Skandagiri Conquered

Late noon of a lazy Saturday with no plans of what should be done to kill the weekend, life was supposed to be sad for the next 36hrs. suddenly a thought struck to my mind, and I thought lets go trekking. Picked up the phone, and conferenced Parmesh(Parmi) n Bharath. Coincidentally we had Parmesh speaking to Manjunath(Manju) and the instant plan worked out. We also contacted another friend but he was already out of city with family.

So we were supposed to leave at around 2am. Parmi n Manju camped in my room and Bharath was supposed to wake us up at 2. It took some extra time to get our lazy asses out of the bed(I being the main culprit) but finally around 245am we left towards Skandagiri, zooming in the Alto. I was not yet fully awake so I decided to take the wheels (driving gets the blood pumping in me) so by the time we hit the highways I was wide awake and all the old college stories were coming out. (yes…we all studied together and it has been 8+ yrs since those jolly days).

One pit stop for tea and burning some tobacco, we reaced the foot hills of Nandi Hills, I knew we had to take a right (left goes to Nandi Hills) so I followed the road and after taking directions from a few early bird oldies, reached the foot hills. Parked the car near the ashram (I had done my research on the place on net before hand). We were approached by a school going kid, maybe 10yr old and offered us to guide the climb for 500/- and when rejected he offered 300/- I saw Parmi, he said the target is there, showing the peak and said all roads lead to it…. That was an indication enough, we made sure car was locked properly and then started.

Lost our way for sure during the climb, our climb was very difficult in the start as we were straying into the dense bushes. We made the ascend making our own way amidst the rocks and wild bushes. 20mins through and we were all tired and Bharath gave up he offered to wait there and we go ahead. I was in a similar condition, but we gathered ourselves and shot again. To my surprise as we climbed higher the energy levels seem to be fuelled by the breath taking views.

Finally we got into the regular track, not before slipping a few places and bruising our limbs a little. The hill has 3 stages and gets difficult as the top approaches. But reaching the top has its own rewards, breezy climate, shivering cold, a view with clouds below you. I will let the pictures speak.

Once on top, you need to have something seatming to keep your warmth. We have ruins of an ancient temple of Lord Shiva in which we have a tea boy who does tea and omlets, very sweet boy and he also offered us to come on a weekday and camp in the night exclusively as the crowd would be less. We took his contacts and I did not miss out on getting him in the frame as well :)

The descent was pretty brisk and by the time we reached home we were tired like crazy. What was supposed to be a laze around weekend was spent enjoying like crazee thanks to the trek.