Mullayanagiri and Bababudanagiri

After having covered most of the treks around Bangalore, it was time to move on to greener pastures primarily the Western Ghats and what a way to begin our endeavor there. The trek to Mullayanagiri and Bababudanagiri was simply the most adventurous and liveliest trip we have ever had.

Mullayanagiri is the highest peak in Karnataka(about 1930m) and is really one of the feel-good treks - you reach the peak fairly quick and yet have the pleasure of being atop the tallest peak in the nearby vicinity. Bababudanagiri is a nearby peak whose claim to fame is due to the presence of a temple and a Durgah within the same premises and is a reasonably popular tourist spot (Can be accessed without having to trek )

This trek had by far the biggest gang of people i have been trekking with - 18 of us and getting together the group was in itself an interesting event. What started as the plan for our regular trekking group to hire a Sumo turned initially to having book a tempo traveler to eventually a 18 seater Swaraj Mazda. This being 3-4 months after we completed our B.E, ended up being a mini-reunion of sorts with all the wild and wacky characters thrown in :)

New Characters:

It is the sign of the difficulty of this trek that most of the new guys who joined us for the trek never chose to turn up again !! (or more likely just got busy with wife and kids ;) )

Goutham Bhat (aka Google) - Has been waiting for this intro a long while. You have to wait a little longer for Bandajje.

Hemanth Murthy

Anil C

Anil Kumar (aka Punk)

Arvind (too many nicknames to list here )

Jayaprakash

Vineeth

Shayan (super shayan !!)

and his friend Hemanth (who keeps sending all of us forwards even 4 years after the trek)

The Trek:

Date : Nov 2 2007
Time : 9.30 pm

Picking up such a big group from their houses was an impossible task and so all of us assembled at Shreyas's house in Vijayanagar. Unable to park so many bikes at his house, we were fortunate enough that ambi(who didn't make this trip) offered to take care of few more bikes as well as repair shayan's bike(which broke down even before we started our trip officially !!). With only minor delays, we started off in the swaraj mazda towards chickmagalur. The new trekkers in the group who probably mistook mullayanagiri trek for a leisure trip to Goa started off boozing resulting in lots of omelets on the way ;)

Reached chickmagalur early in the morning and after having freshened up in a small lodge, moved towards Mullayanagiri. The trek starts from a place called Sarpadari is about 15 km from Chickmagalur towards Kemmangundi. The starting point is easily recognizable by an arch on a small pathway up the hill. Our plan was to trek Mullayanagiri and from there till Bababudanagiri by evening and stay overnight there. Carrying only the essential things (and fortunately not the tents and stuff) we told our driver to reach Bababudanagiri by road and wait for us till evening.

Thus we started the trek toward the tallest peak in karnataka around 10 am. The trek to Mullayanagiri is a short and sweet trek. Not too long but fairly steep overall. It was misty even late in the morning and was rather cold at times. The vegetation was mostly green and thick. Without doubt an ideal start to the trek. In about 1.5 hours we reached the peak and took stock of the astounding views around the mountain. Had a very early lunch and a few pictures and we were ready to roll on to the next peak.

Now, as mentioned early there is a proper road from mullayanagiri(once we come down) to bababudanagiri but obviously we wanted to trek and not walk. The alternative is a path through 4-5 mountains with the only glitch being that there is no clear cut path for the same. The only information we had from few blogs was that there is a BSNL tower that is visible from Mullayanagiri and just follow in that direction and it was probably the best way of doing this(if you don't want to use the road). We started from Mullayanagiri around 1 towards the BSNL tower which looked literally miles away. The path starts from behind the temple at the peak and is fairly steep going downwards.

After initial descent from mullayanagiri, we reached a tar road and for a long time we couldn't find a way up the next mountain. Group also got divided trying to climb at various places and failing repeatedly. Finally Keerthy and srikanth found a way up the mountain through very high (waist level) bushes and we just followed them. We weren't really sure if this would lead to a proper path or if it would end in a dead-end. However we just proceeded as still had fair amount of time before darkness. In the meanwhile punk and Jp had climbed a totally different but neighboring mountain and decided against coming down but follow the path hoping both our paths converge sometime later.

From there began our real adventure of the trip. After about 30-45 min of really steep climbing in direct sun (the mist disappeared and it was hot by then) , we were able to sight the BSNL tower again and felt confident we were on right track. Though there was a nagging thought that there was hardly any path all along and we were basically climbing through the mountain with no established paths. At times the climb was so steep that we could do only 20-25 steps at a time. I literally counted few times and couldn't do more that.This went on for about 3 hours with the bsnl tower being sighted and missing and sighted again. We had unconsciously divided into 3-4 groups based on relative speed of trekking with the job finding the paths taken up by Keerthy and Srikanth. Jp and Punk eventually joined us going in a different route but were fortunately visible most of the times.

