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To start with, I've just taken a welcoming bath after the trek and now writing this. This trek was a make up super quick decision that Mr. Ganesh took. It was confirmed only the previous day of the trek.The day of the trek begin with a confusion in my mind, what time should I be waiting at Majestic (Right opposite to the railway station). I had set the alarm to 6:00am but got to know that the tempo traveller that Ganesh had booked was late. So I went to Majestic at 7:30am. No sooner did I reach the place, the tempo traveller arrived. I happily hopped into it. Oh! I forgot to mention another thing - I had an ankle pain for the last two days and was very doubtful of making this trek. No matter what, good that I went, it was an amazing trek. Ok so back to 7:30am :). On public vote all of us decided to have breakfast at Dobbospet or somewhere near to shivagange. We were already 1 hr behind schedule. The journey was not very eventful and since few people were new this time, I didn't do a briefing (I didn't know much about the place too :D). We spotted the left turn that had to be taken to reach shivagange but then we hadn't had breakfast. So we went to Kamat which is another 6kms on tumkur road itself. Breakfast, nothing much - idly and vada asusual. Oh yeah, tea/coffee too. Tomato rice was parcelled for the afternoon. We left the hotel by 10:15am (I remember complaining about the dely to Sree :)). We reached Shivagange by 10:40am.
Now that our tummy was taken care of, Amruth and I decided to ask around for alternate trek routes to the top as the normal one was too crowded (It's sunday so can't complain). To our better luck we got to know another route from a vegitable shop there. Ok that's it, now we start the trek. This is at 10:45am.
We went up a little on the huge magnificant mountain and took a lot of pictures. The photoshoot mainly happened due to the beautiful boulders there. You can call it a good place for rock climbers and bouldering experts (though there are better places around bangalore). So now is the sad part, Sree's bottle rolled down the slope and I thought I could get it before it reaches ground zero (bottom :D). I did manage to get it but at
the cost of my shoe. The sole of my left shoe was removed completely. That was a seriously bad moment. I thought my trek has just ended there. A great thanks (I cannot decribe how big a thanks) to Suresh for lending me his slippers (An awsome woodland sandals). I was way too contended to even think much. After asking a person there we came to know that we had to get down and take another route cause the route we took didn't lead to the top (Unless you can swim in mush and sand). So down we go. The other mountain climb started.
After some mild trekking we intercepted the normal route. We cut the route and wet up further to do some good trekking. This was a good thing as we ended up at a good steep hillface. Due to the unquestionable desire of Sree, Ganesh and Amruth to try free climbing, Me, Amruth, Ganesh, Sree and Suresh created the 2nd team trying to climb the the mountain. Sree is a good climber. He managed to climb to the top. I climbed the 1st phase and was a little disinclined about proceeding further without a belay/rope of any kind. Due to team work again and a little help from Sree, we all managed to get up. We had actually covered a great distance by doing this. We reached the "Shivagange point" where you have try your luck to see if you can touch water by putting your hand into a hole on the ground. We had to wait a bit for the others to come down as they had taken a trek route and had overshot. After a visit to the temple (Everyone in the trek group -10 of us got to touch the water other than Vanathi). After the temple we started the journey up. It was a pretty difficult climb. There are steps and railings all the way to the top (almost).
We reached the top at 2:15pm. After staying there for some time, we got down in a little unused way (it was fun). We set up a camp place to have lunch but the monkey trouble was a lot. So we decided to come down for lunch. On the way, me amruth and sree were in the lead. After thinking for a while Amruth took the right call by asking us to eat. We had lunch (the packed tomato rice) just outside the antaragange temple. Once done, we made our way back to the van. We took the normal route down. We reached down by 4:30pm.
After that nothing much happened, other than the so called debriefing and some fun in the van on the journey back to bangalore. I reached home at 7:00pm. It was a very wonderful day's outing.
Oh yeah I didn't mention about how I managed to walk back home with a torn shoe. I tied the lace to make a cast around the shoe :D. Time to get a new good pair of shoes.
Trek details:
No. of routes:3
1) The normal route - throught the gopuram entrance.
2) Route 2 - Take the left just after a blue shop. (Direction when walking towards the exit from the main entrance.
3) Route 3 - Take the left just near a mantapam. (marriage hall). This is the route that leads to the top. (There is supposed to be a graveyard there.)
-- Not very sure about the graveyard as we took route2, got down a little bit and changed over to route 3.
Best time to visit: Other than sunday, holidays and festivals.
Time to leave B'lore: about 6am should be good
Route from B'lore: Peenya > Dasarahalli > Nelamangala > Dobbospet > Shivagange. (Tumkur road - NH4)
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