A night to remember....

Let me tell you the biggest hazard of trekking in late night. No, it is not accidents/injuries, neither animals nor ghosts. It is all about not knowing where you are heading, especially when at the start of the trek you have no one to ask whether the mountain you are about to climb is actually Channagiri or not. I am still not sure we climbed Channagiri (I think we climbed Kalwarbeta instead.. though, again, I may be wrong). But what matters more is to have fun, and what fun we had!!

Anyway, lets start from the start... or rather the late start primarily due to saturday (18th March 2K6) evening Bangalore traffic. The pickups were delayed by as much as 2 hrs and by the time the 15 (ya you read it right!!) of us were past the city, it was already 10 pm.

Sing a Song: Quite a few of us were rookies in the band and there were introductions all around when anyone boarded the minibus. The journey was due North towards Nandi Hills for a large part of the trip, before taking a diversion in the left for Channagiri. As has now become a trend (twice in a row is trend, right?), the crooners started in full flow as soon as we had hit the highway. The enthusiasm, coupled with Anil's bday, led to dedicated customised offerings ("Baar baar din ye aaye","1,2, ka 4, My name is Anil" and "Chandni, O meri Chandni" to name a few)

Adding fuel to fire: The bus journey terminated near a deserted temple at the base of a hill. The night had well set in, and surroundings were spooky. Stories immediately started flowing in (ghosts on the trees above, a grave near us and start of Countdown to the Last One Alive aka Darna Mana Hai). It was then that the Brave and the Fearless (read Anand et al) decided to alight a bonfire.

"Arrange the splinters in a cone shape ... no, bit horizontal"
"Chhahh.. no point, too much wind, aisa karo, block by more stones around"
"I'll bring some dry leaves from around here, they will burn"
"Yaar these splinters not catching fire... only the kerosene is burning"
"Anand, do one thing, keep adding kerosene from time to time, that is the only way"

And so, the kerosene lit campfire was up, with fumes blinding anyone who was on the windward side of it. It was in the midst of this that Anil cut the cake and was duly anointed by foam, courtesy Ravi.

Rock n Roll: It was supper time and we had Veg n Non Veg Kaati rolls along with the bday cake. The Yajna was completed by adding the cake remnants to it ("yaa, now it is burning... OK time to move")And so we started, the fifteen of us, spreading the message of light in darkness, armed with our torches and the cute little mascot...the PETROMAX... Wait this one deserves a bit more.

I dont know whose brainchild this was to bring the Petromax (= pressurized lantern where the incandescence of a rare earth mantle produces the light). But I know for sure that it was debated whether to carry it along for the trek or leave it in the bus. And here ventured Arun ("Not to worry, I will carry it"). Little did that poor little creature (I am talking of Petromax and not Arun) know that this would be the trip where it would not only be bumped and hurtled all along the way, it would also be cursed for its weight and uselessness in the clear moonlit night and finally the trek would prove to be its last one ... sob :( .

Show me the way: Ten minutes onto the stony path made it clear to us that it wasnt leading us to anywhere towards the hill (to our right) but to some dwellings ahead. So it descended on us that we had to leave the path and start climbing the hill instead. Again, few brave heads rose and parties split for individual explorations - led occassionaly by Ashok, Ravi, Mohit and Andy to name a few. Fortunately, our leader was in complete control of the situation and handled very well each time a split party ventured into wilderness.

Mohit: Here is a way towards right; Ashok: No, towards left I can see an opening.
Anand: OK, both of you, go 50 mts further on each way and report back if you can still go ahead or get blocked
Mohit: OK, I am stuck, its blocked; Ashok (he is blocked too... but) Then come this way!!
Anand: Fine, lets go to the LEFT. Tell the others.

And this way, after numeruos non-existent tra(va)ils, we settled on one and trudged along. (We later saw that an upward trail started from very near to where we had supper). As we moved up, the still air gave way to slight winds, and the cool soothing effect combined with the effort of climbing made us a little weary. We reached a place with a shallow gully with a few boulders jutting out. Here is where we took our first break. Few perched on the boulders, the rest wherever they found place.

