Hebbe Falls from Kemmanagundi: the jeep, the walk and the season

Hebbe Falls is the reason a lot of people drive up to Kemmanagundi at all, and it is also the part of the trip most likely to go wrong — not dangerously, but expensively and disappointingly, because of two things nobody tells you until you are standing at the top of the hill.

What it is

A headstream of the Bhadra comes off the range and drops in two stages: Dodda Hebbe, the big fall, and below it Chikka Hebbe, the small one. Wikipedia gives the total as 551 feet, about 168 m. It falls inside a working coffee estate — the Kodays estate — roughly 8 km below Raj Bhavan at Kemmanagundi, which is the fact that shapes everything else about visiting it.

Why you cannot drive there

The track down from the hill station is an estate track, not a road: rutted, steep in places, and crossing water. Ordinary cars do not go down it and should not try. What runs instead are shared four-wheel-drive jeeps from Kemmanagundi, and they are the accepted and effectively the only way in — the government hill resort describes the trip as about 12 km of jeep travel followed by a short trek of about a kilometre.

That last kilometre is on foot, over rock and through the stream, and it is not difficult but it is wet. Wear something with grip that you do not mind soaking, and do not carry anything you would mind dropping in water.

When the water runs

This is the second thing that catches people out. Hebbe is a monsoon-fed fall on a small catchment. From June to about December it is full and loud; through January and February it thins; by March and April it is a trickle down a black rock face, and visitors who have driven from Bengaluru for it are entitled to feel short-changed.

The best compromise is October to December — enough water for the fall to be a fall, without the monsoon making the track and the stream crossings miserable. In the height of the rains the jeeps sometimes cannot get through at all, so ask at Kemmanagundi before you commit to the day.

Doing it properly

Go in the morning; the jeeps fill up and the light in the gorge goes early. Carry water and something to eat, because there is nothing at either end of the track. Do not climb the rocks beside the fall — wet basalt with a hundred and sixty metres of water landing on it is exactly as bad an idea as it sounds, and this is a remote spot with the nearest real hospital an hour and a half away at Shivamogga. And keep your rubbish; the estate is somebody’s workplace, and there is no bin, no warden and nobody to clear up after you.

Allow half a day from Kemmanagundi, which fits neatly with doing Z Point at sunset on the same day — one down, one up, and the gardens in between.