Pushpagiri Trek

Trekking is something I enjoy a lot and has done quite a bit while I was at Pune as well as during my Stay at Bangalore (Will write about them in other entry...hopefully). It was high time to do some treks from Mysore and did a small one in January to Kunthibetta followed by a better one to Pushpagiri in mid-Feb.

It's probably end of the Trek season since it was quite hot during the day time but it was enjoyable nevertheless. Pushpagiri is approx 45 km from Kushal nagar and 140 km from Mysore. Thanks to the westeren ghats for the last 20 km or so, it took us almost 3-3.5 hrs to reach the village Beedahalli which is base for the Pushpagiri trek. Now most of the folks trek for overnight stay at the top (rather most can be replaced by all since we did not found anyone, apart from our group, doing day trek).

Total Trek is of 7 km one way as well as add 1 km for the walk till forest check point. There is an entry fee of 200 INR per person to be paid to forest guards as start of trek. First 2-3 km are in dense jungle with nice shadow and negligible slope. Real fun begins after that as there are couple of rocky patches which needs to be tackled to gain quick height. Basically 3-5/5.5 km is what tires one while at the same time provides amazing view of western ghats to relax. Last couple of km at again easy and one suddenly reaches the top. There is good flat plateau at the top for those who wants to stay overnight though there are no structures etc. for shelter. Few important thing to take care are

• Availability of water since there is no water after first 2 km and it's important to carry enough water.
• For day trek, ensure to start the trek by 9 am. For overnight stay, it will be ok to start by 12 pm also since it takes 3-5 hours depending on number and duration of breaks taken.
• Again, for day trekkers, plan for the cut-off time for reaching the top and decide accordingly since trekking back in dark will not be fun, specially if it's unplanned.

Here are some pictures from the trek as well as the details from wiki. Pushpagiri Details

Start of the Trek -Jungle

Rocky Patch at mid-way

At the top, Beautiful Western Ghats

End of Trek - Fellow trekkers

Baden & Pizol Switzerland

Recently I travelled to Baden, Switzerland for a short trip; this one was really short n sweet trip. Did not got chance to do much sight seeing or travel around this time since apart from it being short, weather was extremely cold, so stepping out of home/office was generally not that interesting :). But this trip brought back the memories of time I have spent there earlier.

Baden - Bird's view

I lived at Baden for a whole year in 2007 working there on one of my professional assignments and did travelled quite a bit in Switzerland. First place to visit was of-course Baden and must say it's one of the real nice towns I have seen around in Europe; Small, scenic & lively town (on the scale of liveliness European small towns have & not comparing with India). Here top get more info about Baden from Wikipedia: Baden 


Some of the more memorable places in Switzerland are, strictly my opinion and experience, Interlaken (of course), Grindelwald Zurich city, Lucerne, Locarno, Bern, Zermatt etc. Apart from these famous places, there were couple of trips to not so well known places to tourist which were really enjoyable. Few of those are Pizol, Sihlsee & Rigi Klum. All these were more like walk/hike trips with Pizol being most fun. Pizol is famous for 5 pristine mountain lakes and one gains height of 2200 meter during hike. Have put the pictures of the 5 mountain  lakes and these are from personal trip :). For more info on Pizol, here is wiki link: Pizol

Pizol - Lake 1

Pizol - Lake 3

Pizol - Lake 3

Pizol - Lake 4

Pizol - Lake 5