Eventually we passed the BSNL tower and then saw a road and some signs of civilization and felt relieved that we finally reached Bababudanagiri. The final stretch was one of the most dangerous with just a foot wide path with a steep fall one side. It was around 5.30 pm when i finally reached the spot and got the shock of my life when keerthy who had reached mins before me told it was NOT bababudanagiri and that we need to walk 4-5 kms on road to reach bababudanagiri. The place we reached had a small waterfall called Manikyadhara (that we had no clue about). You need to get down on concrete steps to reach the base. Considering that it was becoming dark and still more than half the group had not yet reached this place, we took the call not to walk till Bababudanagiri but instead a hire a jeep. It was really getting dark by then and somehow the last group of Avinash, Haseeb and co reached us safely.

Then came another momentous ride of 20 mins in a jeep through broken ghat roads where 18 of us shared a jeep. Yes, thats right 18 people plus a driver in 1 jeep. We were ready to pay for 2 jeeps instead of this irrational stupidity but the jeep guys promised us they can take up to 30 people and 18 was such a small number. May be they deserve a mention in Guinness Book of Records for their feet. Well with no josh to walk, just took the jeep and we sat everywhere from bonnet of the jeep to the top !!


Bababudanagiri is a very small town with few shops and couple of lodges. We were curious about the hindu shrine and a muslim durgah being in the same premises and checked them out. Admittedly there was decent police presence and an interesting place to say the least. It was around 7 and it started drizzling. We found our swaraj mazda and also found a nearby place where we could put up the tents. Since the wood available were all wet, me and Shreyas purchased some dry ones from a hotel there (which wasn't that dry really as it was still rainy season).

With torches in hand, we setup the 3 tents we brought from Bangalore. Being the first time that most of us were setting up tents, it was a big struggle with rain and heavy winds. Setting up bonfire was even more difficult even with kerosene in hand. Even if we could start the fire it was impossible to maintain it with the consistent drizzle. Eventually we gave up. The big 10 people tent fell immediately and since some of the guys were reluctant to sleep in tents amidst wind and rains and had already decided in sleeping in the bus, we just setup the 2 smaller tents. One tent ended up hosting a fish and drinks party while the other one had tired souls trying to sleep.

And sleep we did. Just me, gupta, arvind and haseeb. Till the tent fell on top of us around 12 in the night with heavy rains pelting on top of us. So we had to run helter-skelter to the bus while the rest of the guys proclaimed their wisdom in sleeping in the bus in the first place.

Sunday morning greeted us with clearer skies and since we had loads of time, we decided to go to Hebbe falls. That activity was preceded by cleaning all the tents including the pure veg but early rising guys being forced to clean fish skeletons !! Hebbe falls can be reached only via Jeeps and this time luckily we hired 2 jeeps and had a rather comfortable but extremely intellectual journey with deep scientific arguments between one fully drunk, one partially drunk and one teetotaler. Ya they did discuss the creation of the world and evolution and what not till the party ended with arvind slapping shreyas for god knows what reason !!

Hebbe falls had lots of water with sprays reaching us from long distances. Had lots of fun playing with falls and posing to pics of course. Started the return journey late in the afternoon and though we were tired by then gupta became very enthused and started extreme viva session of everyone's crushes. Fortunately no one came to blows and certain secrets remained as it was supposed to be :)

Reached home well after mid night and that concludes still the most riskiest and fun-filled(looking back) trek ever. 

Route To Mullayanagiri:

1. Take a bus to Chickmagalur or drive till then.
2. Mullayanagiri trek starts from a point called Sarpadari and there are lots of buses from chickmagalur which go till there.

Distance from Bangalore: 270 km

Better to know:

1. There is supposed to be an easier way from Mullayanagiri to Bababudanagiri than the route we followed amidst bushes. Though having never been there again i have no clue where it is.
2. Hotels close extremely early in Bababudanagiri though it is a tourist spot and visited by lots of pilgrims of both the religions.

Shivagange

The summer after the end of college in 2007 was officially the last holidays for most of us(Except the ones who did masters later). Made lots of plans for many get-together trips and treks but eventually shivagange was the only one that materialized.

Shivagange is a small hillock near Dobbspet in Tumkur district that is famous for a shiva temple and olakala Teertha. There are more chances of finding temple devotees than trekker in this particular hill.

