Skandagiri trek - 16 awesome hours!

Skandagiri is a favorite trek spot of adventure enthusiasts, located at the outskirts of Bangalore, around 70 kms from the city to be precise. Wikipedia defines it as a moderately difficult trek location, but we took it easy when we left for it! Eighteen of us, seventeen of us from IITM and a girl from god-knows-where left from Majestic at around 19.30 pm, Saturday. This was after around half an hour of searching for Platform 11, where the buses to Chikballapur, the nearest town to Skandagiri, leave from. As fate would have it, the platform does not exist anywhere in the reach of the human eye, after following our leader, MRB (Travel Core) for around half an hour, reading knowledge of Kannada he had, proved helpful as we managed to catch a bus which went there. In the bus, we started off a game of Mafia/Wolf, but had to stop, after we became aware of the stares we were attracting from the rest of the bus. Also, I made a mokka about MRB being the travel core because he was Bharath (In dig, Bharath is to come) got the other guys gunning for my blood. One and a half hours later, we reached the place, and had a quick dinner. Some of them took a fag, which lasted upto nearly twenty minutes. One guy got drunk in those twenty minutes he got, and it was just a myriad of mental stages people were in. Midhun went to capture a pic of the poster of a B-grade Kannada film, and a few angry/drunk locals chased him away. After a lot of fun, and laughter, MRB arranged for a cab which took people 5 in a group to the base of the Skandagiri hill. Anirudh took the seat with the driver in the front, while Big Show, Sudharshan (henceforth will be referred to Coreji), and I were sitting at the back, with Prabhudhev (Dhev hence) lying across our laps.

We reached the hill bottom, where Midhun, BF and a few others were already waiting. The other guys came there in subsequent trips. In the meanwhile, a policeman apparently warned MRB about going to Skandagiri at night as apparently it was illegal. So, we decided to just get started with the trek, while the other batches came around, lest the policemen come and find us at the base of the hill and shoo us away. There seemed to be no way to move, and we were at some kind of a fix about how to travel, when a guide came, and offered to help us to "half the distance" if we paid him 20 bucks per person. A waste of cash, as we realised later, he lead us for half an hour and asked us to go from there. The distance didn't amount to even 1/10 th of the travel, and all he had lead us to was the actual hill-bottom. We started off on the trek, amidst a lot of terrible spellings along the route. Each time we encountered an arrow, a victory cry was let out, signifying that we were on track! We split into 2 major groups, one of 11 and another of 7. Group 1, which was ahead for whole part of the trek comprised of Varun D, Anirudh, Rishab, Midhun, Big Show, Core ji, Dhev, Raghavendra, a couple of other gult guys whose names I don't recollect, and me! The path initially was extremely peaceful, and we paused at regular intervals to capture pictures of some scenic locations. It was pitch dark, and torches guided us. Initially it seemed like jerkins were not all that needed, but as the altitude kept increasing, the jerkins became a necessity. By around 2 am, we had started coming up the extremely steep paths. Here, we took pauses of a minute or two for every ten minutes of climbing. At some point, I started panting. Mainly because, my shoes were extremely slippery, and could not get a decent grip on either the rocks or even the muddy climb spots. Lesson learnt, never wear cricket shoes to a trek! All of us were novices, first time or second time trekkers,and hence it was a wonderful learning experience too. I slipped at a couple of places, and was moving on all fours in certain places, that drained a lot of energy. In the meanwhile, Big Show got cramps, and we had to stop more often. At some level, Core ji and I stayed back to rest with Big Show, while the rest of Group 1 went ahead. In the meanwhile, as we waited, for around 20 minutes, at the middle of some high slope region, Group 2 reached us. Core ji planned to stay on for a longer while, as Group 2 rested in the same place, while Big Show and I decided to move on. From there on, it wasn't very difficult and in half an hour's time, we were near the peak. By now, it was freezing cold, must've been around 4 degrees, and the winds were ferocious. We fought our way to the top, and when we reached the top, let out a victory cry, saying Go IITM!! Group 2 reached after another 20 minutes.

There, was a small Ganesh temple, where in they made and sold, Omlettes, Maggi and Tea. Apparently, they sold cigarettes, and water too. Then, after a round of Msggi, sitting around a bonfire, we tried to laze about for a while till sunrise. It was around 4.15 am, and was very very cold. On one side, the smoke rising out of the twigs was too much to handle, and on the other, the winds were very chilly. I took out a bedspread, and Midhun and I cuddled into it, and dozed off somehow. When we woke up, it was 5.30 am, and the sun was on the verge of rising. It was way more cold now, and everyone was going bonkers. Ears covered, body covered, jerkins, 2 t-shirts, well, none of this was enough to protect against the cold! The peak was at the midst of a cloud, and clouds around us were moving at a rapid pace. The scenery was one to cherish, something I'd not forget for very very long. The distant locales which were visible, through some of the moving clouds, was such a beautiful sight! The camera did its best to capture as much as it could, but photography was one difficult task, because firstly, the flashes were ineffective as they reflected off the clouds, secondly, non-flash taken photographs were extremely unclear, and thirdly, taking the hands out to click a picture got the hands numb! Even in the cold, Core ji went on about not working for the Shaastra website, and how maybe it was a wrong decision to come all the way, considering he had a lot of work to do. Finally, the sun rose. The much famed Skandagiri sunrise, I must admit, was quite disappointing, as it rose out of the clouds, and it seemed like the moon. In fact, for one who hadn't seen the sun rise, he wouldn't have known the difference between the sun and moon there!

Following the viewing of the sun at around 6.30 am, we started on our downward sojourn. The way down was far more easier than we expected. We expected a lot of dew, but that wasn't to be. Many of the steep regions were taken care of by coming down on all fours. There were the occasional slips, but luckily didn't fall down anywhere. The good thing about coming down was that everyone came down in one group. Very soon, by around 7.30 am, we were at the hill base. From there, amidst all the tiredness, we managed to get autos to Chikballapur, from where we took buses to Majestic, where everyone crashed! We reached Majestic at around 10.30 am, quite early for our expectations actually. It was one wonderful trek, and as a novice, I totally enjoyed the experience. Wiki was right when it described it as a moderately difficult trek. I found it slightly more painful than Tada, and I think that describes it best! Wonderful trip, nevertheless! Infinite fun, and a great climbing experience! The thrill of some risky climb spots, made the eventual surmounting extra special! :-)