Parting time: Pretty soon, we were marching in two groups (is this a trend too?). The 2 Anands, Kishore, Bugs,Prats, Mohit, Ashok, Me, Shipra and Anil were in one and Ravi, Anisha, Chandani, Siva, Arun (and the Petromax) in the other. An unfortunate incident forced the Petro group to stay back and wait. Anil also went back to inquire and stayed put with them. The rest of us (nine in all) continued our way up. Almost immediately, we found a trail leading upwards. After that, the going was comparatively easier.

The trail was definite and marked by arrows; it led through dense shrubs and trees till finally it dissappeared quite near the top of the hill. Here again, Anand used his path-finder tools (read Mohit and Ashok) to decide the way to go. Soon, we reached a flat rocky surface facing the Nandi Hills with cool winds blowing unabated all around us and clear black sky above. This was also the place where we had a brief interaction with someone on the opposite hillside through light signals (WE ARE NOT ALONE!!).

Where are you: Whatever exhaustion we had along the way up was gone as soon as we rested there for a while... for some (Andy et al) rested too well (you could hear him snoring above the winds). The rest of us continued our search for the top, though after going some distance, we were faced by thorny shrubs. Realising the futility of going further, we thought it better to go back to our resting place... but where was it? we lost our way a little bit and if Anand hadn't remembered some milestones (rocks), we wud've ended up going down by a separate route. Thankfully that didnt happen.

Back on the rocks we waited for the Petro group (they had communicated through phone that they were coming up.. finally!!) for some time, but then decided to meet them while going down. So we started our downward journey on the trail. After going down quite a distance, we realised we should've met the Petro guys.. well, that is IF they were also able to find the trail (which they didnt). So, now started an exercise to locate them, and an extensive use of visual/aural/telephonic communication happened.

"RAVIIIIII....WHERE ARE YOUUUUU" .... "OUUU"...."OUU" (echo)
"I can see a light... Naah , they are only Bugs and Kishore"
"Hello.. Hello... yaa..we have reached way down? ..Hello..where are you? what?!! at the top?!!!"

Apply your learnings: And so it transpired on us that the Petro group had gone to the top by another route while we were descending. Seeing no point in waiting for them, we decided to go back to the bus. But this time the final part of descent was tricky. We somehow reached a point from where we could see the road (though we weren't sure it was THE road we wanted to go on), but we were at an elevation to it, and there was a drop of around 10 feet. There we used our lessons learnt on the Rappelling exercise, used the small bit of rope we had, and climbed down.

Back near the bus we decided to take rest a bit and then continue for another trek, this time the Nandi Hills.

Jo Dar Gaya..: I must say we weren't exhausted on returning from Channagiri, and as though for a proof to this, Anand immediately set off for prospecting if there was any way to climb up the hill facing the one we had just descended. Unfortunately, there was none. Anand,Prats,Bugs,Kishore and Ashok then went to explore another side of the road, Andy retired in the bus (awakening the poor driver in this process), and myself, Mohit and Shipra waited for the explorers to return. It was then we had the idea of scaring them (when they returned). We hid behind a tree and as soon as they were near us we jumped on them. Not all, but Prats for sure had a scare ... she looked visibly shaken :)Again a bit of reorganisation took place for Nandi Hills trek. The minibus drove us to the foothills of Nandi Hills, a place where the road takes a right turn. Off we got down (7 of us), while Shipra and Andy stayed back in the bus to return to the temple spot and wait for the Petro group there. It seems they waited quite a bit as the Petro group returned in early morning only.

Naa tire, Naa retire: The trek to Nandi Hills was quite contrasting to Channagiri one. There's a well-laid road, with milestones indicating distance remaining and lot of bikes and cars zooming past you most of the time (Really have no idea why would someone Return from Nandi Hills when sunrise is just around the corner). But the spring in step was slowly and steadily giving way to exhaustion. Along we trudged, with Anand, Ashok and Prats going way ahead (we met them only at the top). The 4 of us following, counting each kilometer as it passed by (somehow the later milestones were farther apart I guess!!)It was only very near the top that we realised we will miss the sunrise after all (we had kept a deadline of reaching by 6:30 am = assumed time for sunrise). So, it was again time to take the shortcuts cutting vertically across the winding road. It was tiring like anything. In fact, on the final climb, I felt so exhausted, I almost gave in to the desire of toppling backwards!!Nevertheless, we reached Nandi Hills, just when the morning calm was settled across the horizon, and what a view it was!!... The floor of clouds was interrupted in places by hilltops, which looked like islands on a frothing sea-surface. As we went further ahead, the sun was shone bright, and its rays sparkled off trees and shrubs. Numerous monkeys were playing along the way as well as perched on branches. We passed a water tank and went along the periphery of the campus, till we came up to a few shops.