Our normal gang assembled for the trek except couple of folks who went to their native places. In pursuit of a female company to convince her parents for the trek, harini finally managed to find an unlikely companion and we were all set for the trek.

New Characters:

Balakrishna: The most mischievous and funny guy of our group. But shifts seamlessly from comedy stories to horror stories anytime especially when the timing is right(i.e. in middle of forest at midnight). Nature lover and more likely to be found somewhere in north-east of india than in bangalore though he is supposed to be a software engineer working here.







Vinutha: Surprising company for our trek. Very simple and soft-spoken girl. Completed her first trek with us with absolutely no complaints.










The Trek

Date: May 2007
Time: 7 am

8 of us - me, Keerthy, Srikanth, Shreyas, Pavan, Harini, Bala and vinutha started off in 4 bikes towards Tumkur road. Morning rides are always pleasant and after an hour of riding we stopped for breakfast at Kamath Upachar where disaster struck(for only me). After breakfast we were just taking pics including harini riding my famous Enticer ;) when i decided uncharacteristically to try a wheelie. With my enticer not really being conducive to a wheelie took srikanth's discover. Totally misjudging what even 112 cc can do, ripped the throttle and left the clutch and after a fleeting moment of being high in the air literally fell crashing down. However the disaster was not really falling which barely caused any damage to either me or the bike but being chided for the first(and so far last) time by the bike owner, Mr kaams !!

Not long after that, we left the restaurant with me feeling stupid, srikanth sulking and rest having a good laugh about it. Shivagange is about 10 km from Dobbaspet junction and we reached there quickly enough. The entrance to the hill is via a temple gopura where the bikes can be parked.

Most of the trek up has steps carved out of stone so it is hardly a challenging trek. To make it more interesting we generally avoided steps and walked directly on rocks where possible. The most fascinating or rather irritating part of the trek is the abundance of monkeys all around. Unlike other places, the ones in shivagange are rather aggressive and would actually pluck things from your hand/shoulder. Any eatery that is exposed is likely to end up in one of the monkey's mouth. Bala lost his bag temporarily before he heroically retrieved it from the monkey that took it !!

There are few temples along the way to the peak with one famous spot being Olakala Teertha. Basically there is a narrow crevice between rocks where spring water flows and one needs to stretch their hands to touch them. The legend is that anyone who has sinned will not be able to touch it while a pious person would be able to touch the water. Considering that the only person in our group who couldn't touch it was vinutha (and she was mighty upset with that) the legend was dismissed immediately though we had some fun at her expense.

Almost at the peak there is a Nandi statue with a nice view and just beyond that we reach the top of shivagange where of course another temple welcomed us. The climb to the top is not that strenuous even in summer and you would find lots of devotees climbing to the top on barefoot. There are no of small shops along the way selling snacks, buttermilk and cool drinks.

There were nice views all around though it being summer there was not much greenary to be seen. It was quite hot and complaining from harini about her skin resulted in staying about an hour before starting the descent down. Most of the time was spent in posing for pics.

Descent down was quick and reached down by 1. Swapped our bikes and came back to bangalore for lunch. The roads were good enough to easily maintain 80-90 speeds then. Met few other friends - Sharath, Keerthana, Padmini, Rajesh, Kiran and Akshaya who couldn't come for the trek for a rather late lunch in some hotel in Rajajinagar( too far back to remember). The contrast between sun-burned trekkers and freshened up rest of the gang can be visibly seen in the pics !!


Overall a nice short trek that doesn't physically stress out much. A rather short drive and doesnt require much planning.

Route to Shivagange:

1. Take the Tumkur road if coming from Bangalore City. A new alternative is to take the NICE road from either bannerghatta road, kanakapura road or mysore road. This joins the Tumkur road much further down avoiding most of the traffic at yeshwantpur, jalahalli cross etc.

2. Take left at Dobbaspet towards shivagange onto SH3 (there are boards indicating the same)

3. From there it is about 12 km on small winding roads. There are enough boards the guide the people.

Distance from Bangalore - 60 km

Better to Know:

1. Buses from Bangalore to Tumkur might stop at Dobbaspet and one can take autos from there.
2. Since the trek is short no need to carry anything other than water. Snacks and cool drinks available on the way up.
3. Strictly don't carry anything in hand or on outer pouches of bags. Pack and zip up the bags to avoid wrestling with monkeys.
4. If eateries are bought from vendors finish it there itself.
5. There is not really much cover at the top except couple of rocks. So better to reach early in the morning or late in evenings during summer.

