Maiden Night Trek to Makalidurga

Another event with Viru (Bangalore Ascenders www.bangaloreascenders.org ) on 8^th December 2012 at Makalidurga. This times its little change; it’s Night Trek. Makalidurga is a small hill very close to Doddaballapur (parallel to Ghatisubramanya), on top of it you can find a Kaadu Malleshwara temple. Over all we were 24 passionate friends, most of them were ‘First Night Trekking’. The word itself made lot of humorous while introduction in the event.

Thanks to Viru, who organized the event so perfectly and also thank to rest of 22 friends who successfully completed the event without any hitch/ditch.

We left the Bangalore City Railway Station around 6:50 pm by Hindupura Express. Journey was quite well with making new friends of BASC. Always Cricket topic engages people more serious; it happened the same. Friends were busy in giving suggestions / complaints / compliments / comparison to INDIAN CRICKET TEAM. The train stopped at Makalidurga around 8:50 pm, everyone came out and say good bye to the station. The team headed towards the base point. Mean time we signed ‘INDEMNITY BOND’ which is mandatory as per BASC rules. The distance from Station to base point of Makalidurga Hill is around 2 – 3 km (approximately). Need to walk on ‘U’ turn from station, since we have no permission to walk on Railway track (its short cut route).

Started the trekking around 9:30 – 9:45 pm. On the way we met a green Baby Snake. The journey was little tougher than Brahmagiri (around Nandi Hills, my last event) however friends were in more enthusiasm to reach the peak. Initially we struggled little to find out the way, as we could not find the path or sign boards on the way. Viru & Ashwin went for expedition to search the way to reach the peak. We tried 2 -3 ways which was collating with big 80 – 90 degree rock. At last our brave leaders succeeded to find the trail and reached the peak around 12 am (mid-night). On the way we have to climb two small rocks with support of other friends.

The cooking team was getting ready to prepare the dinner (you can say early breakfast too). We all collected the small branches of trees, dry leafs etc for fire. However our friend S² (Stove Suresh – named by Shruthi²(Shruthi BK & Shruthi S) brought the portable stove which helped us to prepare the Maggie fast. There were two teams for preparation of Maggie.

One team was heading by Suresh and another by Sound Chandrakanth (named by again Shruthi²). We had lots of fun while preparation of Maggie and struggled a lot to light the fire. Around 3.00 am finished dinner and searched place for fire camp.

Now we had introduction part among each member; by the time we all were well known to each other’s, just it’s refreshed the memory.

Poet (Dinesh MG) shown some different styles steps of dance (don’t know what to name it) and helped other new trekkers to dance accordingly. We all danced around the fire and played ringa ringa roses…….Thanx Shruthi serving the Jamoon’s…..

The fire camp was around one hour. Later Viru took us around the top of the hill to show few more places viz., small pound, sun rise view point, old rest house of the emperor (may be rest house or what else don’t know) etc. We had group photo session and started to descend around 4:30 am.

The downward journey somewhat could be able to find out the path and reached the base point at 6:30 am. We reached the Railway Station at 7:15 am and train was delayed.

Viru shared the expenses and it was just Rs.50/- (unbelievable). Caught the train by 8:15 and reached Bangalore by 9:30 am.

Most of the friends were already tiered and went to sleep while in the journey. Chaitanya took some memorable snaps of the other friends who were in deep sleeeeeepppppppp.