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| Melumalai Trek |
- Place: Melumalai Trek (Tamil Nadu)
- Difficulty: Easy Trek.
- Distance: 100 km x 2 = 200 km.
- Directions: Bangalore > Hosur > Shoolagiri > Melumalai.
- Krew: Manish (Akro), Karthik (Sp).
- Bikes: Pulsar.
- Previous Visit: Bheemana kindi Trek.
- Budget: Rs 275/head (Petrol = 440/2; Breakfast = 110/2)
IN LESS THAN 50 WORDS:
Melumalai is one peaceful trail with 1340 steps and a beautiful summit views. It is also called, Balkonda Rayadurgam as it houses a Bala Kondarayaswamy temple at the summit and is open on Saturday's only. So, we had to pull this one off before the crowd's flocked in. It was Manish's first trek with us, so yeah it was nice to initiate a new member to the krew :)
And this marked 348 days, 55 treks, 12 months, non-stop, since Oct 12th, 2025. This was our 43rd trek in 40 weeks for 2026, with 40 first-time ascents and zero repeats :)
INTRO & PLAN:
Well, the Grand TN expedition was in full roar (Rayakottai, Anchetty Durgam, Ratnagiri Malaikottai, Udedurgam, Mallapadi, Jagadevi Fort, Thattakal Fort, Ankushagiri, Periyamalai, Virabhadra Fort, Maharajakadai Fort Trek, Musattu Malai Trek, Saanarappan Malai Trek, Sanjeevarayan Malai Trek, Arulagiri Fort, Mookankur Malai Trek), and to add some tinder into this expedition, we decided to initiate a new krew member (Manish) with an easy trek - but a new place.
TIME: 18:00 (25 Sep, 2026)
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| Ready to reel another one in. |
ASSEMBLE & LEAVE:
Yeah, was up by 03:30 AM, the usual. Stretched a bit, had coffee and left my home at 04:15. The first part of stretch involved riding the dark streets of Bangalore to Hosur, which is about 50 kilometers away. Put in some doom metal, and cruised along in a jiffy. Now with the strict NO GOOGLE MAPS rule, searching for the exact place in Hosur to pick up Manish proved to be adventurous and fun. It was dark, and it cold, picking up landmarks on the Hosur inner ring road, made it flawlessly to the pick up point. After a formal greeting we departed from Hosur.
TIME: 05:00
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| Sun rose as we reached the base of the hillock. |
RIDE 1: (Bangalore > Hosur > Shoolagiri > Melumalai)
This was the reminder of the 50km on super smooth NH-7 highway. We locked in a decent pace and cruised speaking about various topics. As the sun began to rise, the sky actually turned into a lavender hue, this was strange and unusual, but yeah beautiful.
I told Manish (Tamil is his native language), I would be the person doing the talking to locals as I wanted to improve and his role would be to correct. Knowing how I speak tamil, he started smiling with a worried face haha :)
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| Melumalai as seen from the deviation from NH-7 |
I knew the route to the T, yet as we approached the hillock, I wanted to actively engage with the locals, so asked them "Sir, Kovil gey route enga?" (Sir, where is the route to the temple). Manish was happy, he said instead of "sir" please use "Annai", it is more dear to locals :)
The last part of the ride was completely off road and fun, as we made it to base of the hillock, we parked our bikes, awoke the "astral goat's" spirit and was all set for Manish's maiden trek :) Oh yeah, almost forgot, we had not eaten any breakfast, so this was a no-breakfast trek.
TIME: 06:45
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| Akro Maniz at the summit of Melumalai |
MELUMALAI TREK
ASCENT:
Well lets see, it took us about 30 minutes to ascend and about 15 minutes to descend. The trail has 1340 steps, so it is a both all spectrums of people. The trail is straightforward and very clear right from the get-go.
Like always, have divided the trek into phases, so LET'S GO \m/
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| The initial trails at Melumalai |
Phase 1: The Initial Trails
The Initial trails were clear and had to be ground. It was pure steps. And we hate it. But it always acts like a safety net, where pure endurance and the "grind" capacity can be estimated. Hence making it a perfect choice for new initiation.
The safety of stairs, tend to make people dash up and crash. It is all about pacing it right, slow and steady. Manish who had trekked last in 2021 knew this intuitively and cleared phase 1 with flying colours. And by the end of it, we could spot 100's of millipedes all around the place, I asked him what it's called in Tamil, he said either "Marvattai" or "Puran". I liked the word puran better, next thing Manish saw was picking up a few millipedes and having a conversation in Tamil with them. He was confused and wondering if "craziness" is a part of the package :)
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| Phase two saw some muddy trails. |
Phase 2: Wind Greetings
Now, the phase two got real beautiful. The views kept getting greener and richer. The air was getting cleaner by the minute. The wind speeds were getting fast and we could hear the howling of winds amidst the daunting silence, it was spooky and yet beautiful. It was almost like the mountains were welcoming in their own language as we were the first to dash up the hillock.