Kodachadri

Kodachadri(1343 m peak) was a late addition to our plan of going to NITK Surathkal for their cultural fest in 2008. Going so far (relatively by our 8th sem standards) across the western ghats and not trekking seemed like an oxymoron. Kodachadri is a fairly popular spot for guys willing to trek in western ghats. There are couple of different routes to reach the peak and lots of varying answers as to how long it takes to trek this mountain.

The peak is 1343 metres high and located in Shimoga district. There is a jeep track that goes near the peak for people who want to avoid trekking and there is Bhattru Mane at top where you can get hot food.

About 11 of us from our group had attended the cultural fest at Surathkal which was awesome fun. The special part of it was midnight volleyball one of the days spiced up by shreyas in particular. Bharath was named BD in this trip and got stuck with that name forever. Most of us got temporary tattoos done too and showed it off next couple of weeks when we were back in college. Datta won a photography contest for which he never got the certificate nor prize money(so all of us didnt get treat either :( ) . St Mary's Island was another special part of this trip. Pavan and Goutham decided against trekking as pavan got some work back in Bangalore and they returned directly from Surathkal while the rest of proceeded to kodachadri.

New Characters:

Shreyas: More experienced than any of us in trekking. But surprisingly this was the first time we went on trekking together. Normally ready to take any risk and at home in nature. Probably my only company to literally get high for many of initial treks.

Mohammed Haseeb: If 2 wheels can do it why should the 2 poor legs be used is his mantra. Fortunately there are places that aren't accessible on bike. So he grudgingly accompanies us on few select treks. Shorter the trek , higher will be his enthusiasm !!

>

Rest of us who went to kodachadri with me were Keerthy, Srikanth, Rajesh, Dattatreya, Bharath and sudhindra.

The Trek

Date: Feb 2007
Time : 6 am

We had a very tight schedule for the whole day leaving from Surathkal to kodachadri and back to Bangalore the same evening. The return bus was booked from Kollur at around 6 in evening. So we had finish trekking and be back by then.

Left Surathkal early morning and took the bus to Kundapura. From there we got the bus to Kollur. Few guys went to the temple while rest just spent the time around. We got to know we had to take a bus from Kollur to Hosanagara that goes near kodachadri gate and start trekking from there and the last bus back to Kollur was at 4 pm. If we missed that we would miss the bus back to bangalore too. So we had to be at full pace at this trek without whiling away time too much at any place. In addition everyone was vague as to the time it would take to actually trek. Answers varying from 3 to 6 hours up.

Took the first available from kollur and in about an hour got off at the point from where there is road going right from where we needed to start trekking. Fortunately every one was ready for the rather quick pace we had to maintain. Initial part of the trek is very easy. Hardly any slope and mostly grassland. There is very wide clear path in this part of trek. We covered this stretch at breakneck speed with hardly any breaks. There are couple of shops towards the end of this plain which we got after about an hour of fast walking.

By that time sun started and the path became more steep. It looked like trekking finally instead of just walking on grasslands. With only haseeb and su struggling a little, rest of us pushed them and continued our march towards kodachadri. After a while we were able to see the peak and there was moderate greenery around. Being February, it wasn't exactly lush nor was it dry. But there was enough forest cover surrounding us. At one end of group Rajesh was eternally on phone (with us gossiping about the caller ;) ) and at the other end Haseeb cursing for making him do it (trekking that is). There was one final stretch of 1 foot wide path with steep drop on one side which was the only risky part of the entire trek. After about 2.5 hours after starting, we reached the house where bhatru stays. Most of us exhausted by then due to the speed we managed.

We ordered food and decided to roam around in the meanwhile. There is a direct jeep path that comes up to this place via a different route.There is a small temple which can be obtained on climbing further from the bhatru mane. The path to this is rather steep and narrow. Me and shreyas went to look for the waterfall which was near bhatru's place. But after few minutes we kind of gave up and came back to have lunch.The lunch wasn't great but i guess anything would taste good when you are hungry and tired. Had quick lunch and decided to start back.

Started back around 2 pm and it was continuous run to the bottom as i perceive it. None of us took any big breaks and just ran/jogged/walked till we reached the road from where we started trek in the morning. There are too many lose stones in the path down and hence the probability of twisting ankle wasn't that high on coming down too fast. By around 3.30 pm we were comfortably at the supposed bus stand and waited for the bus to take us down to Kollur. This was one descent where we didnt enjoy the surroundings that much and focused too much on speed and time. Not the ideal way to trek in general but thats the best we could do then.

