MOUNTAINEERING SKILLS

     Each country has a unique way of kindling the adventure spirit of its fellow citizens. In the western society the thrill of pushing the limits of human endeavor might be reason enough to prod them on mountain climbing, extensive trekking, white water rafting ,  sky diving and what not. For the home bound compatriot like me, an entirely different impetus is required to stir us on. Yes, put a temple on the hill top and make us prod up. Open a temple in tiger reserve and embolden the common man to dare enter the beast’s realm. Well anyway, the result is achieved and a robust health is bestowed on the adventurer.

I’m basically an arm chair sportsman and exercise of any sort is strictly off my vocabulary. I would rather use a bike to cross the road rather than walk it up. For such a person, you will be amazed at my repeated attempts at mountaineering (well, at least small heights). My first attempt was an utter disaster which a sensible person will refrain from recollecting. We were in college then, and as part of the extra curricular activities we were asked to climb the Valanadu Hill which was close to our locality. This is a small hill with abundant flora and fauna. Our teacher split us into two batches and set us up on a competition in scaling the hill.  She needn’t have bothered, for from the very start our batch of bookworms was trailing and in fact I was bringing up the rear. When we were half way through, the other batch was returning after the climb. Some of my friends tried to motivate us saying there was a naked sadhu up the hill. But nothing could pep up our spirits, so our teacher ordered us down. This we did with great speed.

The next attempt was at the hill of Sravanabelagola, (also called Vindhyagiri or Per-kalbappu), which looms majestically at 3347 feet above sea level. From the base a flight of 614 steps, finely carved from the granite of the mountain, leads to the summit, where a great statue of Sri Gomatheswar stands. Just before the climb, as if by cue, my sister and I  some got into some kind of  a match of breaking the groundnut shell and popping the nut into our mouth.  we began feeling the after effects when  we started to climb those steps. The entire family containing old and very young  members had briskly climbed up while both of us were left mid way through. I explained to my sister that the hill was whirling while she corrected that it was our blockhead. We were at last left having covered only some 200 steps, holding our whirling head from spinning off and desperately clutching on to the floor. Well, we returned again defeated this time too.

It’s not for nothing they say “He who fights and runs away, will live to fight another day”. That could be said for climbing too. My third chance came when along with my colleagues and a family of military veterans went to the Vaishno devi shrine. The shrine is about 5200 feet above sea level. The 13km uphill walk to the Bhawan where the main deity is available took me a solid 6 hours. If not for the constant support, cheering and joking of my friends I could certainly not have made it. If my family members had been around they would have stopped me then and there and my mountain climbing adventures would have ended abruptly. But one fact came to light, my legs were strong and I did not have any limb pain but my lungs took a long time to acclimatize to altitudes. Once I got the hang of it , I made good progress. The next day, from Bhavan we proceeded to Bhairon Ghati (6619 feet above sea level) and my speed of ascend left everybody (including me) gasping.

My next attempt was to Thirupathi. This hill of about 3200 feet above sea level, which is roughly 11 km and over 4000 steps took me a whole six hours to climb. It is said that some veterans finish in less than three hours.

By now  I don’t know whether I was becoming very religious or  a mountain trekker of sorts, for I have climbed the Kottamalai hills near Padavedu. There is an ancient temple of Sri Venugopala swamy that has been discovered and renovated recently. It is open only on Saturdays. It is about 2500 feet above sea level. One has to travel on a specially designed tractor through the ghat road upto certain distance. Further up we had to climb about 350 steep steps to reach the temple.  The steps lead through beautiful iron bridges which cling to the sides of the mountain. The breath taking views make you forget your puffing and panting. But I climbed the height with a much lesser effort than my previous attempts.

My latest triumph was the Shollingur hills. Here there are two hills, each with a temple at the top. The big hill is only 500 feet above sea level with about 1300 steps which is the abode of Lord Narasimhar. The smaller hill which is completely dwarfed by the bigger hill is only about 200 feet and there are 400 steps to climb. While I accomplished the bigger hill with ease, trying the smaller hill too at a stretch made it difficult.  Anyhow I completed the feat.  At this rate, who knows one day I might end up climbing the Mt. Everest too!