Rangaswamy Betta

What follows is a long-winded, not necessarily linear account of what happened when 3 people and I managed to convince myself that I could trek.

Skandagiri, a moonlight trek in Jan’08 was followed by near drought conditions on the trekking front for this motley bunch of people, but things got off to a start again with some inspired thinking from Siva. So what started as a plan for a trek to Rangaswamy Betta involving 8 people came down to a trek for four, what with ‘drop-out’ disease rearing its ugly head again. A consequence of the shaky times we live in, I wonder? So off I set out on the morning of September 13^th with three valorous souls who were ready to let me drive them down in a nifty little i10. A smooth drive indeed it was till the charming hamlet of Harohalli where we turned off the main road into the picturesque side roads that led to the mountain…kinda too picturesque to be on our route, I thought to myself. And for sheer driving pleasure, there were these moon-crater-sized potholes to negotiate. (The i10 took them like a woman, I should say!) Presently, our brains kicked in and we figured out what you know by now. We were lost. :-)

Inquiries with some dazed villagers later, we met our knights in shining armor riding a, well, a TVS50. Two young men who were visibly amused at the sight of a woman at the wheel with the guys in the backseat! Well, that didn’t last long, for the potholes soon demanded a more experienced driver and I graciously gave way to Sharad to take the wheel. (Siva: Please note this and dude, for the record, I DID NOT panic. :-)

We wheeled further away from nowhere towards the Good Lord’s hill, with only the beginning of the thought that these knights might be of the Robinhood kind and would lead us to a deserted place and rob us! Well, nothing as exciting as that happened and we soon found we’d done a Dirk Gently: we had not reached where we wanted to go, but we’d reached where we needed to be! We still do not know the name of the village except that the first syllable is ‘No’. We parked the car right in the middle of an open-air cow shed next to a few bemused cows. Charges: Rs. 50. And off we went. We crossed the mandatory open field, the gurgling brook, a helpful villager or two and soon found the little winding trail up the mountain.

Suffice to say that I do not remember much of it, except that I felt like demanding that we all stop and take in the scenery at rather frequent intervals. I mean, what else is an uphill climb for if you can’t stop every five minutes or so to see how far you’ve reached! :-)) And hey, I do not know which monkey thought going bipedal was a great idea. That definitely wasn’t the brightest moment in the trekking history of the monkeys. I think all-fours-down is a better attitude to climb mountains with!:-) Anyway, you get the picture right? Some people climb mountains with grace and aplomb and reach the top untouched looking like they’ve just taken a morning stroll. Some even sing songs when climbing up! While some of us spit and curse under our breath and look like what the cat dragged in by the time we reach the, if I may so, summit! I definitely fall under the latter category. But it was indeed a good feeling to finally reach the top. It just arrived, unannounced, all of a sudden. And how does one capture the peace at the top of a mountain in words? What with the sun playing with the clouds to create a fantastic round rainbow (see pic below) and the wind nearly sweeping us off our feet, it was splendid, to put it lightly. For a few precious moments, nothing mattered.

Oh, somewhere in the middle of the journey, we realized the Adigas’ folks had packed exactly 4 idlies instead of 4 plates of idlies – the result; four ravenous folks had one idly each with negligible helpings of some upma and kesri for lunch. Needless to say, the food tasted pretty good. Downward bound we were after a while, with Sharad bounding down and setting a scorching pace! After a few near spills and twists, and ending up delicately balanced on the toes of one foot caught in between a couple of rocks (Rachna, here are your ballet lessons!) I finally managed to get a closer look at the rocks at my feet. The mountain brought me to my knees. Literally! I could have killed for a chance to walk on flat land then. Anyway, all good and interesting things come to an end, and so did our lil stroll up the hill.

Back in the car, with Sharad at the wheel, we were in the city in a flash. Until Kumaraparvatha, let my tired legs rest in peace. Amen.

PS: Some lessons learnt: ‘Running shoes’ and ‘trekking shoes’ are not marketing gimmicks. They do different things and don’t let anyone make you believe otherwise.

It is important to learn the local language, lest you be led to a village whose name begins with ‘No’ and have to pay Rs.50 to park your car next to a cow.

Do not watch the movie Wall-E. It’s silly. Ok, that didn’t have anything to do with the trek, but I thought I should just let you know.