We got the bus at 4 and man how these guys drive in ghats. We were sitting in last couple of rows of the bus and for every turn from left to right or vice versa which was taken without even a faint application of breaks we fell to the other side. The question of what happens if there is opposing vehicle wasn't much on the driver's thoughts i suppose. Irrespective of how you drive to be confident on someone's driving isn't easy and it was actual relief to reach the base safely. Not surprisingly, we were well in time for the bus back to Bangalore. Had food at a hotel and took the bus we had already booked at 6.

Route to Kodachadri:

1. Buses from Bangalore to Kollur via Shimoga goes via Kodachadri gate.
2. Buses from Bangalore to Kollur via Mangalore reach Kollur via different route. Get down at Kollur and catch bus to hosanagara.
3. Can go in a private vehicle too. Self-driven cars parking might not be safe though.


Total Distance: 400km from Bangalore

Better To Know:

1. Accomodation need to be booked before hand in bhatru mane or PWD houses available there.
2. Camping in tents also possible.
3. Mobile signal available most of the trek.
4. Rainy season is supposed to be more fun.

Maribetta (Bananthi Mari Betta)

A unique pattern i have observed in trekking is the fact that majority of them seem to be from IT or other technical domains. This observation is from the blogs i have read (which could be only because only IT guys are into blogs !!) but also from the groups we have met while trekking at different places. Considering that probably less than 1% Indians work in technical field, it is fairly surprising to encounter so many guys and girls from tech field while trekking.

So maribetta was different trek in the sense it was biggest group among the treks we had done till then, included girls for first time and included some who just wanted to know what this craze called trekking was all about :) . We were planning on a bike trip for a long time and to combine it with trekking is the most ideal way to spend a day !! Due to diversity of the gang interested this time, we decided to search for a smaller trek and after going through numerous blogs, we finalized upon mari betta.

Mari Betta is a small mountain near kanakapura that has a durga temple at the peak(hence the name) . The peak is not that high compared to other popular trekking spots around bangalore but the way to the top is fairly thorny and confusing at places. Datta who was supposed to come till previous day fell ill and had to cancel at last moment and as a result srikanth had to ride alone (which he was extremely happy with - please ask him why) on his fairly new discover. So it was 11 of us - me, akshaya, bharath, harini, keerthy, keerthana, kiran, padmini, pavan, sharath and srikanth on 6 bikes !!. Lots of new guys with only 4 of us having trekked often before.

New Characters:

Lots of them this time(Not sure if i even have good close up pics of them ..so my anticipatory apologies to them)



Keerthana: VTU gold medallist in 2007 ( I should get a treat for that !!) and part of our gang from first sem. Extremely level-headed and practical except when she is with her boyfriend(who later became her husband - I guess treat cancelled). Has lots of varied interests.









Padmini: Another old(!!) member of our group. Her favorite hobby is just to pester others about what they did interesting recently(what and all can a person do ??) . A decent trekker though she hasn't done it often. Easy going and very good listener.









Bharath Raj (aka BD): Gadget guru with lots of free T-shirts(courtesy his brother and dad). Surprisingly good trekker. Can talk for hours about nothing, so a good company on trips :) - whenever he decided to make an appearance that is.












Sharath(aka sherry): Impersonates everyone from Raj Kumar to our HOD. Crazy about and extremely good at cricket. Purchases mobiles as often i as buy shirts(or may be even more frequently)..and finally hates trekking like anything :) (He came to this trek just to be with someone mentioned above ;))











Kiran: His looks totally belies his enthusiasm for physical activities. Even his first bad experience at this smaller trek didnt deter him from trekking KP later. Hardly loses temper and extremely good at making people sleep by his real-life stories (unintentional of course).









Harini: Has an extremely annoying but interesting habit of changing rapidly and totally shocking rest of us. Loves trekking and is very good at it. Easily matches most of the guys in her stamina levels. Was initially hyper-sensitive and later became hyper-active(She claims she is mature now :) )










Akshaya: Another person who probably dislikes thought of trekking :) . Avid blogger and a radical.











Uff..coming to actual trek now.

The Trek:

Date: Jan 26, 2007 (yep republic day)
Time: 7 am

Everyone except srikanth assembled at keerthy's house(which more or less is our standard assembling spot). Everyone turned up on time except me and we left around 7.30 after i got couple of uncomplimentary looks for new hair style(it was bad ..) . Srikanth joined us at konankunte cross.

