ಚಹಾ ಚೂಡಾ ಕೆ ಸಾಥ್ ಒಂದೆರಡು ಮಾತು....: Trek to Skandagiri

Skandagiri

About Skandagiri:-

Skandagiri, also known as Kalavara Durga, is an ancient mountain fortress located approximately 70 km from Bangalore city. The peak is at an altitude of about 1350 meters. Skandagiri is one of the hill forts in the Nandi Hill ranges. The dilapidated walls of Tipu Sultan's fort can be seen even today . This was built to be a sturdy, self sufficient fortress. It was built several centuries ago by a local king. As the story goes,
the king along with his soldiers defended the fort from Tipu Sultan for many days. After getting tired of taking the fort in this way, Tipu's generals bribed a couple of milk women who used to carry milk to the fort everyday. For several days after this, the milk women started carrying some seeds which they used to spread in the way so that Tipu's army will know the way in which to go up. On the day of the planned attack, the women added poison to the milk. Lot of the king's soldiers died after consuming the poisoned milk and the rest were killed by Tipu's invading troops. Tippu used the fort as a military base in his fierce fight against the British. It surrendered to British troops on 19 October 1791 and was later dismantled. It
remained in British hands until the peace treaty of 1792, which concluded the third Anglo- Mysore war. There are 2 caves on the mountain. One starts from the base and as per locals, leads to the temple and fort at peak and another one is somewhere midway which is about 30 feet only. Both are yet unexplored, especially the first one. Locals say that there are pythons in the caves and have swallowed their goats who wander in the carves. Supposedly, there are 6 Samadhis in that cave and thus the area is considered holy

Trip Outline:-

Early morning 4 am all gathered at esteem mall stop near Hebbal flyover. After a short intro we started towards the skandagiri, reached the base around 6am.

Intro Session

On the Way to Skandagiri

Parking vehicles

Started trek with a random snap at 6:15am. Initially it was 28-30 degree inclination. As we climbed half the way the climate started changing and we were feeling the sense of coldness. we had a break after climbing for half an hour, had bread jam to fuel up the bodies to get ready for the next adventure in cold cloud breeze. After a short break was the initializing of the breakfast. Again started climbing the hill with clicking lots of pics all around the guys mingled in cold mist of nature. Reached the top around 8 am, the peak was fully covered with cold clouds moving at around a speed of 55-60Kmph…!!! Due to which we were unable to control our movements. The clouds were moving in high speed with giving competition to the trekkers. We sat on the wall which was in a position such that all the lovely clouds were passing through it. Some of us removed the shirts and started dancing in the GANGNUM style. Had breakfast with mixing all varieties of foods carried by individual, to name few bread omlet, chapatti sabji, bread jam, the paper avalakki etc. after finishing the breakfast we went again on the mantap, sat on the roof and felt the sense of cold clouds. Met other group members and spent 2-3 hours of time on top. Enjoyed the cool breeze with full of masti.

@ Skandagiri

@ Nandi Hills View from Skandagiri Top

@ Skandagiri

BTC organizing Team

@ Skandagiri

Gangnum Style

@ Skandagiri

Finally started descending to base at around 11am with smile on everyone’s face and reached the base at 12:15pm. Took a group pic in front of the Skandagiri hill and started the journey towards Bangalore. Had lunch in North and South Indian style at chikkaballapur and the feedback from all of us was one and only word was Trek was “CloudRocking”.