Hemagiri Betta, Kunigal Tq.

This was our first trek-to-be in 3 years since we came to Bangalore. It was during those hey days in Mysore, that we used to have extensive trekking programmes in the western ghats in Karnataka. Now, Bangalore had put us onto a life-on-fast-track, and we badly wanted to come out of that, hence this venture! Our first target, with the current setup, is to cover places of interest around Bangalore, which are lesser known to the junta. Read on to know more of one such place!

Our regular habit of googling led us to know of a place called Huliyurdurga in Kunigal taluk. Actually, we set off there. As usual, we left by around 08:45, and hit Tumkur road. Since it was not a Sunday, there was some heavy traffic near Peenya. After Nelamangala, we took left onto NH48, to reach Kunigal. NH48 is a 2-lane scenic highway that connects Bangalore-Hassan-Mangalore.

On the road to Kunigal you will see such hillocks here and there.

NH48 (Nelamangala-Kunigal stretch).

Kunigal is famous for lakes, and you find a lot of such lakes in the entire taluk.

The stretch along Kunigal – Huliyurdurga.

At Kunigal, we entered the town and took left onto the state higway that goes from Kunigal to Kollegal via Maddur. It is on this road that our destination was – Huliyurdurga. On reaching there, we saw that Huliyurdurga was being dwarfed by another hill – Hemagiri betta!

After some enquiry with the locals, we set off, deciding to climb this hill, which has a temple at its base, and a mutt in ruins atop. The base to the hill is past the village of huliyurdurga, after a govt. college. Well this is definitely not the ‘hemagiri maTha’ that was seen in TN Seetharam’s ‘Mukta’ (ETV-Kannada)!

Hemagiri betta is about 3800ft. high and is one of the highest hills in this range. The forest here mostly has shrubs, especially a lot of lantana. We started the climb by about 11:30. We pulled in 2 kids – Lakshman and Praveen as the local guides. Well, the fact they were more confused about the route than us is a different matter altogether!

Start of the trek.

With the (mis) guides!

Nice huh!

Hero of the jungle

The route that we took to climb was that face of the hill which was supposedly the steepest. Nevertheless, we put ourselves to test and attempted it. After around half an hour of upclimb, we were met with a huge face of rock that could not be climbed without ropes. We stopped there for a break, while I and the 2 kids (guides) went in different directions to search for a route. We discovered that it was not possible to proceed to the right, and continued to the left. After the first clearing, we were surprised to the see that there is still more to clilmb. Every now and then, we used to listen to the golden words from those kids – that the summit is just over that top! After 2 clearings (over the top), we realized that there is another climb to be made to reach the peak. Since it was about to rain, we took a conscious decision to start descending. It was only while descending that we realized the gradient that we had conquered in the upclimb.

Look at the zigzag route that we took!

By the time we reached the foothill, it had started to rain. We took the blessings of Lord Varadaraja in his Udbhava Moorthy, and started back by around 14:30. On the way back, we pulled along the side of the road to have some chapatis, sabji, and cheese. The rest of the drive back was pretty uneventful, except for the rain and traffic that accompanied us. So that was, another nice weekend!

Trivia:

Bangalore – Nelamangala : 28 km.

Nelamangala – Kunigal : 44 km.

Kunigal – Huliyurdurga : 22 km.

Huliyurdurga – Hemagiri : 2 km.