Antaragange
Angaragange mountain range. 4kms from Kolar
Antaragange trek 31/01/2009
After a lot of discussions with my friend Amrut we all decided to go to antaragange, which is 4 kms from Kolar city. Amrut and his friends - Manjunath and where the guide for the trek.
I left to KSRTC bus stand (Bangalore) to catch a bus from Bangalore to Kolar. I was there in the bus stand by 7am. Akshay had arrived there. Then we waited an eternity for Sagarika and her friend - Kishore. Kishore came at about 7:15 and sagarika at about 7:40. We caught the bus at 7:45am to Kolar. Mean while Amurt, Sandeep and Nikum took private bus from K.R.Market to Kolar.
We reached Kolar at 9:30am, 30mins behind schedule. We met up with Ganesh and his friend. We decided to have breakfast and finished breakfast in the hotel in KSRTC bus stand itself. After breakfast, Amrut came and then we packed 5 vangi bath for the afternoon and also got a loaf of bread and some jam. Amrut told that it would become late if we walked to the mountain as it is 4kms away. So we took an auto and Amrut’s two – wheeler also was used. We took the auto till the end of the straight road from Tumkur near a temple. After a short briefing about the place and an introduction session, we started the trek at about 10:30am.
In the beginning it was normal mountain terrain. Amrut and his friends were the guide men. They showed us the place where they normally tent and then we moved ahead towards the big boulders. Once at a particular place we entered the cave. (Not exactly a cave. This is made of large boulders interlocking each other). Once into the cave it was really cool, both climatic condition and feeling. I don’t remember any route inside the caves, very confusing. We did some crawling, rock climbing – only a few did it. After that we had photo session. We came back to the same place after traveling through the cave. What they say is absolutely right. You get lost in the caves in Antaragange. The traversal of the cave is not an easy piece of walk. There were narrow routes which required us to do some Jamming and also do some crawling. Because of not visiting that route for the past 1 yr by the lead team (Amrut and his friends) we were actually exploring. On the way there were some places where rock climbing skills were put to the test. We also did some Bouldering, Jamming and Chimney climbing.
After all the activities we made our way out of the caves of boulders. We had to use another route as the route we took had to be abandoned because of the mountain bees. Somehow I guess our loud noise triggered the bees and they started circling above our heads. So we had to again jump back into the cave. Once we found the other route, we were making our way to the top. We halted near the Snake Like rock for about 10mins. Lemon was consumed. It seems lemon is a good as a water replacement. Then again we started to walk up and down, reached a place where there was a small stream of water flowing down hill. There we halted and had whatever we carried up with us. This was at 3:00pm. After the so called lunch, we made our way to this Village Folk Theater where we took some photographs and after that reached the road.
After walking down the road for about 2kms we got the National Highway. Before catching a bus to Bangalore we had some cool drinks/tea and then caught a bus to Bangalore). We reached Bangalore by 7:45pm and I reached home by 8:15pm.
I forgot to mention about the debriefing session that took place on the way while walking down the road. We also went to an old temple which Amrut and group are taking care of - as a matter of speaking. Clicked some photographs and then walked towards the Highway. On the way back to Bangalore as usual we sang and enjoyed.
Best time of Visit : AnyTime.
How to get there : Public Transport/Private vehicle. Goto Kolar which is about 65kms from Bangalore. (You get Kolar buses from Bangalore and other cities)
Activities : Bouldering (a lot of boulders there), rock climbing, Jamming, cave exploration.
Other notes : Best to go with people who know the place well. There is a lot of unexplored area in Antaragange.
Rock-Climbing. Kishore climbing up.... The team - Akshay, Manju, Me, Kishore, Sagarika, Nikun, Ravi, Sandeep, Amrut, Ganesh
