WOW Trek to Kabbaladurga-July 3

It was Sunday morning, a very bright atmosphere at 6 a.m in the morning. Took an auto to the meeting point as we were supposed to meet up at Kalasipaya bus stop for boarding the bus. On the way, I had some time to savor “Namma Benagluru”, saw many newspaper boys busily sorting newspaper and taking it on their cycles. The traffic signals which would be hauled with traffic and honking sounds in the day later, was all now converted into a free way. The newly built Metro’s still sleeping. Also, got to have a birds view of the Tippu’s summer palace. Its kind of blissful to see the city early morning. This was my first time exploring this part of Bengaluru. All these nostalgic feeling, made me feel more energized for the adventurous trek, and more importantly… It’s WOW trek!! Having done a couple of treks with BTC now, I happened to meet few known faces. Someone whom I met long back and they recognize me, and recollect the moments of having trekked together, gave immense pleasure and this is the best part of BTC treks… kudos!!

We got into the bus and everyone of us got seats. It was almost 2 hours journey, and the wowies started their chitter-chatter with the fellow ones. The occasional view out of the bus window of the fresh green vegetables in the village markets made the amateur chef churn inside me. We reached Sathanur and had our breakfasts in a small road-side hotel. Thatte idli ( a full plate idli, famous in Ramanagaram side) was awesome. We packed for our lunches and left to the destined place in a multi-seater auto, which can accommodate almost the same number of people as a mini-bus!! While few fought to get the rear seats of the auto, rest had to settle for the middle ones. One of our wowbies gave us super scenic real movie experience, by jumping of the rear seat of auto in slow motion, when the autodriver started of the vehicle with a heavy jerk. It was a little longer drive to Kabbaladurga than expected. On arriving, we got to see a big temple and a huge crowd waiting in queue to get darshan. 

A little history on Kabbaladurga - The peak is at a height of around 3250ft . Kabbaladurga had many jails, granary house surrounded by a seven tiered fort and many secret tunnels built. This was constructed during the Mysore Maharajas reign, the Wodeyar dynasty. The Mysore Prince then, Chamaraja Wodeyar VII had Dalavoys named Devarajjaiah and NanjaRajjaiah. The two Dalavoys had built this place to use this as dungeon for political prisoners. They wanted their King to be in control of them, efforts went futile and they prisoned the Prince Chamaraja Wodeyar VII and made him starve to death. The descendants of Veera Madakaari is also said to have ended the same way. This was also the favorite place for Tippu and Hyder Ali to confine the prisoners as well. The dead body of the prisoners was then thrown from the top into the jungle and no one could ever trace it. This place was guarded by soldiers all round, and many thorny bushes, cactuses and the steepy terrain made it next to impossible for any prisoner to descend the surface and escape against all odds. The lakes surrounding this hill few had crocodiles in them so that no one would swim and escape and the water sources were poisoned on purpose.

We started the ascend, and everyone was determined to trek up come what may. It has a very steep rough terrain which made our trek even more challenging. All the wowbies had super stamina and we did trek up in duration less than expected. yay!! It wasn’t an easy task anyways. The steep was inclined at min. of 45 degrees. We had to crawl up the surface bent like the monkeys - all I could feel was going back in ages and remembering the Darwin’s theory. We reached the peak, had some pics clicked and also few of them got some 'gyan' from the priest of the small temple up there. One could see many stones piled up in stacks of number varying from 3 to 5, it is told that people build those stacks for their wishes to come true. The view from the top was impeccable and your heart just pours out to see and admire god’s beautiful creation. There was this another side of the peak after the abandoned granary structure, where we sat all together in a line on the edge for a pic, and I probably guess this was the place where they threw off the dead bodies in olden times..yikes!! The breeze was just awesome, sometimes strong enough to pull you off too. The series of hills surrounding the Ramanagaram district was visible, and the view was enchanting. When sun rays glanced at a distant hill, it seemed though as it was beautiful painting on a canvas extended to infinity. There was no much shade to sit and play game. Hence we had our lunches and wrapped up to descend. Descend was a bit difficult and often we felt loosing our grip, many times sliding on the rough terrain and spoiling our clothes. Finally the trek was done. We were very thirsty and had lots of water by the road side tap not caring about the hygiene. A look back at the giant that stood there, and just felt thrilled inside of having completed the mission without any glitch. Hurray!!

Kabbaladurga has historic significance, which I explored after trekking it. Feeling glad to have known its history now, and even more proud to have trekked it successfully. The new comers got a special appreciation for making it up successfully, during the feedback session. We caught up the bus to Bengaluru with a little struggle, but the journey was awesome in the village private bus and the multi-seater auto. Sometimes you need to live a life of a minimalist, later to only feel blessed of the comfortable life we lead here. With the final adieu, we departed back to our homes. Thanks to RajaLaxmi and Ritu for organizing this WOW trek, Veena for capturing the moments and all other super-enthusiastic beautiful souls for being a part of this challenging trek. See you all again!! 

Written By     : Tejaswini

Organized By : Rajalakshmi & Ritu

Date of event : 3rd July, 2015

Place              : Kabbaladurga

Picture: https://www.facebook.com/BangaloreTrekkingClub/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1124383374303849