The kanakapura road is fairly decent stretch and was fairly pleasant to ride the bikes. The highlight of the bike ride was Harini's really unnatural pillion position(tilting 30 degrees to the right while the bike was going straight !!) and yet managing not to fall in the entire trip. Wish we could have taken pics of that. We reached Kanakapura in an hour and had breakfast. Maribetta was supposed to be only 4-5 km from kanakapura road. But when asked people around, hardly anyone seemed to have heard of it and got lots of confusing responses. Finally one of them mentioned that it is popular more as Banantha Mari and not as maribetta. After that it wasn't that difficult to find the starting point. There are few houses before it and we parked our vehicles in one of the houses.





9.30 am.

Started trek. Initially there is large stretch of mud road from where we can get a view of 2 mountains with a valley in between. We started towards the valley from the right side. After climbing for few minutes we reached what looked like a dead end with a very steep mountain wall in front us. Keerthy went ahead with finding a way up the mountain with total disregard as to how others will climb it even if he could manage it. After climbing few feet and forcing us to take a pic of his dare-devilry, he literally slid downwards without much traction from the mountain. Me and Pavan also wanted to pose for pics so climbed few feet as well. Eventually we figured out that this was wrong way and came down.



11 am.

Same position as we were before and now we started moving towards the left mountain that appears smaller. I climbed one small stretch and reached the peak and again came back down due to lack of further route. Temperature was fairly high already and the newcomers ' enthusiasm was dropping at exponential rate. We found few school kids who had holiday due to republic day who were going to the durga temple at peak. They helped us with the route and we were ideally supposed to go through the valley and not through the mountain at all !!. From the position we were, it took some deviation to reach the valley with the path filled with thorny bushes and some steep rocks and constant climbing as well as going down. Few of them especially padmini and kiran got major treatment from the thorns.

The kids were confident however and so we followed them. After 30 odd minutes of pushing Kiran and Akshaya (courtesy keerthy :) ) , they weren't willing to come up further. Added with this Sharath's acrophobia, they decided they had enough. Though padmini and keerthana were still in condition to continue with trekking, they decided to assist the rest in going down than coming up. So we split up into 2 groups - Sharath, Keerthana, Padmini, Akshaya and Kiran going down and rest of us following the kids up. ( The guys going down had their own share of adventures including getting frightened out of their skin by a snake and getting scraped by thorns all around).


1.30 pm

After about an hour of moderate trekking in hot sun, we reached the durga temple. After contemplating whether to continue trek further to the higher peak(the taller mountain on the right side) , we opted out of the option due to time constraints and the fact few of friends were waiting down. So just had the packed lunch. Few went into the temple and after some rest, we decided to get down. Now having taken more than half day primarily to wrong routes, we weren't really sure how long it takes to go down.
Since the kids were still with us, they pointed the direct route through valley down (which were supposed to use to come up as well) and due to now-acquired habit of running more or less while coming down, just trekked down at rapid pace.

3.30 pm.

Harini stunned us during the entire climb and descent with her 0% complaining and never slowing us either way. Bharath was good for his first trek with us as well. The descent took around 30-40 minutes at best. The path was lovely with mostly trees all through giving a feeling of walking through a jungle. We were at the house with the bikes around 4 am and heard the interesting adventures from the guys who had come down earlier. In a way it looked like they had more fun than us as we didn't really have that great views from the peak.

So spoke for a while, got on our bikes and left. Reached bangalore fairly early than what we had planned.


Route to Maribetta:

1. From Bangalore, take the Kanakapura Road and go to Kanakapura around 45 Km from Banashankari.
2. From Kanakapura, take the road towards Ramanagara(Mysore).
3. You should find this after 5-6 km. Better to ask people around for starting point of the trek.

Total Distance: 50 km from Bangalore.

Better To Know:

1. Better to go via bikes/cars. Of course buses can be availed till kanakapura and since this place is fairly close to kanakapura, one can hire autos till destination.
2. Need to pack food as nothing was available near the temple.
3. Mobile network was available.

Yaana(aka Yana) & Jog Falls

Yaana is situated in the evergreen forests of the Sahyadri Range of Mountains. It is known for two gigantic rock formations of a height of 90 meters and 120 meters respectively called "Mohini Shikhara" and "Bhairaveshwara Shikhara".It is a fairly popular place for trekking/visiting. All people like us saw some pics on the internet and were enamoured by the twin towers and decided to go there only to return rather disappointed - more of it later..

This is probably our first multi-day trekking trip and was not in our plans at all. One of our lecturers (actually our favorite !!) was getting married in Shimoga and we decided to go along to the wedding and jog falls as most of us had never been to it. With Yana being close by it looked like it would be perfect.

We had new additions to our group as well.

New Character:

Sudhindra(aka Su): His josh for trekking can be obtained from the fact that he never came back trekking in any our future trips :). Extremely jovial and sporty and a poet as well. His combats with avinash are the best to watch.

