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Channarayanadurga/Channagiri Trek
No. of days: 1 day (Half day trek actually)
Picasa Web Albums: here
A super indecisive trek this was. The place was decided only in the morning due to the transportation problem. Finally we decided to go by one car and a bike. The team – Arul, her husband Karthik, Ananthapadmanaban (aka anty), Vijetha, Anil, his sister Aruna and I.
The meet up place was IISc. I reached there at 8:30am. Had breakfast in the mess with Anil and met up with Arul and group. After breakfast, we left IISc at 9:30am. On the way we packed lunch from Swathi which is just after hebbal flyover after kodigehalli signal. I rode with Anil, and the others travelled by car.
After a good 1 hr, we hit the diversion that goes to Nandi hills. At the junction where a left takes you to the circle from where a right would take you to nandi hills, we had to take a diversion. Either take a right to Sultanpet or a left to hit NH207 and from there towards sultanpet. The channarayanadurga lies behind nandi hills. There are two access routes to the top. One starts from right opposite the basavanna temple. The other one is off the main road on the right when driving from sultanpet. The 2nd path is actually a nice path with steps and stones.
We first tried the first path which proved to be too thorny and it would take a lot of time to navigate that roué. So we decided to take the other route. The climb was very easy. We reached the peak in 1.5hrs at 13:10pm. There is a temple and a pond on the top. No consumable water though, so one needs to carry a lot of water. We had the pulav that we packed. After about 1.5hrs, we started the descent. The tricky part starts now. I didn’t observe the terrain carefully while coming up cause the trail was just obvious with steps and nice stoned path. But for more than 1 hr we were just trying to find the path. Alas, till 3 pm we didn’t find it. It was time to take super fast decisions. Anil had found a path that went down. The problem was, there were atleast half a dozen paths everywhere, all leading to nowhere. So Anil and I decided that we were heading down (just down). We had to reach the base by sundown and also our water stock was over. We hit the path in about 45mins time. After some thorny experience and a good amount of exploring we reached the road. At 5:30pm, we left towards Bangalore. Stopping at sultanpet for tea and coconut water was a nice thing to do. After filling our stomach, we left to IISc. I reached home at 7:45pm. It was a nice one day outing.
INFORMATION:
Ideal time to trek: Previous day – Camp at the top – Experience sunrise - Trek down.
Things to look for: Thorns
Route: Blore > Devanahalli > Bellary Road till deviation on the left to Nandi hills > T-Joint intersection > Right > Sultanpet intersection > Left. 1st route – opposite to nandi temple on the left. 2nd route – before the temple, after the village, right on mud road.
Picasa Web Album Link: here
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