Grassland, shola and leeches: what Ranipuram actually is

The thing to look at on the way up is not the view. It is the pattern the hillside makes: open grass over the ridges and shoulders, and in every fold and hollow a rounded island of dark evergreen trees, packed tight and dripping. That is a shola–grassland mosaic, and Kerala Tourism records this as the one place in Kasaragod district where it is found.

Why it looks like that

Sholas are stunted evergreen woods that survive in the valleys of high south Indian hills, where cold air pools and fire cannot easily run. The grass takes the exposed ground; the trees hold the sheltered ground. Walk the boundary between them and it is abrupt — a metre of grass, then a wall of wet leaves and moss, and the temperature drops as you step in. Much of the grass here is lemongrass, which is why people say the air on this hill smells of it.

The leeches are real

From roughly June into November they are constant, and the state says so itself: carry good boots, and carry salt. They come up the outside of a shoe and go in at the ankle, and a walker who has never met one will spend the first half hour of the descent finding out. This is not a reason to avoid the hill, and it is not a small detail either — it is the single thing most likely to spoil an otherwise easy day.

And the animals belong to somebody else’s life

This is reserved forest in the Panathady reserve, and elephants, leopards, wild boar, deer and Malabar giant squirrels all use it. Sightings are commonplace enough that the state mentions elephant herds on its own destination page. Treat that as the reason for staying on the track and going in the morning rather than as an attraction being sold to you, because for the farms at the foot of the hill it is neither.