The climb to the top of Arunachala

They say the best time to climb the hill is very early in the morning, that you really need to be done and finished by late morning due to the heat (and this is their winter) So just like both of my Pradakshina walks I chose later in the day and in this case I started at 10am on Wednesday.

The walk to Skandashram is about 30 minutes where I spent maybe 30 minutes sitting in Ramanas little room before heading out the back gate of the ashram and up the hill.

As you can see from this set of images it is a very steep and difficult path, if indeed path is the correct word to use. 

 

It’s a good five to six hours in total and from what I can see you could get yourself into a lot of trouble on this hill through heat exhaustion. It gets very hot as you go higher and then the humidity increases as well. I took two litres of water and still ran out with close to an hour to go, there was plenty of cloud cover that day so was probably quite fortunate, next time will either be early or late. Many people go up while still dark using torches so they can see the sun rise or stay late until the sun goes down which means coming down in the dark, which would be a bit interesting.

The climb up the hill is difficult enough but the climb down is much harder due to the different muscle groups used. You have to watch every step very carefully on the way down, there are many places you could take a tumble and you definitely wouldn’t want to be hurting yourself up there and relying on the local medical services, that’s if they could successfully get you off the hill in one piece. Can’t imagine what sort of shambles the rescue services would be like.

 

The very top of the hill. 

It's all blackened as they light fires and melt ghee, all sticky and smells of butter

 

Then there's another rock just nearby, this one I climbed up on, it's probably the same height. Interesting you can see that someone has somehow hauled a very large and heavy rock onto the top of it, how on earth they did that I don't know. But then a human chain of maybe 300 Indian men might manage it ok.

 

All the way up I was crossing paths with three others. This guy was Russian, couldn't speak a word of English (but then it's always funny how they can say "I speak no English" !)

 

This one was German then there was another older American guy but I didn't get a decent photo of him. he was maybe mid-60s and had climbed up there four times.

 

And as usual, you get the standard money hungry Sadhu. This one wouldn't touch money, you had to put it on a rock and leave it there (but I sure that sooner later he would touch it !) He wanted to give blessings but none of us who converged at the top at that time wanted his blessings so we sort of paid him not to !

 

Then on the way down this very cool family of Lemurs to top the day off. They were so beautiful, unlike the "common as muck" grey riff-raff Mecarques that are everywhere.

Pradakshina – The Inner Path

 When I say “Inner Path” that could of course mean, “Inner Path” or “Inner Path”, depending on which perspective you are looking at it from. Either way, today (Tuesday) I walked the Inner path around Arunachala. Last week I walked the Outer Path (which in and of itself could also be considered an “Inner Path”)  on the 14km of various public roads and footpaths by the many millions who do so every year. The Inner Path follows the hill around but for the most part is on bush land close in at the very foot of the hill. A fairly rough path in most places means you have to watch every step but it’s very beautiful and very peaceful most of the way as it is far enough away from the madness of the roads, the crowds and all the noise. Interesting to note also that very few Indians will do this route but those of you who have spent time in India will not be one little bit surprised by that. I’m guessing it’s maybe 12km-13km on this path and I must have really taken my time as it took 6 ½ hours. I had lots of little stops and wandered off the track here and there to look at different things, chat to a few people here and there.

One thing I can tell you that there is no question this is a very powerful place. I can’t explain this as I just don’t understand how these things work but one thing I am coming to understand is that there is a real reason why so many millions of people visit this hill and why for several thousand years so many saints and holy men have gravitated to this area and lived on the hill itself. I’m not going to say any more about this because I don’t want to come across as loopy but all I can say is that we all know that we have certain places we prefer to live, like to visit or just be close because they make us feel a certain way, this place seems to be quite extraordinary in that way.

Tomorrow I am going to the top of the hill, as Arnie would say “It is time !”