The Trip:

Date and Time: May 2006 9.30 pm

Day 1:

Took the bus from Majestic to Sirsi. Nothing special on this bus ride(compared to our previous journey to talakadu) except avinash who kept sleeping on one old

guy's shoulder. The road was pretty good on the whole and most guys got few hours of sleep at least (except me the poor soul who can't sleep in the bus :( ). We reached Sirsi early morning around 6 am. There is a bus that leaves from Sirsi to Kumta at 7 am. We caught the bus and got off at Vaddi Cross. There is a path from here to Yana that is motorable for some distance but not completely. It is exactly 12 km from here and there are milestones as well as boards that indicate the distance regularly. We started walking with full enthu as it was still only 8 and the path was almost through a forest kind of region with lots of trees around.

Now though we were all from Computer Science dept, we were still far from being net-savvy. No eat, sleep and breathe internet(a state which we eventually reached). So we had not done enough research about this place(other than seeing 1-2 pics) and what we knew from someone' some friend had went to this place some time back etc kind of stories and all of us thought we will be starting trekking( as in climbing up and not on flat surface) soon and continued walking. It was frantic pace and sun was not yet burning us, so in an hour we covered 6 km and took few pics here and there. Still there was no sign of any climb at all. Each sighting of a mountain was welcomed by the gang with anticipation that we were going to ascend that(though they didnt actually match the pics we had seen). But ended in dissapointed. After a while motorable road ended and we had to follow a small walkable path.

After exactly 2 hours after we started, we finally saw the 2 shikaras. They were visible from a distance and it was awesome. Pavan and Datta went full on with photography while me, keerthy and srikanth were in awe as to how we were going to trek this mountain as it looked fairly vertical !! We thought it was worth the long walk we had ..We reached the base of the mountain and there were quite a lot of tourists many of whom had hired jeeps and tempos to come here instead of hiking like us. That is where it hit us. Much to our chagrin, we got to know that this was the destination and the end of trek not the beginning as we had hoped. Without nothing else to do and totally disapointed, we just looked around the mountains and few caves that were there and took lots of pics. After some break and lunch, we were left with option of walking back and catch a mini-bus to Kumta. With no enthusiasm left and moderately tired we decided to catch the bus that was supposed to come to Yana.

We waited - asked someone - waited again - continued this cycle for some time as no bus was coming and there was no fixed bus stand there as such ..it was really hot and we walked further in the hope of atleast hiring a jeep in the nearby village. The path was made of hot red soil. By 2 everyone was sapped out and just laid on some grassfield and couple of guys even slept off. Me and avinash(who surprisingly had the best stamina left) went looking for a jeep and after knocking multiple doors eventually got a person who was ready to take us the main road where bus comes. He was asking for 800 for 13-14 Km ..I totally left it to gupta to bargain who did a tremendous job considering how tired we were and we paid 600. It was a rocky ride on one of worst roads possible and we reached main road from where we took an open tempo to Kumta. Finally there was some breeze and it was a cool ride in more sense than one. We reached kumta and took bus to Shimoga and driver was dead fast at times even there was some ghat section to cross. Slept in a hotel that night totally exhausted.

Day 2:

Hoping for a better day, we got up next day and went to the marriage for which had come in the first place. It was a nice place and our lecturer was looking seriously beautiful in her traditional attire. Had awesome food and left for Jog Falls. It took couple of hours from Shimoga to Jog again crossing Sagara which we kept crossing to and fro and reached by 3 pm.

Now we knew it was May and summer and were not expecting tons of water there. But when i was actually staring at Jog Mountains, i actually asked my friend if we need to walk further to reach jog as i could see only mountains in front of me !! Eventually one of guys asked me to focus on supposed Rocket falls and i could see a thin stream that resembled more of someone pissing from top of mountain than any falls i have seen. After Yana, this was double whammy ..With nothing to do and more than 3-4 hours left, we decided to go down. So we finally Trekked !! it was nice steep path to the bottom and we went directly under one of falls as there was hardly any force and not much danger. Spent some nice time and started steep climb up. Sudhindra who till now thought trekking was a synonym to walking had his most difficult time and refused to climb after a while and it required all of gupta's swearing in telugu to push Su to reach the top again. We emptied one shop of all his lime-sodas and the event is memorable still for Gupta getting high on 'Shoda'

Some guys took bath in some public bathhouses while rest waited and we eventually boarded the Ksrtc bus which we had booked at 7.30 pm and reached bangalore next day morning.

And ya it was Sudhindra's birthday the previous day and he ll never forget Jog falls.

