Showing posts with label bangalore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bangalore. Show all posts

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Trek to Skandha-giri Peak...!!!

Hmmm...i heard of this peak quite some time back through some mail fwds. Might be you had also seen some mails with subject "a place above clouds" or smthg like that. But the real fun for this trek to do is in full moon night. So was just waiting for the perfect time and for some good company.
Finally the time had come it was the november month in 2008.One of my collegue asked me for a small trek, i suggested them to go this peak. As it is quite near to bangaloren the guys are going for the first time for trek. I found it as a good opportunity, so i too joined the gang. So the plan was ready, from net almost trek related info had been downloaded. Actually its good to have all info with you if you are planing to be on the peak before sunrise coz in that case u have to start during midnight and in that time you wil not find anybody from whom you can ask where to go or not. We were total 14 so having 7 bikes including mine. This was also a special one coz in this trek my bike first time touchs the highway...:).

the peak to conquer

So all were set to start for the trek. It was around 1:30am by the time when we start for this trek from madiwala. As a simple rule of the game 'no overtaking' n 'no parallel biking' n have a safe journey. All of start strated in one line jut behind of each other. Around 3am we took our first break on highway. Had small chit-chat and started again. Upto Nandi hills its a very straight fwd way but actual confusion comes after it. Actually there is a ashram n from there you have to take the right. But there are two ashram with the same name :). So you have to take the right
from first asharam. We were almost lost in night where to go for hill. In the mean time we met another gang of 4 bikers that was also lost. Finally we met one local guy and he tells that he will guide us to the peak with a charge of 250/-. All of us were got exhausted searching for the way to hill, so decided to let him to guide us to the peak. Finally it was around 4:30am we were @ the foothills of skhandhagiri. Now these days there is a parking spcae where people can park there bikes @ 15/- per bike and cars @ 30/- per car. As soon as we parked our bikes we started for the terk coz all of us wanted to see sun-rise. All of us whoever was carrying toarch, had taken out our toarchs and started climbing the peak. It was real fun to climb a hill during night time in light of toarchs. As almost all of the guys were going for trekking for the first time. So they were lacking the basic principle of treking as it is a team game. So who ever was carrying the toarch just using it for to lite his own way and not bothering about others like as some of us were carrying the toarchs so it was the resposibilit yof other to show them the way. But it was not a trekking gruop it was just a mob which is climbing the hill. It sounds quite strange to me and pity for those who were not carrying the toarch. Umm...i was counting it as my worst trekking expirence till date but later on i had one more worsen expirence during trek of sakhleshpur trek...ll tel u in that trek blog. Ok...Ok...no more personnel feeling....we were @ the peak by 5:30 with some breath taking steps during the trek. While climbing the peak we havnt seen anybody climbing the peak, but as soon as we reached the peak there were aruond 50 or more people who were already there. On the peak you can find some old wall of a fort which is considered to be there from time of Tipu-Sultan. One old temple of some lord is also there. Now it is partially occupied by a tea stall, a guys sells tea n bread in morning.

sun-rise @ hill

wid bike partner @ hill top



sign of temple @ hill top

the beautifull n dangerous part of trek...!!!

while getting down @ small shiva temple

We stay over there for around 2 hrs and had some rest. Now its time to get down from the hill. I thought of it would be easy as it is already the case for other treks. Getting down is more easy than climbing. But really speaking getting down was more tougher than climbing. It took around 1 n haf hour to all of us to get down.
Can see skandha-giri on back side

Overall it was mixture of good and bad expirence. But you cannot expect much from guys like these who are trekking for the first and doing it just for the sake for the trekking....better to leave it. For me it was a wonderfull n breath-taking ex for being to this trek and it was quite tough wrt to my expectations for this trek. So one more addtions to the list of peak conquered and lets see which is the next one....!!!

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Trip to Ramohalli & Ramanagaram..(Part I)

It all started when my friends & me wanted to break free from the daily chores and throw ourselves away from this bustling city. The day was June 28 2008. As planned, we had to start for the trip @ 6am but the weather was very cloudy, so we decide to wait for some time and leave accordingly. But till 9am the weather remained the same. Before starting let me to introduce the star cast : Vikas urf baba, manoj urf manu bhai(that day he also got one new name DON for his new look...:-), Semant urf manager, myself navigator ).



