Shasta : The Lesser known Tahoe Alternative

Last weekend three of us, Mayank, Roshan and I had a trip to Shasta. Its been another awesome trip, thanks to Nishit and Subeer for telling us about this place.



My usual wikitravel search wasn't very helpful in informing what this place offered, but a 5 minutes of browsing first few results on Google helped. The place offers among other things: Ice Skating (Shasta Ice Ring at Siskiyou county), Skiing (country-side and downhill at Mount Shasta), Snow mobiles (The Fun Factory at Deer mountain) besides the scenic Lakes including the Shasta lake, very scenic drives along the mountain with the view of Shasta mountain covered by snow. The Caverns at the Shasta lake weren't open when we reached but seems to be another major attraction here.



The places seems to be much lesser known than Tahoe, may be because of a longer distance from Mountain View, the drive is around 5 hrs without break. Reaching late afternoon on the Saturday turned out to be a bad decision as we felt a time crunch when we collected the pamphlets and brochures from the Visitor info desk. Ultimately we decided to just drive around and see some of the famous points driving along the Mountain Highway. After the first few points we were to witness road blocked due to snow fall. We then drove to Siskiyou lake and it was already dark when we returned. Took accomodation at the Filindia motel which was pretty decent for the price.



Our car after an overnite parking
The next day, we were decided to do skiing the first thing. As we were heading to the Ski park on the road we saw another ski trainer/rentals group. This group offers the Lessons and Full day pass for just 40 bucks. Which seemed much less compared to Tahoe. Soon I did realize that the equipments and gear were not exactly the same as my last ski experience. Turns out we selected country-side skiing this time and it was Downhill skiing last time (Gosh I didn't know there were two types :)). I would recommend ppl to try both kinds of skiing as they are very different experiences (In one you keep working all the time to go forward and in other you keep breaking the speed that you are automatically getting due to slope).

[Adventure sports picks are to be put up soon]

Then we went for Snow Mobiles, thanks to the people whom we saw doing this a day before and asked for details. The snow mobiles thing happens at around 40 miles distance from the ski park place and road you got to take goes around the Shasta mountain to almost 360 degrees providing a great view all along. Snowmobiles are rented by the Fun Factory group. Again this whole thing looked like a decent deal with just 50 bucks plus fuel charges per hour. Snowmobiles are pretty different from Jet skis, in the fact that they are pretty heavy and don't have such smooth steering, but they can go pretty fast and are indeed a great adventure sport.

On the return journey we tried the caverns which were closed and then visited the Shasta dam the second largest in the US. To me it didn't look like anything that is worth spending time on.
Lake Shasta from Shasta Dam
Tips:
1) At this point of year the temperature was seeing a low of 18 F in the morning, so early morning adventure may be difficult. The snowmobile ppl asked us to turn up after 10 AM.
2) Though country-side skiing mostly doesn't hurt much on falling, its always good idea to put on extra clothes and pads to avoid any injury and also the cold.
3) This place deserves lot of time, we cud have spent another day very easily if we had it.
4) Caverns tour close pretty early like 2 or 4 PM depending on time of year, so plan out properly.

Another trip to Los Angeles

A mail sent to the group asking for what should be the weekend plan and 10 hrs later we are planning about our LA trip, to make things more interesting after a nice offsite at IFly at SF in the morning with the team and a decent dance party on the Friday evening, at 00:30 hrs after lot of rethinking the plan is finalized and it is to leave at 2:30 AM :)




Lot of sleep deprivation sounded like a bad idea for me but was against the opinion of everyone else so I decided to comply. Shreyas and I were supposed to share the drive of around 359 miles. Giving around 3 hrs per head (Yeah the average sucks because there are road which you drive at 85 MPH and others where 65 MPH is difficult). The journey in the night seemed to be easier then the day one with much less traffic, I would say an ideal time for someone to venture driving in to Freeways as Mayank did.