Tipu's desire: Our requests for tea were denied at the first shop, but we managed to find another nearby. While we were having tea-biscuits, we met a member of the long-lost Petro group (Arun), who described us their adventurous journey (including the episode of sad demise of Petromax). The rest of Petro group was sleeping inside the bus (very near to where we were eating). So, we decided to join them once we had seen the sheer cliff-drop on the hill side (which Tipu Sultan allegedly used for death penalty).We sat on the rocky end of hilltop, enjoying the sunlight, wind and the breathtaking view, while Ashok tried his luck by sitting periliously close to the edge of cliff. (Oh how I wished to have Tipu's Powers.. "[Clap Clap]. ..Push this guy!!"). Few minutes more, and then we joined the others sleeping peacefully in the bus. The return journey for most of us would be a gobbledegook recollection of scrambled dreams; though I remember the speedometer hovering near 80 kmph and Arun dropping off twice on the driver's shoulder in his slumber. Soon we arrived in Blore and bid adieu to each other.

Anthargange Chronicles : The episode of 'Adventurous Seven'

Here are some snippets from the 'Adventurous Seven' front:

Me: what's the fun in going by the road... I think we can climb this hillock instead, what say Mohit?
Mohit: chalo .. tell me Sudeep, where do we have to go for rappelling?
Sudeep: Ya, you can go by this way also, we have to reach the top for rappelling, though I have never climbed it myself!! (actually the two hillocks were totally different ones, as we found out when we saw the 'non-adventurous' team rappelling far away after reaching the top.)

And so the seven of us started to climb...

Halfway up the hill, we started having second thoughts on whether there is a way to the top through the steep rocky surface or not. This was where we rested a bit... (More of Siva's Oranges in picture here... though he rued he left the rest in his bag)
About this time only, Kamlesh decided to follow Gurudev Tagore's preaching (Ekla Chalo Re) ... and parted ways with us. The last we saw of him, he was perched atop a cliff, standing on one leg and hands flowing (aka Zayed Khan in Main hun Naa)

Next we faced a block, having a small cavern to the right side and thich thorny shrubs to the left, not to mention the overhanging ledge:
Me: OK, I'll try to climb up... (got scratched on my hands)... OK, we cant climb this.
Ram: Tu hat, let me try.
Finally Alok managed to overcome the bushes and pass over to the next level. I followed next. Now the two of us are supposed to tell the others whether there is a way ahead (I could see none). Mohit was impatient ("Arey yaar tell us we can go further or not")

With sustained efforts, all of us crossed the bush barrier, and the faced the flat wall (about 80 degree incline, no place for handhold / foothold barring a thin crevice running along the length). Beyond the wall, was a small cave.

Alok climbed the wall till the edge of the cave. Rest of us followed suit. It wasn't easy... once my foot got stuck and Ram had to pull it out from below for me to progress further.

Mohit: There's light at the end of the tunnel (cave)... lets go.
Me: OK, I am light in weight, I'll climb.... (too steep !!).... OK, we cant climb this .. (deja vu?)
Mohit: Just remember, we have come to a stage where we cannot go back, so the only way is forward.
This time Ram came to rescue ...("I have longer legs").... and led the way.

Into the cave .. and then through a side passage out of it we went.Pretty soon we were at the top pf Hillock, elated at our achievement.

Time for another video session:
Mohit: Kitne aadmi the sambha!!
Siva: YOOO...HOUUUUUU!!
Alok: Jo dar gaya, wo mar gayaa!!
Kishore: I'm still a v!r$!n.. (OK, can't complete this!!)

We followed the downward trail to the nearby settlement, and had Ginger-lime under tree-shade. Then we moved on to join the 'non-adveturers'.
Alok had a bigger adventure later on, when he discovered his engagement ring missing during Rappelling... thankfully he found it in his kit itself!!

