The twenty-seven-kilometre viewpoint: three places wearing one name

The most common planning mistake in this valley is not a wrong turn. It is believing that the things called Kakkayam are one place. They are at least three, they are up to 27 road-kilometres apart, and they are governed by entirely different rules. The confusion is not the fault of bloggers. It starts on the state tourism department’s own website, where two pages contradict each other.

The contradiction

Kerala Tourism’s destination page for Kakkayam tells you that trekking trails lead to breathtaking viewpoints, such as Kariyathan Rock. Read in the ordinary way, that says: come to the dam, buy a trekking ticket, walk to a viewpoint called Kariyathan Rock. Thousands of itineraries have been written on exactly that reading.

Kerala Tourism also maintains a page for Kariyathumpara. That page places it in Koorachund panchayat, 45 kilometres from Kozhikode, and — in the department’s own words — 27 kilometres from Kakkayam Dam. Its neighbours are listed as Vayalada Waterfalls 1.1 km away, Mullanpara 5.2 km and Thonikadavu 14 km. Urakkuzhi, the actual trek objective, is given as 30 km away.

Both pages are official. The second one is right. Kariyathumpara is a real village on the road in, with a church, a primary school and a telephone exchange, and a Commons photograph geotags it at 11.5381 north, 75.8951 east — about 3.5 kilometres west of the dam in a straight line, which becomes 27 by road because the road has to go around the terrain rather than through it. You drive past it. You do not walk to it.

Place one: Kariyathumpara, and what it actually offers

Having established what it is not, it is worth saying what it is, because plenty of people would rather have this than the trek. Kariyathumpara is a roadside spot with natural springs and rock pools you can bathe in. No ticket, no counter, no permit, no sanctuary boundary, no guide. It is where the famous photograph captioned a morning view of Kakkayam from Kariyathumpara comes from, which is another reason its name has migrated onto the dam.

The comparison is almost comic when you line it up. At Kariyathumpara, bathing is the point. At Urakkuzhi, 30 kilometres on, bathing is the single thing forest staff will not let you do, because the water there is at the lip of a gorge. Same valley, same brand name, opposite instruction.

Place two: the reservoir, which is KSEB’s

Fourteen kilometres beyond Kakkayam market — a figure two independent sources give identically, which is more than can be said for most numbers here — is the dam. The reservoir, the boating and the dam-site ticket belong to KSEB through its Kerala Hydel Tourism Centre. This is a working power installation, and the visitor infrastructure sits inside it rather than beside it.

You can buy this ticket and never walk anywhere. Many people do, and in 2024 there was a ten-week stretch when it was the only thing on sale, because boating reopened after the gaur closure on 1 March while the trekking programme stayed shut until 11 May.

Place three: the trail, which is the Forest Department’s

The walk to Urakkuzhi is a separate product with a separate ticket at a separate counter, run by the Forest Department through village forest-protection committees, inside the 74.215 sq km Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary notified in 2010. It is about a kilometre, it descends, and it ends at the head of the falls.

And then there is the fourth thing, which is not a place but is constantly mistaken for one: the jeep. A seven-seat Forest jeep runs at around ₹250 over a seven-kilometre forest route. Blogs routinely present that ₹250 as the price of the Urakkuzhi trek. It is not. It is a different route of a different length, and the walk to the falls is a walk.

Two more names to strike off your itinerary

Vayalada appears in a lot of trek listings as though it were a destination you hike to from the dam. It is 1.1 kilometres from Kariyathumpara, which puts it 26-plus kilometres from the dam by road. It is a drive.

Vellarimala is a genuinely different ecotourism destination altogether. Its trek goes to Vavul Mala at 2,339 metres, accessed from Adivaram in the Thamarassery direction, and it spans the Wayanad and Thamarassery forest divisions. Nothing connects it to a Kakkayam permit, and you cannot walk there from here.

A handful of other names — Ottakkallu, Anakkallu, Cheerakuzhi — circulate as Kakkayam treks and we could not substantiate a single one of them in any source. The only other walking documented anywhere is an informal cave scramble that a Malayalam travelogue calls mulachangatham, with no permit information attached. Treat it as unofficial.

How to plan the day, then

Drive inward from Balussery through Estate Mukku and Koorachundu, and treat the road as the itinerary rather than the commute. Kariyathumpara and its rock pools come first, roughly 27 kilometres before the dam, and cost nothing. Kakkayam market is next. Fourteen kilometres past that are the two counters and the two tickets — reservoir from KSEB, trail from Forest — and the walk down to Urakkuzhi.

One valley, one name, three regimes, and the only way to get the day right is to stop treating them as a single destination.