Conquering BALLARAYANA DURGA!

Day 2 was the the D-day. We were asked to be ready by 8:00 AM, we were all geared up had our breakfast by 8:30 packed our lunch boxes filled our water bottles and we're ready to conquer BALLARAYANA DURGA. We started our trail by 9:00. Initially the trail consisted of fields and coffee plantation, and we could see the peak right over our head,we could also see magnificent waterfalls in the mountains, at a certain point we had to cross a river, right after that point stared our trail. The path consisted of slippery rocks and streams by our side. After walking for about 4-5 Kms we reached a water fall, rested for some while clicked some pictures and went on towards our trail. Again walking in the forest looking at the recent landslides that had taken place there enjoying the trail, crossing waterfalls crossing streams filling out Bootles with fresh mountain water, and after 5kms we exited the forest and we were in the mountains, once we were there we forgot about everything and we were just climbing and hiking and we reached a peak and the view from up there was mind boggling, as I have told earlier pictures won't even make 1percent of justice to such kind of places. One moment we could see the mountains and in the next movement it would get covered with fog. We started walking again, I have literally lost count of how many mountains we climbed up and climbed down that day and by 1:30 in the afternoon we had reached our lunch point. Our lunch point was a small lake which was called UPINAGUNDI. We had our lunch there and stared walking again towards a place called SHIVA NA BAGILU (which in English translates to THE DOOR OF SHIVA). SHIVANA BAGILU was the entry point toward the fort in the medival time. We spent some time there and started our trek back to the BALLARAYANA DURGA FORT. (Actually the fort is destroyed now and we can only see the compound walls of a one great fort. The walls of the fort could be seen running all around the mountains.)
After walking some time we could see the walls of the fort. We reached there and man! What an treat to the eye it was. It was like 2 eyes were not enough to enjoy the view. All around us was lush green mountains like I just can't describe it in words that great view it was. We could also see KUDREMUKA PEAK from there.It was already 4:00 in the evening when we reached the fort. We spent some time there and stared descending down toward our end point. By time we started our journey back it was 4:45 and we started walking and we were literally walking amidst clouds. It stared drizzling a little bit. Man that was magical. We reached our end point by 5:30. We had a jeep waiting for us to take us back to the base camp. While coming back we witnessed a crazy, mind blowing sunset. We reached our stay by 6:00 freshened up had a good dinner chilled around the camp fire and had a good night's sleep.

Day 3(6-10-2019) strated with rain in the morning we got up and we had a sport activity planned,which was mud volley ball. We had lots of fun. In the beginning it was raining later the sun came out. We had crazy fun. After the game we had our breakfast and we went to a water fall which was insane! We enjoyed there. Cane back had our lunch packed our bags and left the sweet little stay by 4:30 in the evening, with lot of memories, and hell lot of pictures. We reached Mysore by 10:30pm. It's been 2 days since I came back, only my physical body is here in Mysore. My soul is lost in BALLARAYANA DURGA!

Ballarayana Durga is one of the peak(on top of the peak is a fort which is now destroyed.), in KUDREMUKA NATIONAL PARK. We started our journey from MYSURU towards DURGADAHALLI village which was our base camp on 4 October 2019. The journey was about 213kms and took 5 and half hours to reach there. Our stay for the next 3days was a sweet little homestay called DURGADAHALLI homestay. We reached there by 2:30PM, had lunch rested for some time and in the evening went towards a view point which was about a 4kms away from our stay. Once I reached there the view just took my breath away literally we were above clouds, pictures won't make justice to such place. We chilled there for some time and came back by 6:30pm to the stay. And the next day was the day of the trek!