The 10000-foot climb, and then some
Note: this is from a trip in December 2014
It all started with Sudha seeing a pic of the Girnar hill on TripAdvisor that reminded her of the Great Wall of China.
We were planning our days in Gujarat and felt we had to include Girnar into our itinerary.
Many cautioned us about the climb, especially as we planned a 23km walk in Bhavnagar two days after the proposed climb.
“Start early!” — ok, ok
“Don’t carry anything heavy!” — nothing expect a digital SLR and 4 lenses
“Sleep well the night before!” — hmm, will an overnight bus ride from Bhuj be fine?
We reached Junagadh after a night ride from Bhuj at 7:00 AM. We set out at 7:45 AM, already wondering if it was too late. An auto guy took us to the foothill, but strangely, we didn’t see many others making the climb.
Maybe folks left early, we reasoned. We got two sticks and started climbing afresh.
Something didn’t seem right. We kept walking but didn’t see anyone ahead, or come down along the way. Was it possible that there was no one else climbing Girnar that day?
After climbing nearly 2500 steps, we finally chanced upon a couple of elderly gentlemen.
“Tame to khota avi gaya!”, cried one of them (you made the wrong trip). We were climbing a nearby hill called Datar, not Girnar!
Sudha and I glanced at each other. It was 9:30 AM. With a quick nod, we started our descent. We’ll still give Girnar a shot! Both of us cursed the Auto guy who brought us there.
We got to the Girnar base at 10:30 AM and started our climb.
Girnar is actually a set of three hills that you can climb. On the way to the first, you pass by beautiful Jain temples. An Ambaji temple sits atop the first hill. The second hill has a temple of Gorakhnath (and the steps leading to it are the ones we thought looked like the Great Wall of China). The third is the steepest — a 1000 foot climb down the second hill and 1000 foot climb up the last. This has a small temple of Dattatreya.
I won’t deny it. It was tough! Both of us chugged along only with the thought that we may not come back anytime soon, and we wanted to make it to the end and back.
It took us close to 5 hours to get to the final peak, and another 3 hours back. But in retrospect, it was well worth it.