The journey went easier than imagined we were in Santa Monica by around 8:30 AM and within few minutes at Gundu's appartment and then continued to Universal Studios, Los Angeles spending around 90 minutes to reach the place due to traffic (fortunately not too many jams on our side). Universal Studios was certainly not my choice as I have been there already but certainly something one won't miss on their first trip. The second visit didn't turn out to be too interesting for me but others enjoyed it as much as I did on my previous visit. This time the waiting time was ~10-15 minutes for each ride compared to around 1 hr on prev visit seeming because that was a long weekend. The 7-8 hrs of time spent was enough for the covering almost everything. Universal Studios closes at 8 PM and post that you are mostly left to roam around in the shopping area around.

Our earlier plans were to visit San Diego next day but Gundu informed us about the fact that it would probably take 2 full days for a good SD visit and we decided to stick to places in Santa Monica and LA, covering the Venice and Santa Monica beaches followed by Mullholand drive watching the famous Hollywood sign and finally taking loads of photos there. The evening was spent on the Hollywood walk of fame (which turned out to be just a footpath :)) and other nearby entertainment after which we decided to watch the sunrise from Griffith Park. Griffith park turned out to be a very big location and we could only figure out the right point after the sunset :P. But we ended up reaching the Observatory which offers one of the best view of the LA city in the evening. The observatory had lot of other stuff like planetarium and some informative gallery but we had to run back and leave back for Mountain View. The drive was another night drive and took us around 7 hrs again though it was from a different path and much more curvy road.

Bike trip to Sri Sailem

The weekend of 26th-27th Jan, 34 of us bikers rode to Sri Sailem on 19 bikes. I only decided for joining the trip around 11:30 PM on the Friday evening, and went ahead for filling Petrol and getting a friends' camera, Its was around 1 AM :). We were supposed to gather at the venue (Shoppers' stop) at around 4:30 AM and to leave at 5:00 AM. The idea of sleeping for just around 3 hrs before going for a long ride was pretty scary but, decision was already made :)

Somehow I left for the meeting point at around 4:45 AM from my home. The distance of around 20 KMs for which I had around 15 minutes. I was pretty much wondering if I could catch up the group etc (I had to fill more Petrol on the way too as I didn't get Extra Premium one the previous night ). Somehow I finally reached the spot at around 5:05 or so and to my relief there were only half the ppl there still. We could only finally start by around 6:00 AM.




The distance to Sri Sailem is around 250 KM (actual Milo Meter reading difference) and it started off pretty well with Ram leading the group as he has been there earlier too. After riding for around 4 KM at Panjagutta Circle we had a stop. This was very unexpected. While we pondered why we stopped at that point, someone informed a few bikers already lost the way. Most of us could only LOL on the situation and imagining what lie ahead :D



Then we moved on, Charminar was on the way and it looked amazingly beautiful under the lights. A photo should say more. Soon we were out of city limits and on a good and smooth road. The next major stop was only for breakfast and it came after around 80 KMs of riding.
We ate Poori and Bhaaji and with a cup of tea it was time to start again. The photographers in the group did have a good time clicking photos at various places including those of Sun Rise and the beautiful "Sarsoon ka Kheth" later on.



On the way, there is a famous water fall. By consensus we decided to go for the waterfall before going to Sri Sailem and getting our accommodation reserved. The water fall trip should have definitely taken around 2.5 hr which included driving on the muddy road for 8 KM oneway, then roughly 350 stairs oneway and most important the bath under the cold water fall which only the selected few of us dared to try. It was amazing standing under the water falling from such great height and at such great speed and at such low temperature.




Finally we reached Sri Sailem at around 4 PM. Out of hunger the first thing ppl wanted to have was lunch, while some other took the pain of checking our reservation etc. By the time we came out from the lunch we were in for a big surprise. The accommodation was gone. Yes the guy gave our accommodation to some other ppl as we didn't turn up by 1 PM. SS has only two major lodges. Both were full. While some souls were arranging for accommodation the rest of us had a nice dose on the lawn of the lodge. At last we got an accommodation arrange nearby and we move to that place. For dinner we guys went back 9 KMs away from the place to stay to the Haritha Dhaba which looked like the only dhaba around.


