Work of an artist . . .
Trekking with a combination of moonlight and witnessing sunrise would be so mesmerizing thing ever, you feel the weather just as a work of great artist!
One of the beautiful places near the outskirts of Bangalore, call it Kalavara Durga or Skandagiri, an awesome place with beautiful scenic view. A peak at 1350 meters altitude Skandagiri is around 3 Kms from Chikkaballapur and 60 Kms from Bangalore, two hours to ascend and an hour to step down worth time spent to witness the beauty.
Route to the destination.
You could choose to go by KSRTC bus from Bangalore to Chikkaballapur, ticket fare at 60 Rs where you get buses on a frequency of 4 to 5 buses every hour and then on you can book an auto from Chikkaballapur to Skandagiri which costs you around 100 Rs.
You can opt to go by car if you are a team of 4 to 5 where If you choose to go by car you will have to leave the vehicle near Papagni matt and walk towards the trail. Though you don't have the definite parking you will find the local villagers who assures to safegaurd your vehicle but you don't see them on your way back.
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| This is where you get to park your vehicle |
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| Just before parking place and Papagni mutt |
We started from Vijayanagar Bangalore, Karnataka -> Nagarabhavi Main Road -> Magadi road and was surprised to see Anand rao Circle since it is a name of my friend Gurunandan who accompanied for Skandagiri the last time and then we touched Mangalore Hwy/Outer Ring Rd/Tumkur Road -> then on all the fun is with Bellary Rd/National Highway 7 one of the best road to enjoy the ride which connects you to toll road and SH 104 and SH 74 from there you could either choose to go on Nandhi hills road or you can head towards to Chikkaballapur or take left to Skandagiri.
Be wise, take a moment to find the right trail.
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| Kashi Vishweshwara swamy temple Papagni mutt |
You are done with the travelling and standing just in front of Paapagni mutt, all you have to do is take right and walk up to 50 Mts and take left on the mud road and head towards the trail which is around 700 Meters there is a huge stone which is around 16 ft tall that is where are supposed to take left otherwise you will have to end up doing breathe taking rock climbing instead of trekking.
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| This is where you need to take left to find the right trek path. |
Me and Pradeep started our trek at 12.30 mid of the night as we did it the first time we relied on the trekkers and took left road which almost looked like a trekking route but it was really not, after ascending a while we saw huge rocks about 50 to 60 degrees of elevation which seems to be okay but after crossing that we realised that we have chosen a wrong way which was dangerous like a hell with the steep rocks of about 65 to 70 degrees elavation.
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| Pradeep wondering by looking at the route we trekked earlier in the morning. |
Climbing on bare foot and hands with a baggage is not at all a joke, imagine you are stuck in between a huge rock not finding anything to hold,
both hands and feet are sweating
you could neither come down nor find a way up
and there comes the scream of monkey family . . .
which made us feel we are done,
it is the torch that helped us to escape from monkeys,
I gave a push to Pradeep and he helped me to reach up by tying the waist belt to his leg.
We finally reached the regular trekking path, after crossing 5 of such monstor rocks which are about 100 meters with 65 degrees of elevation covered with huge shrubs and thorny bushes in between. we took almost 2 hours to fight with the rocks and another half an hour crossing the rest of trekking route and that is where we enjoyed the real fun of moonlight trekking it was so beautiful view around, a bed of white clouds shining in the moon light! one should enjoy that beauty in person which i was not able to capture with my Mobiile. till we cross the resedues of fort it was all beautiful clear sky with moon light on the white clouds but as we reached the top we noticed a chill and foggy wind which covered entire weather and beauty we enjoyed the breeze for a while and went inside the temple to take some rest and wait till the sun rise.
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| Temple at the top of Skandagiri |
No wonder you will always be associated with the dogs on your way to top, and will play a best trekking companion and guide.
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| Bed of snow - Looks so beautiful! |
You will descend the hill with a feel of satisfaction.
Thanks for sharing, we lost way last saturday and experience all sorts of Rock Climbing and trailing under the thorny bushes ;-)
ReplyDeleteSame is the case with us, though it was my second trek we failed to identify the right trail and ended up doing rock climbing which i still wonder that we did it, but it is still one of the best trekking spots I have ever enjoyed :)
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