My second trip with BASC and first night trek ever, and from the word go, I knew this was gonna be epic! Here’s the scoop …
September 28, 2013
The cloudless night sky studded with twinkling stars, only to be caressed by the occasional gust of wind, and loud chorus of village dogs, frogs and crickets - was quite a lovely atmosphere created there. We could actually see the Orion (not Bengaluru mall !!) constellation in the night sky, which is quite a rare site in the cities these days. We went marching on talking about topics ranging from politics, sports, games etc . At one point there was a tree with a lamp post beside it and a hut behind it. Literally out of a scene from the horror game Alan Wake. :)
Anyhow, we reached the base in about half an hour by taking a left at the second yellow sign board. No sooner did we reach there, a cluster of about 4 dogs started frolicking on us for food, much to our amusement. Little did we know that they would be faithful enough to follow us all through our entire journey! So , we started our climb with some basic instructions given by Patrick. Almost 4 km climb. We reached a plateau with a temple ruin on it. We rested there for a while, had sweet amla, biscuits, enjoyed the shimmering village lights and highway and continued trekking upwards. As we reached the camping site. People who had brought their sleeping bags, braved enough to spend the night at the Kaurav Kunda peak, which we reached around 1:15 AM. As time and energy dropped by, temperature dropped viciously too (my phoned showed 14 degrees). And there we were curled up in sleeping bags, but oh no, not comfy at all!! Me having a bad sore throat didn’t matter easier either!
All of us woke up at around 7 in the morning to be greeted by a lovely sunrise and a wonderful panaromic view of Chikballapur village. Oh yeah, the dogs were awake too! Nandi and Skandagiri hills were literally mocking at Kaurav kunda, by having attracted more clouds towards them!.
At this time Patrick asked me to lead! Buoyed by Orange fruit power given by Krishi, I literally ran till the point where we got some water in the village. At this point 2 dogs frustrated with our miserliness went away, only one continued. After another second round of munching we started trekking towards a valley between two peaks, which Patrick christened as ‘Ascender Betta’!! This path was quite thorny and bushy and almost about 9-10 kms. By the time we reached the plateau, some of us taking the difficult path (through rocks), ‘it was almost 1:30PM. We had a very filling lunch comprised of Khakras, Theplas, Rava idlis, Cornflakes and what not. 
Not to mention the commando style trekking left our cloths, sleeping mats and bags in tatters!! We started our return journey keeping in mind that we have to come out of the forest with in 6pm . This was again an unexplored path, very thorny and were literally on our knees and stomachs for this one! This joined the path we had taken earlier, where we could see the dried up Kanjenahalli falls and after almost 1 and half hour of continuous trekking we reached a water tank, close to a big temple, where we filled our water bottles again… and well, munched on snacks :D. Then we booked Tata Ace much to relief of all and reached Chikballapoora at around 4:30 PM.
Here the bus conductor from previous night literally pulled me, in the middle of a busy street just so that we all should board his bus! But anyways, we boarded an empty bus on the other side. The bus reached Bangalore at 7:45 PM.
Written by: Saurab Rao
Date: September 28th and 29th
Event organized by: Patrick Samuel
Image Gallery:
Arjun Ashok, Prateek Seth, Srivasta Sharma
The Crew: Girish Motwani, Patrick, Krushi Deep M, Harshit, Arjun Ashok, Manohara, Ramya Manohar, Saurab Rao, Rajesh R, Channappa Sajjanar, Madan Kumar, Sumeet Kawali, Srivatsa Narsimh Sharma, Sandeep ks, Pritish Nandanwar, Deepak Saran, Sanju Bhai, Prateek
We all agreed to gather at Nandhini Milk parlour at entrance of BMTC majestic, as time trickled by, more and more people kept coming in. As everyone assembled, we caught a bus to Chikballapura at around 9:30 PM. What appeared to be an empty bus at first reserved solely for us turned out to be a fully packed vehicle by the time we left. So started our journey with some boisterous conversations, informal intros, and some like me, well, sleeping :P. Reached Chikballapura at around 11:30 PM. Patrick summoned us all for a quick round of intro which was dutifully interrupted by a police jeep. By convincing him that we are just trekkers having to come to enjoy our weekend, we started walking towards the base of the hill at a pretty brisk pace, almost 4-5 km walk.
