we arrived at another major waterfalls. After crossing the stream across, we arrived at Camp 5, Attayar at 15:20. The trail from here got steeper, sometime through forest and sometime through grasslands. It was 17:30 by the time we reached the Athirumala basecamp. The total distance covered from Bonacaud to Athirumala was 12.4 kms.

Document check at Bonacaud

The camp is located in a very scenic place. There are three large, simple dormitories, two for men and one for women. There is a dining hall with chairs and tables. There is a series of toilets and bathrooms all clean and with good flowing water. Behind the camp is a trench to avoid animals coming in, and it has wooden logs working as a bridge. Beyond this a path leads to a stream. We also get great view of Agasthyarkoodam from here.

After seeing around for some time, we gathered for dinner. The dinner of boiled rice ganji (kanji, porridge) with mung bean sukka was delicious and sumptuous. Night sleep was OK with one break in between.

Day 2, 15 March 2026: We got up in the morning and did some photography. I had a shower and had breakfast of Poori with mutter gravy. At 7:45, we left for Agasthyarkoodam. First one hour was through a green canopy, the trail steeper than yesterdays. At 9:00, we arrived at a waterbody that was slowly fed by a stream coming from top. We spent half an hour here and proceeded further. The view was amazing with many distant peaks, variety of trees and shrubs with colourful flowers. Around 10:30 was the first rock climbing with the help of a rope. The elevation was quite high. After another 20 minutes, there was one more rock climbing with rope. It was 11:20 when we reached the top. We went around seeing the beautiful scenery on all four sides, visited the Agasthya muni shrine, where people were worshipping the sage. We were at 1,868 meters above sea level and the view from the top was breathtaking. There were many people rejoicing and clicking pictures. We also did lot of photography. We met Akhil, who was also from Bangalore who clicked some interesting photos of us. Around 12:45, we started to come down, once again using the ropes, that were more useful now. At 14:00, we were near the pond, where we once again spent some time. It was 15:45 by the time we reached the Athirumala campsite. The total trek distance for the day was 9.33 kms based on my Garmin watch. We had lunch of steamed boiled rice and sambar.

Later we went to the stream behind the camp and took bath. Evening dinner was once again boiled rice ganji with mung bean sukka. That night was cooler than the previous one, and I hadn’t carried a good blanket.

Day 3, 16 March 2026: Breakfast was Puttu with Kabuli channa curry. Around 8:00 we left the camp and started coming down. Manohar paced ahead and couldn’t be seen till we reached the camp. We reached Attayar camp at 9:15. At 10:15 we crossed Camp 4. The trail was the same we had taken while ascending and the views were amazing. On the way, we saw some fresh elephant dung indicating recent movements.  We took a refreshing shower in the waterfalls and moved down to the basecamp. It was 12:30 by the time we reached the check post where we showed the plastic boxes returned and got our deposit amount back. The trek distance for the day was 12.35 kms.

Our driver, Bayalappa, was waiting for us. On the way back we had lunch at Pothigai restaurant. It was a feast with several dishes and payasam. Around 14:00, we left for Bangalore picking up some Kerala chips and halwa on the way. Around 21:00, we stopped at an Anjappar restaurant near Madurai. Sujith drove the car for about 1.5 hours giving some rest to Bayalappa. It was 5:30 in the morning by the time I reached home.

Banana chips

Agasthyarkoodam was our first major trek in Keralam. It was one of the most scenic trails we had seen. While it was the “off season”, still there were so many streams and water falls indicating that the peak season would be even more beautiful.

Thanks to Manohar for initiating the trek, to Journey Craft for organizing, to Sujith for lending his car, to Hari for keeping track of the expenses yet again, and to Shashank for the company. While it is tough for us to plan short trek in Keralam, we would love to do more similar treks in the future.