Trek to KuntiBetta

Date: Sept 11, 2010

Origin: Bangalore

Mode of Travel: Bus

Group: Dimple, Rahul and I. Total 16.

The Route: Follow Mysore Road(SH-17) from Bangalore. Cross Mandya ( the sugarcane capital of Karnataka) and turn right for Pandavapura. Before the town, there is a right turn (GPS: 12.4976507, 76.6936684) and have sign boards in Kannada.The way is full of magnificent view with sugarcane fields all around, lots of greenery and raw sugarcane mills.

The Trek: The trek till top takes around 2 to 3 hours with 5 KMs en route, filled with lots of rocks. We went with the BMC (http://bmcindia.org/). Nandish was the lead and was very helpful in guiding and pulling people up the rocks. We had breakfast on the way and packed our lunch at Pandavapura.We started with a formal introduction of the entire group and headed towards top.Thanks to weather god, it was neither raining nor shining. The rocks were wet at quite a few places but overall it was all right. Nandish lead the way and we all followed him. I must say the team was pretty good; even though some people were doing trekking for the first time including Rahul. There were only two points which were difficult in the complete trekking;where the rocks were really very steep and the passage was very narrow.It was a nice teamwork and each one of us helped others in getting through. Finally,after 2 hours of trekking we reached on top; and must say the view was really awesome from there;"nature's beauty at the best". It was such a nice feeling after reaching on top. We actually were late and other people in the group had already reached on top. We took a few photographs after which we had our pre-packed lunch. The team had geared up some energy by then; after having lunch; jokes and photograph session.We all shared a nice time together on top and then started moving down. We took another way this time, and reached at the bottom. After coming down, we all took some rest. There were a few villagers; who had come along with their flock of sheep. They were really very nice and brought one cute lamb to us. It was really very cute; but it was scared of us.We got an opportunity to have a photo with it. We were all dying to see the lake; and we all took our life-jackets and headed towards the lake. The way was really difficult;as all the plants had grown due to rainy season.It was more difficult than trekking. Somehow we managed through the way and reached to the lake bed. We changed and moved into the water;the lake bed was really slippery, filled with algae and mud. The water was relaxing and all the tiredness after being in water for sometime went off completely. The entire group didn't participate;they were only spectators and enjoying outside. We didn't go further in the lake rather we were on the bed side; as Nandish suggested no to do so. After sometime,we all came out of water and drove back towards Bangalore.We stopped at Tea-point and had tea,coffee along with masala puri. We exchanged our mail id's and started back towards Bangalore.Nandish took off from us at this point as he had to go for another trip. While coming back we again had an adventurous trip as the driver was feeling sleepy, it was raining and moreover he was doing a rash driving. Finally, one after the other people left the cab and we returned back to our starting point (PIZZA HUT,OLD AIRPORT ROAD) after a marvelous trip !!!!!