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| Puran Poli getting ready :) |
As we approached the summit, the trail turned muddy and we reached a secondary temple. Here the views of the surrounding hillocks was just amazing. We could see Ankushagiri fort standing in all her beauty right across Melumalai. The views were mesmerizing and the winds were howling, taking a deep breath we pushed onto the final stretch.
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| View from just below the summit :) |
Phase 3: Summit Push
The last stretch consists of 200 steps and this was done in a jiffy. As we spotted the temple, the steps disappeared and the rocky boulders hit our feet. Felt home. The views opened up into a 360 degree view of the entire plain. And we made it to the top.
TIME: 07:15
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| The summit of Melumalai. |
TOP:
Whew, that was a non-stop climb. And we were just about to break a sweat by the end of that one. We went to the temple, it was close. We paid respects to the place and searched for a good spot with a view to just crash. We hydrated and just sat there admiring the views.
As the peace was just sitting in beautifully, I turned to Manish and asked him to teach me some "harsh/vulgar words" in Tamil, he looked confused, I continued saying "my dream is to get chased by people with sticks". He had started scratching his head wondering the choice he had made with this first trek haha :)
As he sat confused, I ran around the summit catching lot of millipedes and trying to strike a conversation with them, trying to make a "yawara stick" with a tree's branch, it was getting out of control. Just then, we spotted a few people coming with some flowers, it was time to head back down.
TIME: 07:45
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| The descent back down |
DESCENT:
The descent took us 15-20 minutes. We knew the steps would get real boring. So we played a game. The number of steps would be a good data. Hence, we decided to count the total number of steps taking turns. I would count 100 steps, and then Manish, this way we would take turns and reach the base.
This was fun, until all the distractions started pouring in, millipedes drew me away into trees and shrubs, Manish was striking fluent conversations with a few locals who had begun the ascent.
It was a fun descent, and the total tally came up to be 1340 steps. Upon reaching the base, we hydrated once again. To pull one last head scratched, I pointed at a cow dung and said its "purans dung", the size of dung itself 10times bigger than the puran (millipede), Now Manish was getting used to our chaos and madness haha.
Got onto the bikes and looked back the hillock. Thanked her for the rich experience and more importantly "LETTING US GO BACK".
TIME: 08:05
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| The array of hillocks seen from Melumalai. |
RIDE 2: (Melumalai > Shoolagiri > Hosur > Bangalore)
This was a sweet 100km ride back to town. As we left the base of the hillock, it was a bumpy off-road muddy ride to join back the country roads. Then, to pull the last one off the hat, told Manish I would pull over near a scary looking person, it was his turn to ask directions, he told me he remembers the route. I told him even I knew the route back, but he should ask the person "directions to ride to Delhi". Manish was confused and began scratching head and laughing, I told him to ask with 100% purity. He said, they will think we are mad people and mad we are! hahah. We did ask people directions just for fun and trying to strike random conversations. So for thanking them, instead of saying "nandri" (thank you), I told "pandri" (pig). They looked confused, knowing I was learning, even they started laughing and so did we :)
Cruised back in a jiffy to reach back TN-KA border, crossed just 10-15 meters into KA border and sat in our regular bar for an ice cold beer. This bar is the first bar. IF bars had a count, this would be #1 from TN side. Then we remembered we had not eaten any breakfast, we rode into Hosur and belted some parottas and omelletes. Dropped Manish back to his home and rode back reached home.
TIME: 09:30 (return to KA time)
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| Off-roading to the base of Melumalai. |
CONCLUSION:
Well, this was one of beautiful chapters. Reminded me a lot of the Rayakottai initiation done for Bhai on Oct 12, 2025. A peaceful climb with great summit views. There are a lot of hillocks in TN which offer precisely this. And it proved to be a great initiation for Manish as well injecting him all the chaos :)
In the past 348 days, we have pulled off 55 treks, ~10,900 kms in total, 12 months, non-stop. The Flame lives on \m/
KREW:
Sippy: Very happy with this breather of a trek and initiation of Akro into the group, towards a historical record of treks until Oct 12, 2026 on the FLYING NIMBUS \m/
Until next time, Ta-da Cia \m/
Oh yeah, if you want to read about the past 55 treks, here is the link: 55 NON STOP TREKS.
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| Sippy signing off, until next time \m/ |
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