Published on: 03/07/2026

Last edited on: 03/07/2026

I recently (26th-28th June 2026) went on a three day climbing trip to Hampi. It wasn’t enough for climbing, but definitely enough for healing my soul through and through. This is my day to day log of a small set of things that happened.

On our first day, we arrived sleep deprived in Hospete and took an auto to Hanumanhalli. Our abode was Mani’s homestay (theres no maps link for it 🫠). It is a minimal 1980s style house with owning family living in a small part of the house, leaving four rooms open for lodging.

We were all dead tired from floating in air most of the night in the bus. To top it off, it was already sunny enough outside. With all this, we decided to explore and take rest in the day, and climb in evening and night. 🌝

After some delicious doses and paddus [1] for breakfast, we took onto exploring the trail of getting upto foothills of Rushyamukha hill. Apparently, this is the place where Ram and Sugriva agreed to be allies against Ravana!! Check out Ramayana for more details.

Besides its historical significance, this is also a boulder heaven! This path upto the foothills is a mini adventure on its own. As we start walking away from village, we first came across Baba boulders. These are two lone boulders sitting on the side of a farm and just outside the village. We tried to checkout climbing lines on these boulders, but they looked frighteningly difficult. Crossing the boulders we reach the banks of Tungabhadra river. While river didn’t look impressive, our friend started recalling her experience of leopard sightings last time she was at the exact same spot. I definitely felt my spirit floating out of my body, but it ran back in as soon as she mentioned they are not fond of humans and, loud music in night would keep them away easily. This is the bell <> bear equivalent to leopards 🐻.

River in this section was pretty narrow and small, with loads of super shiny rocks. This shine is SO weird, they almost look like plastic under sunlight. On reading up a bit more, it seems like this is because of their composition of quartz, feldspar and mica minerals, very very interesting. As there were more rocks than river in this particular area, people have placed one man walk stones to cross it. We crossed this section to enter a small foresty line which is your average foot hill. But after that comes one of my most favorite sections. A walk through elevated trails amidst paddy fields. There’s a super narrow one person path crossing all these fields. In the day, one can enjoy the view of these fields plus forest around. In the night, it becomes an orchestra of toads and crickets, all singing on top of their lungs to create what I have started calling: “Climbers Remix” presented by our very own supertalented, super duper experienced and god of all music: “nature”.

Seems too ordinary to like this setting? I think anime has taught me to love this, I really like those small village slice of life animes where protoganist(s) are also walking through the fields, listening to cicadas screaming, exactly the same as the scenario above :)

After crossing these fields, we come across a sign with different legs pointing in different directions to Hanumanhalli, Hampi, etc. And another one saying: “Welcome to the edge of nothingness. May your presence be a gift” and in the middle: “May you be a blessing to you all you meet”.

These signs act as a good marker on where to take a left turn, to reach the exact hike starting spot. Also, they feel a bit cute, full positive vibes before an exciting time ahead! Crossing the signs, we take a left to cross a small stream by parkouring like Takeshi’s castle skipping stones 🏃

And here we reach a small butterfly heaven. 🦋

It felt divine standing in the middle of swarms of butterflies flying all around you! It had SO SO many different butterflies in a small place completely surrounded by 8-9ft trees. I had tried having my disney princess moment here. I stood still there with my hand out, sadly no butterfly landed on me 😭.

Once we cross this, we finally reach foot of the hills. For our first day’s morning walk, we hiked few minutes up the trail to see a boulder named “double arete”. This was our limit for this morning, we turned around and went back to our stay for some good lunch and bus-lagged sleep.

Refreshed, everyone gulped coffee at Wanderlust [2] and took the same trail, this time with loads of climbing equipment, and also actually up the hills. I absolutely love hiking with minimal human interaction. This was the perfect place to scratch that itch, we were walking through soothing nature, coming across dozens of small lizards, variety of birds but above all, SO MANY AWESOME BOULDERS!! Hype was building up as we approached “Party Boulders” area. This was going to be today’s climbing destination. It’s a set of rocks marked by two primary boulders in the center with huge illumnati style eyes sprayed on them.

As it was already 17:30 by the time we started, it was close to sunset when we were in the middle of our warmup and I swear to god, this golden hour was one of the most beautiful I have ever experienced. We got some really good photos, sadly can’t link them right now cause they are still getting developed, might end up updating the blog later. Well after that golden distraction we started warming up on nearby boulders. There was a relatively small boulder just in front, that was a bit taller than me, still low enough for warmup. So we got some feel for the rock texture, and did a sit start reaching the top to start it safe. Next, we started our trip’s proper routes with a 5 (understanding grading) named Short Overhung Arete (74 in photo). I was confused on it in the start, but got the main rockover move and feet placement on my 3rd attempt and with that I had first send of this trip!! 🎉 Next was a 6a named “Scoop” (73 in the photo). Aptly named, cause it scooped everyone’s asses, even experienced climbers took 10-15+ attempts to send it and to no-ones surprise I had to give up on it 😭. With its super spanny start move and above waist high right foot (injured ankle side) placement, it just wasn’t for me. I do truly believe, it is not made for shorter climbers, you need certain amount of height to call it a 6a (which should be easy for me mind you, no climbing ego :P).

While we tried Scoop, it was already dark, so we got our floodlights and headlamps out. This was my first time climbing in the night surrounded by complete darkness, an hour away from civilization. You could hear the night, touch the chill, shine under moon and live among the stars. With such peace, I subconsciously started crooning Fly me to the moon.

And as if whole world was conspiring to make this moment better, I found my first outdoor project. Its named “Physics” graded 6b+ (75 in the photo). On my last Hampi trip, I had flashed a 6b+ called “PsychoBloc”. 6b+ as a grade is not as easy as people would assume, but depending on style (crimpy, slabby, slopy, overhung, etc) a person generally doing 6b+ indoors might or might not be able to do it outdoors. Luckily, PhyschoBloc was overhung and crimpy and heal hook centric, perfect for my style :)

P.S. I was thinking it was not a flash when doing it, but it actuall was xD

This led me to not think much about Physics. Of course it did not seem easy, but also something I couldn’t have judged just based on the looks. And man, it didn’t disappoint, it absolutely kicked my ass. I couldn’t do anything after the second move 😭.

I knew it was hard cause even other two experienced climbers with us couldn’t complete the full route in one go. But it was safe to assume they couldn’t do it because it was their first day, and I know it cause they mentioned they had sent it earlier :P.

After 10-15 serious attempts on it, I didn’t have any juice left in me, and so was the case with others. We decided to head back to civilization and reached back by 22:00. All of us took much needed relaxing showers, had good home food for dinner and went to sleep, promising an early start at 06:00 the next day.

And that was the end of day one, second day will be available on: https://fknil.com/blog/hampi-june-2026-day-2.

[1] Bengaluru why are you shutting down shops selling them?? 😭
[2] What a scenic restaurent, absolute fav place to hang out in Hampi