Trek to Kabbala Durga Fort

Kabbala Durga Fort is situated at Kabbalu, 20 Kms from Kanakapura & 90 Kms from Bangalore. This is one of the Navadurgas (9 Forts) of Bangalore. There is also a Kabbalamma Temple at the base. Just for the record, this is the 7th Navadurga that I am visiting, only 2 more after this.

I started from home (@Thubarahalli)  around 5:30 AM & picked up my friend at JP Nagar Metro station. After a light breakfast on the way we reached the base of Kabbala Durga Hill around 8 AM. We parked the vehicle on the road-side & started walking across the quarry towards the hill. 

 

 

From far away, we could see some steps on the left side of the hill that looked really steep and a few climbers. In a few minutes we reached the starting point of the trek that had the stone steps. It seemed like the locals consider the hill sacred that they had applied turmeric & kum-kum on each of the step. After a few steps, the path was rocky. 

 

 

Few minutes of walking towards the hill led us to the newly carved steps. The path was really steep and we could see some 200-300 steps.

As we started to climb the steps, we saw a couple coming down without footwear. We started our climb on the steps and it was really steep. We even saw the old path that was really adventurous. We didn’t try that as the railings in that path was missing. 

 

 

In no time we reached the end of the new steps & were on our own to climb the rocks. At some places there were pockets etched on the rocks that was helpful enough to grip your feet while most of the places we had to grip ourselves to the rough part of the rocks.

There were arrows marked to show the direction to climb. After crossing the stone walls one by one, we managed to reach the top entrance around 9 AM. The top of the hill had some flat surface, a pond and an old temple at the far side of the hill. On walking across the top, there was an old building that may be used as infantry/store room at old times.

Meanwhile we saw some locals coming up carrying our National flag as it was our Republic Day. We thought they would tie it above the temple, but they went around the pond & were climbing down a path. Later when we followed their path, we found another small temple, also called the Kabbaladurga Temple. 

 

 

The location of this small temple was fantastic which was at the edge of the cliff, facing the main temple down at Kabbalu. Also you get to see the whole of Kabbalu & surrounding villages from there. The National flag was flying high there along with the local Karnataka flag.

After the recce of the top, I decided to fly my drone to get the aerial views, but as the wind was more I had to wait for the right time. After waiting for a lot of time, the drone finally took off to capture some breathtaking views. Later the drone took off from the old temple at the top. Watch the Drone Video here: “https://youtu.be/Q02i_Wri2Lw”. By this time many other devotees & trekkers joined us at the top.

 

As the sun was getting hotter, we decided to climb down by 11:30. We followed the same path as earlier. The path with steps or carved pockets were manageable but the steep rock was dangerous. Somehow slowly we managed to get down under one hour even after stopping to take some pictures.

 

 

On the way down, we saw many devotees climbing up that too without footwear. Hard to imagine how they were going to complete the climb (up/down) under the hot sun.

Travel tip: Wear good shoes or climb bare foot. Carry enough water. And most of all try to get down before the sun shines bright.

Distance from Bangalore: Around 90 Kms.

Trek Distance & Level: Around 1.5 Kms (one way) & moderate

 

Watch the Drone Video here: “https://youtu.be/Q02i_Wri2Lw”

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Location: “https://maps.app.goo.gl/3yuo7yEnWp39wxv86?g_st=iw”

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