Piyush

Chronicles of Anthargange…

We finally took off on our much awaited trek to Anthargange on March 04, ’06. Much awaited coz, the USP of this trek was the rappelling and we were scheduled to go for this trek some time in the second week of Feb. We should thank our stars indeed that the trek didn’t kick off in Feb; the mercury levels were soaring 30 -32C. Fortunately for the short spell of rains the previous evening, the weather had cooled down and was perfect climate to set off on a trek…

We were a group of 13 (Oops….. the unlucky number!!), which was a welcome change indeed from the small perfect square numbers I had seen on my earlier treks (well, only 2 so far … ) We decided to hire a tempo traveler this time , lest the band of 13 of us should cause havoc and chaos on the BMTC buses.

The first pick up point was at Family Mart. Mohit, Prats, Siva and I were there promptly at 6:30am, fearing Anand’s ‘statutory’ warnings. Siva put us on the job of - “Spot the cab 9858”. All of us would glare at the number plates of all tempo travelers crossing the family mart junction. Siva already began to feel peckish, doing this exercise and started whacking away the oranges. The cab finally turned up at 7:00am. The next halt was at Jewel de Paragon. Piyush was getting impatient out there and wouldn’t stop calling Mohit. Mohit gave him a pretty interesting game – asked him to start counting 50 backwards and promised him that the cab will be there before he counts the magic number “0”. The cab reached jus’ in time; else Mohit would have had to face the music. Anisha, Kani and Sudeep (our man from Woody adventures) were the others to join us at this stop. The rest of the tribe boarded the cab at the respective pick up points and we were on the out skirts of the city by half –past eight. The drive till breakfast was a quiet one. The FM Radio was the only noise factor. The energy and enthusiasm level after breakfast was on a different plane. After a lot of coaxing from Kani, Ravi honored us with a tamil song (Unfortunately, most of us couldn’t appreciate the meaning, barring the Tamil stalwart – Siva). Piyush – The ‘Gramophone player’ followed. ‘Gramophone player’ because, he entertained us with old Hindi melodies from Bollywood. For Kishore and Alok it was a trip down memory lane - they were reminded of ‘Cibaca Geet Mala’ and the shows on AIR ;-). Must, say they were a real good chorus group.

We reached Anthargange around 10:00am. We had to trek till point Ayesha. Ayesha was jus’ the name of the boulder (as in, some bloke managed to scale that boulder to do some rock art / etch the name of his beloved?) to which the rappelling ropes were fastened. For lack of a better reference of the rappelling spot, shall refer to it as Point Ayesha. En route to Point Ayesha, The band of ‘adventurous’ seven (Alok, Kamlesh, Kishore, Mohit, Piyush, Ram and Siva) decided to scale one of the off shoots of the Anthargange hill to reach Point Ayesha. The rest of us chose to circumambulate the hill and save our energies for the rappelling exercise.


The tribe of seven reached point Ayesha later than we did. Sorry! Tribe of six, as Kamlesh took a different route while descending the hill and was there (Pt Ayesha) earlier than the others. In terms of the little adventures the band of ‘Adventurous’ seven had, I wouldn’t know. But I guess the video clippings would reveal some and I do hope one of them from the group will fill us on all of that. Do figure from Kamalesh’s account of his experience that, the trek was through thick scrub growth and Mohit would have had quite an ordeal, thanks to his fascination for his Reebok shorts.

We decided to finish with the rappelling exercise till the others (‘Adventurous’ seven) got to Point Ayesha. It was interesting to see Sudeep fasten those ropes with the Italian hitch and sheaf knots. Anand tried his hand with all those knots and more importantly dinned into Sudeep’s head that he wasn’t playing any of his corporate games, and would instead prefer rappelling half-a dozen times. !!

Kamalesh was the first to try his hand at rappelling. Kamalesh’s rappelling skills and trekking gear does indeed need a special mention here. His trekking gear was that of a seasoned trekker/ traveler – wild craft back pack, SLR Camera, funky looking goggles and gloves. With regard to rappelling- well, two giant leaps and he was down the 20ft boulder.