After this hectic day only some of us were determined to go for the Dharshan next morning. The queue was already very long when we reached around 6:30 AM or so. Fortunately they have a concept of "Premium" Dharsan or something where you could pay 100 Rs and stand in a shorted queue. Even that queue took us around next 1 hr to finally get a 2 second glimpse of the Shivling. Then was time for a nice breakfast which we had on a dosa-thela. Amazing dosa and idlis. Then we decided to get the Prasadam. For which you have to stand in another long queue. This queue took another 1 hour overall to get max 4 peices of laddu per head, getting us 20 only, as Ram and Priya went back to wake ppl and Kannan was busy on phone(again:)).

As we were returning back, the group met us on the way and as against earlier decision we were going to see the Famous caves. We took the way through water which took us around 1.5 hrs oneway and 1 hr at the caves. The caves are beautiful, but the 1.5 hr of boat ride in the Sun was not that great. While coming back Zareer and I did get to enjoy waving the legs in the water all through while other got bored sitting monotonously (Jene ? :)


We started back from SS at around 4:30 PM and we knew it was going to be a difficult ride. What we didn't realize was the magnitude. After taking the dinner when we started again at around 10:30 PM, the ride kept getting tougher. It was pretty harsh cold and may be most of us weren't actually prepared for it either. The last 120 KMs would have been covered in around 3 hrs with pretty much a break after every 40 KMs or so, It was funny that some of us kept saying next stop would be at Charminaar :), we already had three charminars before the real one came :D. And yes, the incident regarding one of our stop at some village is worth mentioning. As we parked our bikes and were talking about the ride and work the next day etc., a Jeep came and stopped and one armed guy dressed as a civilian came out. Yes we were pretty scared. I guess everyone was wondering if were seeing the Naxals. Fortunately not, they were police guys. Ram handled the situation and we moved on. We finally reached Hyderabad at around 1:30 AM.


It turned out to be a much more amazing trip then any one of us had imagined. Great thanks to Ricky and Ram for playing the major roles and everyone else for making it a great trip by joining in. Already looking forward to the next long ride.

Dandeli + Goa Offsite 2007

Dandeli + Goa offsite 2007 concluded last Sunday evening as we returned from Goa after an amazing time with teammates for the previous 4 days starting from Wednessday afternoon.


The trip started with a train journey from Hyderabad to Hubli (5:30 PM to 8:30 AM) the time which got spent too interestingly to ever care for the long journey. The activities included games of Antakshari, BANG, Pictionary, Uno besides lots of bakar :D all through. Dinner was the Biryani served in the train which seemed and tasted pretty decent.

As we arrived Hubli on time the chartered bus from VRL was right there to pick us up. After a quick breakfast in a nearby South Indian restaurant, we continued on our journey to Dandeli. The Journey was mostly spent playing Antakshari and by the end we were out of songs with some alphabets yep even Praj and Pooja :D

Reaching Dandeli at around 1 PM it was time for a lunch, And thats when the series of great food meals started. As planned by the Kali Adventure Camp team, we guys went on a Jungle safari in the evening which turned out to be a total disaster for most of us. As the guy already indicated before the start of the Safari, we didn't spot many animals, the Geep kept running through a very muddy road for almost 2 hrs and all we cud see were Buffaloes, Owls and at last by chance some deers :) But ignoring the disappointing part from the Safari we enjoyed some photography sessions, a nice sunset view and lots of gossip.



The evening would have been pretty boring but for the presence of Rajni as she came up with some plans to organize some nice team activities after the dinner before we were set free to sit around the camp fire with drinks and snacks and game of Dumb Charades.



The next morning was the much awaited White Water Rafting event. It was definitely one of the best activities during the offsite and people thoroughly enjoyed the 9 KM long rafting which included some Cat 2 and 3 relays, following the commands from the guide like Forward, Back pedal, Hold and Get Down, and so on. The folks on my Raft had some extra enjoyment as we sangs random songs and used the pedals to wet the nearby rafting team and some specials gesture with the pedals :)



Rafting was followed by another great meal and after some rest we left out again for a coracle ride to spot some Crocodiles and bird, which we indeed did. The ride was pretty good too. This was followed by a small trek when we walked in the pretty dense jungles (but along a proper route) for around 1 hr. The evening was pretty similar to the past one but the special event this day was the much awaited Tug-Of-War, which against the earlier plan of being a complicated team tournament was voted out to be a "Gymmers" Vs "Non Gymmers" competition. What could be stranger than the fact that such a random division criteria left the team with equal numbers on both sides :). Unfortunately this time again the rope couldn't sustain the tension :D and broke leaving the match undecided. Rajs' word were "Thanks to RMZ cafeteria".

