It's been some time since I had trekked, so I badly wanted to do a proper trek, no matter how small it may be, we zeroed in on a hill near pallikonda, since it was the only one we have avoided along the higway around vellore.
infact I had grossly underestimated its thoughness and had really thought the trek can be finished in half an hour,but we got quite a few pleasant surprises during the trek.
We reached pallikonda around 6.50AM so by the time we reached the hill base it was 7.00,
as we neared we found barbed wire fences around the base, enquiring a passing localite for entering the hill
we found that we had to go through the forest office round the corner, this was a big surprise as we never knew this hill was treated as a forest range (though isolated and small) fair enough we did find one and started our trek.
It was a foggy winter morning and hill was covered with dense fog and cloud.
As most hills like these which are near civilization in india will invariably have a small temple up there, this one had too and there were some steps which were laid for few feets, after that there were some mud based trail which was supposed to lead to it, such paths are usuallly good for some first time trekkers, but hey! I'm not the ones to take it as I usually trek to get a sense of adventure.
So as usual we took the wilder route for our ascend, and it turned out to be quite a unique one for us. The hill was covered with thick grasses due to recent rain and it was covered with lots of morning dew, slowly as we ascended we started feeling our pants and shoes getting wet, by the time we reached some height it was quite wet.On our way we found some birds (obviously it tough clicking them as they are not very photo friendly so no pics) and a gang of slimy worms every now and then which we had to carefully avoid.
Never underestimate..
Half and hour had passed since we started and as per my calculation we should have finished our trek by now, but we were no where near the peak(ahem.. mountaineers pls excuse), its a strange thing, when things don't go according to your calculation mind starts playing games and suddenly mujju (my trek partner, in case you are new to chronicles of my treks) was feeling hungry and I was feeling thirsty, (Old readers of my chronicles please excuse and kindly wander your attention to other life's problems as you won't be interested in next few lines)
Ah yes, my dear new readers... yes I know you would suggest why not dig in my bag and get a pack of snacks and a bottle of elixir saved for such occasions, but alas! I want you to pay attention to our trek rules we have set, "No water.. no snacks.." and this has time and again made our lives miserable, and since this was a early morning trek, our stomach was practically empty, except for a little cup of tea,
So we started to feel that we will not make it to the peak and would have to return halfway back.
"shame, shame.. calling yourself trekkers.." well that was the call from inside, and some how this made us go forth with some purpose after all one has their own image to live up to.. Atleast I learned a lesson to "never underestimate" a hill as sometimes experience can be misleading (it's a different matter if I will remember it though).
Halfway..Perfect photo opportunity
As we neared half way it started getting a bit dense with more trees showing up, it had a feel of forest and we started liking it, we found a big rock which we used up to rest and were, here we clicked some snaps, and I pretty much found the perfect photo op of sun rays filtering through clouds which I have been trying to take for long, also since it was foggy, the feel was we were between the clouds and the pics turned out real great.
Another Management Lesson..
We started estimating our chances of reaching the peak in our present condition and we were feeling still negative about it, the peak looked really far for some reason after lot of delibrations I said let's climb till a certain rock which seemed to be at a reachable height, mujahid commented "Small goals always helps in achieving bigger goals", Ah! good old management lesson, well atleast it did and after some struggle reaching the rock made the peak within reaching distance,
Mujju took the initiative for the final assault and we managed to reach it atlast.
Reaching the peak reconfirmed the old satisfaction that a trek is incomplete unless you reach the peak, the back side was densely covered with thick trees and bushes, I suspect there should be some mid-size wild animals atleast as we found some unfamiliar animal "shit" (pardon my language)
We took some pics and rested on top, we badly wanted to dry our feets so we let the shoes dry on the sun.
After a while we descended, and it turned out a little tricky as I got some bad impacts due to slipping, we were careful to follow a safe descent route and we pretty much took the muddy trail down for most part.
by the time we reached the base it was 9.50, so all in all it was a trek almost close to 3 hours which was good and refreshing.
I would definitely recommend it to others if they are looking for a quick adventure over a weekend.
More pics of hill are here Trek pics
infact I had grossly underestimated its thoughness and had really thought the trek can be finished in half an hour,but we got quite a few pleasant surprises during the trek.
We reached pallikonda around 6.50AM so by the time we reached the hill base it was 7.00,
as we neared we found barbed wire fences around the base, enquiring a passing localite for entering the hill
we found that we had to go through the forest office round the corner, this was a big surprise as we never knew this hill was treated as a forest range (though isolated and small) fair enough we did find one and started our trek.
