Night trek at Antaragange

This was my first trip with Bangalore Mountaineering Club (BMC). In fact, I cancelled my Chennai trip, as I thought night trek should be amazing. I always wanted to trek at night. The trek was at Antaragange, about 60km from Bangalore, near Kolar. Anyways, only 3 ppl from the Bekal trip could make it this time. The pick up point was Symphony theater (Now Shankarnag) in MG Road. I was expecting around 20 - 25 people, but as it turned out there were more than 60 ppl. Though at that time I was pretty excited seeing the crowd (Girls out numbered guys!!!!), but in hindsight BMC should have limited the number of participants to around 25. In any case, they kept us waiting for a while, before it dawned on them that the bus was in the next street and it would be better if we walked to it. Anyways, finally at about 10.30pm we left Bangalore. It was almost 1.00am when we reached Antaragange.

We began our ascent at about 1.15 am. Just then I realized I had left the memory chip at home and so my camera was pretty useless for the trip. Dodo, as usual, was clicking photos after photos. It was such a wonderful experience scaling the peak under the moon light. Finally, we , reached the top at about 2.30am and rested for a while. In fact we waited for quite a bit, for almost an hour before word came that the normal entrance to the cave was closed and that they were finding an alternate entrance. Finally, they found an alternate entrance, but it was too steep and risky. Only few people managed to explore the cave while we were waiting outside, awaiting our chance. Finally, it became too late for others to go inside the cave and we had to return, completely disappointed. Anyways, we thought at least the Sun god will not disappoint us and we waited at the top even as the cold breeze was embracing us. We were already soaking in the breathtaking view of the city beneath, when finally dawn broke. But there were too many clouds, yet again! And we just satisfied ourselves by clicking few more photos of ourselves. And we made our back in the bus, which had come to the top to pick us.

It was a nice trip but it would have been really great had we explored the cave. The sad part was BMC was not even ready to take the blame even partially, which makes me think if I will go along with them again. Anyways, I need to make few more trips with BMC to really recommend them to anyone, which am also little reluctant to do. Only BMC has to prove me wrong.