Next day we were set for our journey to Goa. The Journey took around 6 hrs against the planned 4 hrs. It was pretty late when we reached Goa and finding Ronil Beach Resort wasted just another crucial half an hour.
We checked in quickly and following a quick "lunch" and Rushed to the beach for whatever little we could make out of the evening. We could enjoy the beach for almost an hour including playing in the waves some Frisbee game and then the one sided game of Kabbadi :D
The dinner and the following time was spent sitting in the shacks instead of going to the pub as we did last time. This was definitely a right decision. Sitting in the big group enjoying the view of the sea with some music in the background and some good food and drinks was much better than going to the pub and struggling for space.
As decide next morning only a few of us went for the water sports. This was another part of the trip which I enjoyed a lot. We enjoyed Jet Skiing, Para Sailing, Banana boat (twice :)) and the bumpy boat and it was already 12:30 in the noon and we had to rush back to hotel for lunch and the checkout followed by the flight back to Hyderabad.

For the past we few days we have been relishing the great memories of the trip seeing the photographs and remembering the events, quite sure this would continue for a long time. Thanks everyone for making it an Amazing offsite.

Bike trip to Nagarjuna Sagar

Last Sunday(28th October) the Hyderabad biker's club organized its 17th bike trip. Thanks to Ricky for inviting me to this group I was part of the trip. As usual the bikers met at the Gymkhana grounds near Secunderabad. The schedule was to depart at 5:30 AM from this point but as many bikers requested we decided to leave at 6 AM. I was among the first few who reached at the spot. I didn't even try guessing the bike count initially but as ppl started coming I knew it was a big group.

All the bikes lined up during a midway stop

In all we rode on 16 bikes with hardly 2 pillions riders. Making us 18 in number. The bikes included CBZ, Pulsars(150s, 200), Karizmas(mine + 1 more :)), Machismos, Avengers, Unicorn. As we started, Firdaus informed the newcomers like me about the headlights on gesture, which the group follows throughout the trip. It indeed helped us locate others during the busy traffic :)

A photo on the way

The distance to the destination is around 160 KMs, the road is great for most part, the few of us who were to check the highest speeds on their bike did have long runs at speeds in range 110-120. The best part according to me was when all of the bikes would giving that acceleration/racing sound. Imagine 16 bikes together making that sound. So was the case with the horns too. The ride was completed pretty quickly and we were at the destination in less than 3 hours even with around 20 minutes stoppage on the way. We had food at an APTDC certified restaurant and it was pretty clean and good, so thats not a major issue. The weather was very pleasant for the going part of the journey and the return weather wasn't much harsh either.

Like I said the few of us who were fast and furious after taking lot of lead had a photosession :)

The Dam is pretty dry at this part of the year, but the waterfalls which are just 11 KMs aways from the Dam remain active and attractive. The photos should speak about it. From the side of the waterfalls' lowest point we were able to see a small crocodile too, so definitely its not the water fall where you would like to take a dip or bath :) There were other small water bodies around though where ppl were enjoying themselves.

Just a glimpse of the waterfall, many more photos in the album

We were not in a mood to try the longer trek which was supposedly gonna take 2 hrs, but for trekkers it might be an interesting one. You can observe the water falls from the points where they start according to the local guide, but it would be advisable to take one of those local folks along anyways as the trek is pretty much along the forest.

Almost the whole group

The return journey took us more than 3 hrs due to the heavier traffic but it was not too bad. We were back to Hyderabad by around 5 PM . The drive in the city towards our own places took another 30-40 minutes and was certainly the most difficult one after biking for all that long. Bike trips are indeed very tiring but nonetheless very exciting and full of fun.

More Photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hydsundaybikerides2/Ride17NagarjunaSagar/

tips for bike trip:
1) Hand grip, Wind cheater and proper helmet(with visor) is a must.
2) Be careful about Air pressure on the tyres (specially for higher speed riding).
3) Careful about long trips, 320 was tiring enuf.