Finally we started at 10 am, the weather was very cloudy but it was the ok until n unless there is no rain. Allthough all of us were going to that place for the first time so no one of us was had idea how to reach that place. I took the map from internet and we were only following the roads through maps only. Coz we started bit late so it took around half n hour to get out from the city coz of traffic. As manu is only the guy who is familiar with city roads, so we were just
following him just to get out from the city through shortcuts. Finally we came on main road which would conneted to mysore road. On the mysore road we have to go to kingeri and after that there is a straight stretch. As you move on after kengiri, there you will find board on road side for big banyan tree and you have to take the right from there. From this right turn there is one railway crossing just 100-150 meters away. You will also find macdowell distileries etc.From here 4-5 km road is in gud condition but after that there is only kuchha(mud) road. Finally we reached there at 12:15pm.

Trip to ramohalli & ramanagaram..(Part II)

After reaching there we had our brunch at some local restru out there. One can easily get some idli,dosa kind of stuff.We had never seen such a big tree in our whole life. One more intresting thing is that you may not be able to find out the main trunk of the tree. In all over the place the new bales were hanging out from the tree. The tree is now taking care by Bank of Maharastra and its still growing.If you remember "ye dosti ham nahi.....from sholay" some scene were also got shooted in the same tree premises. we shot some pictures over there. The place is now well maintained.


Now its time to leave the place, den Manu bhai got an idea..he suggested why not go to Ramanagaram(the place where the SHOLAY was shooted). Every body agreed in one instant. So this was the starting of one more unplanned journey. The ramanagaram is about 38 Km from this place. After taking some rest at that place we started forRamanagaram @ around 2:00 pm. On the mysore highway, you will find out the board on right side for ramanagaram. Its aruond 3 km form main road. We took some snacks because you will not find any shops after as you get apart from highway. You can ride the bike up to main entrance of rocks. There is some parking space you can park your vehicles over there, but at you own risk only coz as there will be no person to take care of you bikes. why m telling this, reason i wll told you in the end. On main entrance you can find one small temple. From there on words up to the top of the rocks you can find the stairs.You can also go via climbing the rocks and that was i think actually more intersting way. But as 2 of were not ready to via that dangerous climbing route, so we took the staris route only. while climbing the stairs you may find many temples out there. But as we went there on weekend so everything was closed there. One funny thing on all temple you can find out and i can bet you cannot resist yourself without laughing.

Trip to ramohalli & Ramanagaram....(Part III)

I dont know all of the people have puttedup slogans like "X loves Y"..."X i luv u fm Y". Dont know when these crap people will grow up and they had not spared even a single wall of every temple. Every temple is full of with these slogans...XXXX. Anyway leave it up to those people only. Hmm.....so 1/2 hr of climbing we were on the top of the rocks. From the top the view was really amazing, the valley view was beautifull. We rest there for an hour and get stored some memories of that rock in our cameras. we had our snacks out there while sitting on the edge of rocks and its quite differnt and memorable.


Valley view @ Ramanagaram...
On around 4pm we started to get down to the place where we park our bikes. We started our journey as soon we get down to the place where our bikes were parked. We just come down from the rocks way, our bike got stuck..err..!!!. we tried all techs but the bike was not going to start. Finally find out that someone(******) had taken out petrol from our bikes all the petrol from our bikes [dats y i was telling park @ ur own risk :-)]. Well one of the bike had left out with enough petrol to manage to go up to petrol pump. So 2 of us went and brought the petrol in bottle and finally we started our return journey. This whole process had wasted around one hour of our journey. Finally we move on the mysoore highway. Now it was GOD who was creating trouble in our journey via rains..:). But we decided to move on in the rain and this was such a fandu thing...we still remember the maja + thrill of biking in rain...on empty highway @ 90 km/hr. Finally @ around 7pm, we were back to our place. As it was quite tiring journey, so we rested for around 1 hr and after that d BIG BANG weekend celebration began...!!!!. On serious note, The trip was wonderful with many memorable moments. Both places are good and worth to visit for nature lovers....!!!!

Things to carry:
- Minimum 2 Ltr water
- Energy food (ie. Chocolates, Flavored Curd, Fruits etc)
- Energy Drink (ie. Flavored milk, Fruit juice etc)
- Cap, sun glasses, rain coat, water bottle,
- Shoes: With minimum grips/studs. preferably canvas or soft sole shoes if not rock climbing shoes.