Channagiri : A night out on the rocks

I was waiting for summer time

Music playing people everywhere
No need to worry the tequila is here
And when the sun goes down we are having fun
'Cause there will be a hill to trek on

Early April, the sun was blazing in namma Bengalooru and the temperature had reached above what was considered normal for the Garden city. Bishu, Vasu & me had been to Sharvathi river valley the previous weekend. So, decided to avoid travelling long distance over the long weekend of Good Friday. Since there was a meetup with GMP puys on saturday, I talked with Bishu and Rajesh and we decided on a night trek starting saturday night. I narrowed down to 3 options:

1. Makkalidurga

2. TG Halli

3. Channagiri

Since Bishu had been to Makkalidurga and SK to TG Halli, we decided to hike up Channagiri.

Saturday night after dinner, I landed up at Bishu's place. We chalked out some milestones to cross on our route to Channagiri. With the help of trekwiki we decided to take the following route:

Bangalore>Doddabalapur>Melkote>Doddarayappanahalli>Chikkarayappanahalli->Sadhu Math Village

This Melkote is after one crosses Doddaballapur and not to be confused with Melukote that comes in Mandya district.

Bishu and me started at around 2200 hours from RT nagar and reached Rajesh's house at 2230. We started around 2300 hours from Yelahanka. A tea-break after bypassing Doddaballapur and some pieces of advice of the dangers (of highway riding and such shit at night time) from a localite, who came to know of our plans, we decided to move ahead before attracting further attention. Its nice to see people worrying about you, but they don't realize the thrill and kicks that one gets out of these activities.

After driving on roads, bad roads, no roads and meeting people looking for Skandagiri, we finally managed to drag our rubbers onto Sadhu math village at around 0045 hours. A villager was sleeping on the road and we almost missed him :-) . The noise of the thumps was enough to wake up another villager, who showed us the place to park the bikes and some general information about Channagiri.

Channagiri is one of the 5 hills in the Nandi hills area. It has a height of 1445 m. The starting point of the trek, Sadhu Math is a pretty non descript village with almost 20 houses around.

According to the villager, wild boars are abound in the mountains and people come for hunting.

After the customary 1-cig salute-at-beginning-of-the-trek from Rajesh and us cursing him yet again for polluting the air, we started making our way through the rocks and the dry yet thorny shrubs. We made good progress. The descent was ok. Also the moonlight was decent enough, prompting us to switch off the torches for sometime. After half-an-hour of walking, we got a brilliant rocky slope to lie down. And so we did!. The breeze and the views of distant villages & lights were pretty alluring. But the lust for more breeze and more lights kept us going further. The second pit-stop happened after another half an hour on another such rocky slope. We soon came across some flat ground but could not see a trail in the jungle towards the peak. Here I should mention that in night treks, the objective should be to go towards the peak rather than away from it since you will mess up the trail anyway ;). And so we missed once. We ended up in a thorny and thick forest route, just when we thought that the peak was another 15-20 minutes away.

We retraced our path to see if we had missed any deviation. It was then that Rajesh wondered aloud typically that we should sleep in the nearest flat surface and attempt the peak next morning. Neither me nor Bishu reacted. I chuckled at myself wondering who will kick his ass first , and we kept retracing back till we saw the deviation. We took the deviation and after another 20 minutes of walk, we ended up at the peak of Channagiri. The watch showed 0230 hours.

We were not alone at the peak. We met a group of 4 people having tea at the shelter next to the temple. They were shocked to see 3 men at that time of the night. But then again we are used to people reacting that way ;-) After some explanations from Rajesh in kannada, they seemed secure and offered us tea. And boy, did I have the tea or what. There is one thing having coffee with a friend in a CCD back in Bangalore and another thing having tea at 3 in the morning with some strangers on a peak being hit by gusty winds. And the 2nd thing is very hard to come by in these mechanized life of ours where we end up getting accustomed to living life the normal way.

After tea, we went around the flat peak. There is a temple and a pond on the peak. Please don't rely on the pond for water. It looks full of algae. Next to the temple, we found a flat big rock slab for sleeping. It was a flat piece of rock. Winds were hitting us on the face. Skandagiri was on our left hand side and Nandi hills on the right hand side. And situated in between, we had this view.

The fully lit town is Chikballapur.

Looking in your eyes I see a paradise
This world that I found is too good to be true
Standing here beside you, want so much to give you
This love in my heart that I'm feeling for you

After a few experiments with the camera, we decided to take rest for the night or dawn should I say as it was almost 4 AM. We were well protected by our sleeping bags and had decent sleep.

My sleep was disturbed in parts by sound of quarrying from the other side of Channagiri and the noise by a few lunatics from Nandi hills side. I woke up at 5.30 AM to catch one of the most beautiful sun rises I have seen. With the peak of Skandagiri in the foreground, the colors looked mesmerizing.

After sun-rise, I again went back to sleep. Bishu was all along sleeping. Rajesh got up to take the other pictures.

At 8.00 AM, all 3 of us were up and decided to have some jumpy snaps as well as snaps with the temple.

Once done, we started on our way back. The journey back was uneventful and done at very good speed. We reached around 45 minutes of starting at the bike parking place. The machines were started and we bade adieu to Channagiri.

We then went on a long ride to Gaurebiddanaur->Doddaballapur. The weather was absolutely hot and we even tried to rest under the tree for sometime. Did not help much though.

We were back in Bangalore by 1400 hours. A saturday night well spent, I opine.

Things to note:

1. Don't leave any litter behind and make the place worse.

2. On a night trek, always go towards the peak.

3. You can avail bus to Sadhu Math village. I have seen KSRTC Sarige buses ply from Doddaballapur.

4. Please carry minimum 3 L of water as there is no water at the peak, especially during the dry season.

5. If these morons keep on quarrying, we will lose most of the hills around Bangalore.