The cloudless night sky studded with twinkling stars, only to be caressed by the occasional gust of wind, and loud chorus of village dogs, frogs and crickets - was quite a lovely atmosphere created there. We could actually see the Orion (not Bengaluru mall !!) constellation in the night sky, which is quite a rare site in the cities these days. We went marching on talking about topics ranging from politics, sports, games etc . At one point there was a tree with a lamp post beside it and a hut behind it. Literally out of a scene from the horror game Alan Wake. :)
Anyhow, we reached the base in about half an hour by taking a left at the second yellow sign board. No sooner did we reach there, a cluster of about 4 dogs started frolicking on us for food, much to our amusement. Little did we know that they would be faithful enough to follow us all through our entire journey! So , we started our climb with some basic instructions given by Patrick. Almost 4 km climb. We reached a plateau with a temple ruin on it. We rested there for a while, had sweet amla, biscuits, enjoyed the shimmering village lights and highway and continued trekking upwards. As we reached the camping site. People who had brought their sleeping bags, braved enough to spend the night at the Kaurav Kunda peak, which we reached around 1:15 AM. As time and energy dropped by, temperature dropped viciously too (my phoned showed 14 degrees). And there we were curled up in sleeping bags, but oh no, not comfy at all!! Me having a bad sore throat didn’t matter easier either!
September 29, 2013
All of us woke up at around 7 in the morning to be greeted by a lovely sunrise and a wonderful panaromic view of Chikballapur village. Oh yeah, the dogs were awake too! Nandi and Skandagiri hills were literally mocking at Kaurav kunda, by having attracted more clouds towards them!.
We descended to the base and had a sumptuous breakfast consisting of bread jam, butter and started climbing to the other side which again we rested there for like an hour or so. Again munching fruits, biscuits, chapattis etc and not to mention , photo sessions… yes we are Bhakasooras!. We descended pretty quickly to be greeted by a lovely scene with mountains on both sides, with a pasture fringed boulevard in between and an abandoned house with a lone dense tree, beside it.
At this time Patrick asked me to lead! Buoyed by Orange fruit power given by Krishi, I literally ran till the point where we got some water in the village. At this point 2 dogs frustrated with our miserliness went away, only one continued. After another second round of munching we started trekking towards a valley between two peaks, which Patrick christened as ‘Ascender Betta’!! This path was quite thorny and bushy and almost about 9-10 kms. By the time we reached the plateau, some of us taking the difficult path (through rocks), ‘it was almost 1:30PM. We had a very filling lunch comprised of Khakras, Theplas, Rava idlis, Cornflakes and what not. 
Not to mention the commando style trekking left our cloths, sleeping mats and bags in tatters!! We started our return journey keeping in mind that we have to come out of the forest with in 6pm . This was again an unexplored path, very thorny and were literally on our knees and stomachs for this one! This joined the path we had taken earlier, where we could see the dried up Kanjenahalli falls and after almost 1 and half hour of continuous trekking we reached a water tank, close to a big temple, where we filled our water bottles again… and well, munched on snacks :D. Then we booked Tata Ace much to relief of all and reached Chikballapoora at around 4:30 PM.
After having a meal at hotel ‘Sandarshini’ (my cousin uncles’), who btw didn’t take money from me, we started towards the bus stop.
Here the bus conductor from previous night literally pulled me, in the middle of a busy street just so that we all should board his bus! But anyways, we boarded an empty bus on the other side. The bus reached Bangalore at 7:45 PM.
All were very tired, but in Patrick’s own words, this was a record for one day trek, ‘cause we covered almost 26 + km that too to an unexplored hill !!! Yup you read that right! There was nothing more to be asked from this trek to make it more awesome than it already was! Some of us, like me went as complete strangers in the beginning only to return with awesome new friends and great memories…. guess that’s what treks do to you.
Day treks in BASC are literally like adventure on steroids! Never miss them!!.
Adios folks, hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it down!
Join Bangalore ASCENDers @ CLICK HERE Written by: Saurab Rao
Date: September 28th and 29th
Event organized by: Patrick Samuel
Image Gallery:
Arjun Ashok, Prateek Seth, Srivasta Sharma
The Crew: Girish Motwani, Patrick, Krushi Deep M, Harshit, Arjun Ashok, Manohara, Ramya Manohar, Saurab Rao, Rajesh R, Channappa Sajjanar, Madan Kumar, Sumeet Kawali, Srivatsa Narsimh Sharma, Sandeep ks, Pritish Nandanwar, Deepak Saran, Sanju Bhai, Prateek
Best write up on Kaurav Kunda so far!! Keep it up Saurab!!
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