Velliangiri trek

Region : Velliangiri Hills, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu(near Isha yoga center)
Peak Height : 2240 meters / 7349 ft
Difficulty level: Moderate to Difficult

Trek Details:

Vellingiri trek is like a video game with different levels where after finishing every level the next one comes with more challenges, after every hill you finish there is another hill in front of you waiting for you, ready to offer you more beauty in return for your hard work. It is not only a test to your physical fitness, it is also a test to your will power.

Vellingiri hill is located 40KM away from Coimbatore, near to Isha yoga center. 14D bus from Gandhipuram town bus stand will take until isha yoga center, from there share autos will be there to POONDI temple where the climbing starts, there are direct buses to poondi temple, but the frequency is less compared to the ISHA buses. We have to climb total 7 hills and the difficulty level is moderate for the people who do trekking and difficult for first timers.

On every pournami between Feb to June people climb this hill, most of them are villagers on Yatra to take darshan of Lord shiva temple on the seventh hill. People climb the mountain at night and see sun rise at 7th peak and climb down by noon. Ladies from age 14 to 45 are not allowed to do this trek.

Trek experience:

First hill:

We (total 11 members) started climbing at 11 am, except me all others were climbing vellingiri for the the first time. First hill alone consists of 1800 steps which is equal to the total steps of the 7 hills of Tirupati. You will be climbing inside the forest which is not that much dense. Before starting the trek, all my friends imagined about this trek as walking, playing and running on the plain grass lands surrounded by hills, but after climbing some 1000 steps for almost 45 minutes, the reality hit them and the expressions on their faces(including mine) got changed, all were in some shock. It is like you expected a 20% hike and all you got is 20 rupees per month.

Almost 90 minutes got completed but there was no sign of the small temple which is present at the start of the second hill, finally after two hours we reached the temple. Myself along Bala finished the first hill last, when we reached the temple, all others were sitting there waiting for us, few went into deep sleep. All the faces were telling one thing- 'Six more hills..impossible....no way....i am going back'.

Bala and myself tried to convince others by explaining the beauty of the seventh hill, but that did not work so we tried to hurt their ego by saying ' look at that old lady, she is 60 years old and climbing'. Surender's ego got hurt and joined us immediately, one by one we convinced all others and started climbing second hill.

First Hill- 1800 steps like this

Second hill to sixth hill:

No difference...same steep steps, same hot sun, same feeling. we took rest for every 150-200 steps, after some 30 minutes a place came where a small stream of fresh water is coming from the top, the water was so tasty, after this place only at 6th hill you can get water, so fill your bottles here. Slowly we finished second and third hills.

The view gets better from fourth hill as the path goes away from the forest, you start feeling the chillness in the air. The 4,5 and 6th hills are somewhat easier to climb compared to the first three. After finishing the 5th hill we saw the 7th hill, that sight of that long hill far away from us made us feel more tired, but then another old lady walking slowly with the support of a long stick crossed us.

View of 7th hill, that rock at the top is where the temple(shiva linga) is located

From fifth hill you will get to see the beauty of the vellingiri hills, to the left side of the path you can see the hills and valleys and to the right side you can see the thick forest. At the end of the sixth hill you have to climb down for some 15-20 minutes, then you reach a small pool(very small), the water in the pool is always ice cold irrespective of the season and the time you reach there, villagers say that taking bath in this water is good as it comes from the hills full of herbs, but if you go during pournami time, the water will be full of dirt as lot of people take bath in that small pool.

near 5th hill

Seventh hill:

Now comes the most toughest and the most beautiful part of the trek- seventh hill. Climbing Seventh hill is tough, coz it is so steep. You can see the top of the hill, it looks like it is very near to you, so you start climbing fast......30 minutes gets over...it still looks near to you....45 min.....60 min.....then you will realize that it is like the fake water mirages that you see on the roads, you never reach that place, it is like running a race on treadmill. So instead of trying to reach the top fast, it is better to enjoy the beauty of the seventh hill.

The view from the seventh hill is fabulous and worthy of the hard work we did for the past 6 hours. we started climbing the seventh hill around 5.30 pm, the view of the floating clouds was mesmerizing, after some 20-30 minutes of climb we were in clouds, a big cloud got passed us, almost for some 10 minutes we could not able to see anything in the front.

Unfortunately by that time we reached 7th hill, cell phone and camera batteries got dried up, so we could not able to take much photos of 7th hill

We reached the top around 7PM, it started raining with lightning and thunders, the view of lightning at a height of 2km above the sea level is breath taking, fortunately after some 10 minutes the rain got stopped.

The climate on the top was so cool, we didnt bring any blankets with us, so there was no way we can stay there in the night, so we decided to return back. We took darshan of lord shiva, it was a very small temple which is under a huge rock, after the darshan we started climbing down. If you start the climbing during midnight and reach the top by 5, you can see the sun rise from the top.

The big rock at the top of the 7th hill

Climbing down the seventh hill was so funny, the seventh hill was so slippery, so we crawled the whole hill down slowly. Climbing down during night is some what difficult, because you need to watch out your each and every step, you cannot afford to hurt yourself in middle of that forest. It will take very less time to climb down as you wont get tired much. we reached down by 1.

If you do not have Velliangiri in your bucket list yet, it’s time you add it to the list and make it a point to visit this awesome place, some time in next summer between jan and may. You will not regret it!

Take blankets and some food so that you can stay in night there, because vellingiri trek is incomplete without sleeping under the stars and watching sun rise. If you got any queries about the trek, post them in comment section below.........bye.....and Please dont leave any waste on the hill, carry a bag to put all the waste along with you.....

                                                                                         Finally myself at 7th hill      (this time we didnt take the gang photo, every one was too tired to take photos, all they wanted to do was to finish the trek and go back to home)