The rest of us had our turns of rappelling thereafter. Anisha and Prats experimented rappelling without using the gloves….didn’t pay any heed to warnings from Anand and Kamalesh [Bad girls! :( ]They managed it pretty comfortably though. (Well, Anand’s logic here is that, the safety ropes which Sudeep was controlling bore all their weight, and that’s why they didn’t bruise their hands like he did)
Kani’s rappelling ordeal was a classic one indeed. You could hear Kani even before you could see her rappel down. Kani’s trekking gear needs special mention as well. The highlight of her trekking gear was her appendage – The Black Bag. The Black bag was a sling bag, with gold stencils on it, that would glitter and dazzle under the sun. Kani had a sentimental attachment to this bag, as her colleagues at GE gifted it during her farewell. What were more interesting were the contents of the bag – Box of meetae meetae angoor and her pink bottle. Each time Kani dished out her pink bottle, she would go “Mera wala pink” ;-)

It was time for lunch by the time all of us finished our two rounds of rappelling and the ‘adventurous’ six were back as well. Lunch was a pretty sumptuous one - sandwiches, cake, idlis, fruits, namkeen. … We tried catching a nap after lunch, but we would have hardly made ourselves comfortable on the rocky surface and Mr. Time table (oh! That’s Anand btw) woke us up … it was half past two by his watch and time for activity 2.


Activity 2 was; the ‘adventurous’ six do the rappelling and the rest of us go on a stroll / trek. We decided to trek till the little cave; the earlier group had stumbled upon. The terrain was a partially rocky one, steep at certain reaches and there wasn’t any great flora and fauna, only the thorny scrubs. These scrubs were a menace though – they would get through our socks and make any sort of movement difficult, at times impossible.

Kani was finding it a little difficult as the climb got steep, we would have hardly trekked and she would ask, “When’s the first break?” Her bag was an added hindrance as well. She had to do quite a bit of a balancing act, to prevent the contents from popping out. To save her some trouble, Kamalesh, bundled the bag and shoved it into his huge wild craft back pack.
If the Savan Durga trek was a test of Anisha’s knowledge of tamil, this trek was a test of Ravi’s comprehension and speaking skills of Hindi. Anand was zapped at Ravi’s learning curve. Inspired by his stellar performance Anand is now determined to improve his speaking skills of Tamil. His plan of action for the next couple of months – Watch Tamil movies of yester years ;-)

The trek till the cave took us about an hour. As the other group was still engaged in the rappelling exercise, we decided to jus’ chill-out on the plateau. The view from the plateau was amazing -you could see the entire Kolar city and the fields below. The azure sky, the vast open space and the pleasant wind was mind blowing. It was a welcome change from the cluttered concrete jungle, smog and grey skies. Ravi wanted to capture all of it on his delicate digital camera, but the low battery levels wouldn’t permit that. He however managed to capture all of that in his grey cells. (Wonder what defines low battery levels – Ravi managed to capture a 3 min video, and some 53 odd shots!) The vast open space, proved to be an ideal testing ground for one’s vocal cords as well. Kamlesh did a Tarzan act 2, by straining his vocal cords to the maximum….don’t know if it was a stress buster though …

Anand was getting impatient and he wanted to try his hand at rappelling a couple of more times. If it was not for Ravi, who held him back, Anand was all set for a quick sprint within minutes after reaching the plateau. It was half-past four and we couldn’t afford to test Anand’s patience any further. Anand was more than glad that we finally decided to make a move. He didn’t bother to see who or what was behind him, he made a super quick dash to Point Ayesha. It was now, Piyush’s turn of test of patience levels. He jus, hoped Anand, Alok and Ram would stop with two more attempts of rappelling down and not make it one more, each time their ‘experiments’ failed. The trio finally finished with their rappelling experiments at around 5:30pm. Piyush heaved a sigh of relief ….

The drive back to the city was a quiet one, unlike our morning drive as most of us tried catching a short nap and recouping our energy levels after whole day of activity. Perhaps the only thing that we missed on this trek, were the BMTC bus rides. They have a charm of their own. It’s a different sort of excitement figuring out which bus to board, getting packed like a tin of sardines and trying to catch a nap amidst all the clutter, noise and dust. On the flip side, had it not been for the tempo drive, we wouldn’t have got to hear to our live entertainment channels :)

P.S - Thanks Kongkona for suggesting this place. .... it would have been great if u joined us : )