Overall somewhat dissapointing trip though the Yana Shikaras are an impressive sight to see.

Route to Yana:

1. From Bangalore take the bus to Sirsi - around 430 km

2. From Sirsi, you ll get buses to Kumta that pass through vaddi cross - 40 km from Sirsi

3. Get off at Vaddi Cross and walk to Yana - 12 km

Alternative option would be to take bus to Kumta and take a jeep directly to Yana to skip the hiking part.

Distance to Yana: 480 km from Bangalore.

Better to Know:

1. At Yana, there are no hotels/shops etc. So it is necessary to carry food.

2. Unless the road has improved in last couple of years which is unlikely, it will be difficult to reach Yana on a private vehicle like car.

SiddaraBetta (aka Siddara Betta)

Having experienced the joy of looking at the world from the TOP(thanks to Savan Durga), i was looking forward towards another trek near Bangalore. So were the rest of the gang and we started looking around for places(though summer was about to peak). Rajesh again came up with the place- Siddarbetta. However this place isn't that popular and we didn't really get that much information before hand as to how to reach the place. So we had to find our way little bit. It is Sacred Place where siddaru(Holy spritual men) made meditation and worship of Lord Shiva and there is a Shiva temple at the peak.

No new characters this time. Same old gang with Datta missing.

THE RIDE

DATE AND TIME: April 2005 7.30 am

We assembled near Vijayanagar as usual(Hotel Indraprastha became more or less our starting points for all the trips) - 6 of us - me, Srikanth, Keerthy, Rajesh, Avinash and Pavan started on 3 bikes - Enticer and 2 splendours.Rajesh had given an approximate estimate of 60-70 km on Tumkur Road(He proved to be a software engineer even before he completed BE by this rather wide off the mark distance estimate).

We took the Tumkur road which was splendid to say the least for bikes. I did touch my enticer's top speed of 105 kph on that trip. We reached the flyover before Tumkur in a short time and started enquiring this place. As expected most locals never know anything near to them(this is same everywhere). Another important confusing fact is there are apparantly 2 Siddarbettas .. one near dobhaspet and one near koratagere which we went. So at Dobhaspet we took the right turn to korategere and went along that route which wasn't great. After around 45 minutes we reached korategere and after further enquiry took a left turn to siddara betta.

THE TREK

Now, it was summer and it was almost 10 am when we started the trek. As it can be imagined it was hot and though the mountain wasn't as steep as Savan Durga and hardly risky, we still took more than a few breaks before we reached the peak in around hour and half.. Siddara Betta is more famous for its caves than the trekking ..So decided to go into the caves as well..

There are many guides there who charged around 250-300 for 1 hour of cave-exploring..he stated that it was impossible to explore it ourselves without getting lost ..possibly a marketing gimmick ..but nevertheless we took the guide and started the cave exploration ..

It was awesome !! there were some real low rise rocks where we had to literally crawl ..and even though sun was burning outside, within the caves it was really cool ..After an hour or so, we came out. Some guys went into the temple while we were taking some pics and then had lunch we had packed from home. Leaving immediately after that, we reached the starting point back in about an hour.

Since it was still 3 pm, while coming back we decided to go Devarayana Durga on the way back. There are motorable road till the top and there was no trekking as such. We just went on bikes till top, took few pics and started down again. There was about 5-6 km of hairpin bends and really sloped roads which was fun to ride. I totally scared srikanth sitting behind me by putting the bike in neutral while coming down(damn dangerous) and reaching speeds of upto 70 kph without even starting the bike(probably this incident prompted him to buy his own bike so that he needn't take risks with guys like me!!!)

Otherwise the trip was incident-free and we reached Bangalore by evening 7pm. Overall a nice experience which was not too tiring even in peak summer.

Difficulty Level: Easy

Time to Trek: 2.5 hours(1.5 to climb and 1 to come down)

Route:
1. From Bangalore, take the Tumkur road and keep travelling till you reach dobhaspet(you ll cross nelamangala on the way) after around 55 km.
2. At dobhaspet, take the road towards the right(SH3) that goes to koratagere(and madhugiri).
3. After 40-45 km, on reaching Koratagere , keep going on the same road towards madhugiri. After about 2-3 km, take the left to reach Siddara Betta

Distance: 110 km from Bangalore

Better to Know:
1. There is another Siddara Betta much closer on Tumkur Road(near dobhaspet itself), which the localites would confuse you about.
2. Better to take food and water..nothing much available at the top
3. To go in bus, need to take bangalore-tumkur bus and then from Tumkur take the bus going to Madhugiri or Koratagere.