It was a foggy winter morning and hill was covered with dense fog and cloud.
As most hills like these which are near civilization in india will invariably have a small temple up there, this one had too and there were some steps which were laid for few feets, after that there were some mud based trail which was supposed to lead to it, such paths are usuallly good for some first time trekkers, but hey! I'm not the ones to take it as I usually trek to get a sense of adventure.
So as usual we took the wilder route for our ascend, and it turned out to be quite a unique one for us. The hill was covered with thick grasses due to recent rain and it was covered with lots of morning dew, slowly as we ascended we started feeling our pants and shoes getting wet, by the time we reached some height it was quite wet.On our way we found some birds (obviously it tough clicking them as they are not very photo friendly so no pics) and a gang of slimy worms every now and then which we had to carefully avoid.
 |
| Heavy dew drops on grasses which dampened our shoes... and yes I know my photography sucks! |
 |
| Slimy worms present all along the way.. (don't puke now) |
Never underestimate..
Half and hour had passed since we started and as per my calculation we should have finished our trek by now, but we were no where near the peak(ahem.. mountaineers pls excuse), its a strange thing, when things don't go according to your calculation mind starts playing games and suddenly mujju (my trek partner, in case you are new to chronicles of my treks) was feeling hungry and I was feeling thirsty, (Old readers of my chronicles please excuse and kindly wander your attention to other life's problems as you won't be interested in next few lines)
Ah yes, my dear new readers... yes I know you would suggest why not dig in my bag and get a pack of snacks and a bottle of elixir saved for such occasions, but alas! I want you to pay attention to our trek rules we have set, "No water.. no snacks.." and this has time and again made our lives miserable, and since this was a early morning trek, our stomach was practically empty, except for a little cup of tea,
So we started to feel that we will not make it to the peak and would have to return halfway back.
"shame, shame.. calling yourself trekkers.." well that was the call from inside, and some how this made us go forth with some purpose after all one has their own image to live up to.. Atleast I learned a lesson to "never underestimate" a hill as sometimes experience can be misleading (it's a different matter if I will remember it though).
 |
| Nearing halfway and it started getting dense with lots of small trees. |
Halfway..Perfect photo opportunity
As we neared half way it started getting a bit dense with more trees showing up, it had a feel of forest and we started liking it, we found a big rock which we used up to rest and were, here we clicked some snaps, and I pretty much found the perfect photo op of sun rays filtering through clouds which I have been trying to take for long, also since it was foggy, the feel was we were between the clouds and the pics turned out real great.
 |
| A feel of being on cloud.. |
 |
| brief moment of sun rays filtering through fog and we almost got the perfect pic. |
Another Management Lesson..
We started estimating our chances of reaching the peak in our present condition and we were feeling still negative about it, the peak looked really far for some reason after lot of delibrations I said let's climb till a certain rock which seemed to be at a reachable height, mujahid commented "Small goals always helps in achieving bigger goals", Ah! good old management lesson, well atleast it did and after some struggle reaching the rock made the peak within reaching distance,
Mujju took the initiative for the final assault and we managed to reach it atlast.
Reaching the peak reconfirmed the old satisfaction that a trek is incomplete unless you reach the peak, the back side was densely covered with thick trees and bushes, I suspect there should be some mid-size wild animals atleast as we found some unfamiliar animal "shit" (pardon my language)
 |
| Attitude on top! |
We took some pics and rested on top, we badly wanted to dry our feets so we let the shoes dry on the sun.
After a while we descended, and it turned out a little tricky as I got some bad impacts due to slipping, we were careful to follow a safe descent route and we pretty much took the muddy trail down for most part.
by the time we reached the base it was 9.50, so all in all it was a trek almost close to 3 hours which was good and refreshing.
I would definitely recommend it to others if they are looking for a quick adventure over a weekend.
More pics of hill are here Trek pics
Hi.. can you please share the exact location
ReplyDeleteSorry for late reply, I have stopped writing for a while now. Anyway this hill in near a town called pallikonda, tamilnadu on NH7 ( Chennai Bangalore highway)
DeleteSorry for late reply, I have stopped writing for a while now. Anyway this hill in near a town called pallikonda, tamilnadu on NH7 ( Chennai Bangalore highway)
ReplyDelete