Channarayana & Devarayana Durga trek

Its been a long time that my last trek happened with BTC. As soon as I saw this event notification from BTC, i registered and the registration has been closed so quickly. Luckily, I'm there in the shortlisted list with few other enthusiastic trekkers again. 

Finally, the day has come and everything is set for the trek. On the slightly drizzling morning of 27 May, we all have met at the meeting point near majestic and some of us joined near yeshwanthpur including myself with few other trekkers and one organizer Vikram as well. Around at 7 50 AM, tempo traveler came and we boarded. Very soon we have small self introductory session and the game started. Guess, Dumb charades again, but with a twist in the plot, to enact the food names. With different food names from various parts of the country and the acts made everyone think of breakfast and soon the hotel has come to charge ourselves with breakfast where we packed lunch also to have at the trek base. 

Our first trek is to Channarayana durga, we reached there at 10 30. With small instructions from the organizers we started our trek. Vikram is leading and Ashish is trailing the group. It's a rocky terrain and steep, there were couple of first timers and the best thing was the group helping each other. The steep proved to be a bit of challenge but we moved along the rocks eagerly to reach the top. Though it is sunny, continuous wind and scenic view of the villages and the hills around didn't made us to think of the heat at all. 

On the way to the top, the remains of old temples, small archs leading the path and the huge wall surrounding the top made me to fall in love with old architectures again. Around 12 30 PM, we reached the top and it's time to pose for group pics and selfies. We started our descent shortly and we reached the base at 2 PM where we opened our lunch packs under a tree at the center of the village. Soon after finishing the lunch, we boarded our tempo traveler and everyone started feeling so sleepy forgetting about the second trek to Devarayana durga, Vikram tried every possible way to make the group active again and he's successful with it.

At 4 PM, we reached our next trek Devarayana Durga. there were around 300 steps to reach the top where there are beautiful temples of lakshmi narasimha swamy and hanuman. View from that top made me feel like i'm seeing a painting of nature all around. Very soon we descended and started back to bangalore. As soon as we found it is raining on the way and the traffic has started, we understood that we are about to enter Bangalore. We reached yeshwanthpur around 6 30 pm and it is the time for me to say adios amigos as i have to get down there. 

With all good byes and good wishes, back to bangalore life and see you all in many more adventures.

By the way, below are some stats of our channarayanadurga trek and a big thanks to rajesh for making a track of this. :D 

Yay..!! Bunjee Jumping..!!!

Guyss.!!! This is my first Aero adventure. To see my Bungee Jumping video, please click the below link.
                                             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6VQ1BiTmGM

The moment which made me feel 'Why the Hell I'm doing this!'

I started loving it.

First trek to Horagina Betta

I first saw this event created by Bangalore Trekking Club(BTC) in Facebook on Friday (9th Oct, 2015). I registered for the event on that spot itself because they've limited registrations and all those will get filled within couple of hours.

It is Oct 11th, 2015. We all, a team of 15 enthusiastic trekkers gathered at Majestic bus stand around 7 : 30 AM and nobody got introduced. Very soon we got the bus to reach Horagina betta(also called as brahmagiri) and this one and half hour journey to reach the destination made all of us to know each other with a couple of dumb charades acts. We reached our destination around 9 AM and got down at a hotel where we charged ourselves with the South Indian breakfast and packed our lunch in boxes to have at the peak of Horagina betta.

Then, what next, we started our trek. Among the 15 trekkers, there were 7 first timers who are trekking with BTC including myself. By the way, this is our team. Gaurav Kamath(Our lead, and organizer), Rakshit(trailing the team), Mr & Mrs Phani, Anu priya, Viswanadh, Naveen, Gaurav Upadhyay(GU), Shaifali, Saurabh, Madhu, Manjunath, Keerthi, Sindhu and myself Manikanta. It was around 10:30 AM, we started. We could see Nandi and brahmagiri hills side by side from our starting point. Nandi hill, being a famous tourist place the path to go the top of nandi is very clear and is not a suitable place for trekking. But Horagina betta is best to trek for the first timers and silent place for peace loving people. The peak of horagina betta is visible, yet far.

During our way, we took so many snaps, we have silly chit chats, most of us are non kannadigas and we try to speak our own kannada and had loads of fun. After 1 hour, We reached a point where we have 2 ways to go to the destination. Route 1: A bit long path, but you may find tender coconut and cucumber to eat. Route 2: A bit shorter way to go, but you won't find anything. Finally, we decided to go in the Route 1 and Yes! We found Coconut water and cucumber, to quench our thirst.

In short time, we started our real trekking. The path was slippery due to sand, later it was bit slant, huge grey rocky path. At this point we have wonderful view of 3 other hills Nandi, skandhagiri and chennagiri. We reached saneshwara temple on the hill and were few meters away from the peak. The path became very narrow here and it was almost covered by the plants and we some how managed to go through it. At the end of this path, we finally reached our destination . It was 2 PM then. We saw the clouds adjacent and bit far from us, it was raining over that place and it seems like the cloud is filling the gap between itself and land. we have a breathe taking view from the top. We had our sumptuous lunch, which we got packed from the hotel and shared parata, fruits brought by our trekkers. Our Gaurav decided to play a game, which brought fun and boosted our energy levels and we're enjoying the moment. We took so many photos locking our moments exploring there.

We started our way down at 3 PM to reach our starting point. We need to go down by 4 30, because there's only one bus and we need to catch it. This time, we came down by Route 2, the shorter way. During our way down, we're sharing our previous trekking experiences and our challenges. Listening to their experiences, we also want to explore those places. Around 4 30, we reached our starting point before the bus. We had the snacks at the same hotel, where we have breakfast. In no time the bus came and we all got into it.

Finally a beautiful trek came to an end and we have to leave. We all have one feeling in common, we're not stopping with this trek. Slowly one by one got down and bus reached majestic at 6 15 PM where we all dispersed with loads of memories at Horagina betta with our wonderful co-trekkers.