Trek to Ballarayanadurga Fort

Date: 8th Feb 2015

Trekkers: Arun, Ashok, Bharani, Sreekanth, Shashi, Sunil, Siddharth, Akshay, Ankit, Abhilash and Naveen.

Difficulty: High

Duration: 3Hrs

Distance: Aprox, 4Km one way.

The team started from GiriSiri home stay at 9 AM.

Prasanna,  the homestay owner was our guide for the trek.

He took us in his open 4x4 till the base of the hill.

The drive to the base point was very rough.

We parked the jeep and started our journey and we were clueless what lies ahead.

The team started with full enthusiasm and some were even running.

Then the real test started.

The mountain range was awesome.

Except couple of people others had no or very less experience trekking.

Myself, Naveen, Abhilash and Bharani were the left behind and suddenly a flight of bees flew over our head. Scary moment. All of us just threw ourself on the ground to escape from the angry bees. First adventure :)

This was the one difficult part. There was 2 option to cross here. 1. climb up this small peak or walk on the side.

Akshay, Siddharth and Shashi climbed up and others decided to walk around.

The side route turned out to be dangerous as there was only place to keep one step. This section was bit scary else the whole trek was safe.

Team resting after reaching half way. From here on the trek was smooth without much adventure.

Trek route along the cliff. Awesome isn't it? :)

View of beautiful green mountain range

Walk through the clouds. Though it was very bright and sunny it was not very hot. The clouds also helped us from getting exhausted.

View of the fort atop the hill.

The wall constructed along the mountain range.
Gorgeous view of the hill. Worth all the effort. 

View from above the clouds.

Few more snaps of the green smooth mountain.

Finally reached the fort. Everyone was very thirsty. Carry enough water.

So after all the effort what was there inside the fort? A cow shed :) Yes a cow shed. It was used to hold the cows that the villagers nearby bring for grazing.

Prasanna said there is also another place to see but everyone was too thirsty and decided to give it a miss.

We started the journey back.
We took a different route downward and that turned out to be much more safer with a proper path. This path did not have those beautiful views.

Prasanna said he took us through that path because he wanted to make our trek a memorable one and it truly was.

At the end we were glad we too that route.

One of the pics i liked in this set.

Prasanna guiding bharani.

Sreekanth claiming victory after climbing halfway ;)

On the way back there was a place where a small stream starts. This was the only place to get water. The water was stagnant but clean. Though skeptical we still had the water because we were drained completely.

Spent around 30 min atop the hill. Some of us had good photo session :)

Jubilant gang posing for a group pic and that brings the end to one of the memorable trip.