Trip type : Trekking, temple and Dam visit.
Trek Type : Moderate (DIY)
Trek Permission : Not required.
Suitable time : Start of or End of Monsoon.
Distance from Bangalore : 60km approx.
Route: Savanadurga trek trail (Search in Google Map)
Bike we traveled : Pulsar 150CC
Duration : 1 day
Additional charges : only toll booth charges.
As usual planning start at friday night with my friend shiva to trek this asia's largest monolithic rock mountain. As it is start of the monsoon, there is a mild rain by friday night itself.
This Bangalore climate is making us to fall in love with it and not allow us to wake up early. So I setup the alarm by morning 4.30 am and slept. Somewhere from my sleep i felt that the alarm not waking up us. Then i checked my mobile and it is 6.30 am. Then only i came to realize that alarm is turned on from monday to friday only. Slowly walked out of my room and felt the chillness and little drizzling of this wonderful morning. Then a quick checkout of my whatsapp messages and fb feeds for next 10mins and made shiva to wake up from his dream. He is in oscillation to take up this trip or not and finally convinced him to start our trip.
Done a very quick refreshment and got ready by 7.30 am and decided to finish our breakfast at marathahalli itself. After all we braced up in our pulsar 150cc and started our map app to navigate to this monsoon paradise "Savanadurga". We searched in map for "Savanadurga trek trail" and started around 8.20 am from Marathahalli.
Shiva is driving and i am enjoying the ride with him and planned to reach the destination around 10am. We have to ride about 78km to reach the trek trail. Route is as same as the google map suggested and you can blindly follow on it.
There is one toll for Rs.55(kanapura rd.toll) and joined Nice ring road.
This highway journey is more comfortable and from NH we have to take right to Manchanabele-Magadi road. Its a state highway and maintained good. Last 20km road is good and we have to go through few villages. This trip also includes a peep in visit to Manchabelle dam visit, when we are there they didn't allow us to get inside the dam, but we can get the dam view on the road that we are travelling.
The view was amazing and the roads travelled too. Few other pics from our journey
once we reached Savanadurga, there is a temple for Veerabadra under the mountain, the view is breathtaking. The temple is old one but its well maintained and pleasant.
Once you reached the temple, you have to still go another 300m for starting point of trekking. There is another temple near the trail and we parked our bike there with free of cost. From there we are able to see other trekkers returning after their trek and few started to climb up. We are standing on the trail @10.30AM with our backpack carrying two liters of water bottle and biscuits.
We started slowly climbing up by following the marks on the rock and also there is a electric wire from electric post going throughout the trek way. We just follow both of them. Witnessed beautiful views while going up and up.
The trek is moderate and we must not try it on summer time. Eventhough it is monsoon now but we feel the heat and sweating out.
We have already climbed up for 1hr and 30 mins and thaught that we have reached the top and while looking the sight we came to know that we are not yet.
Taken some rest and started to walk. It takes us around two hours to reach the top. There is small temple for Nandhini on the top with a 360° wonderful view. Also we will get a bonus of fresh and cold air passing by us.
we have taken almost 40mins to enjoy the view after a difficult crossover. The view is wroth for our sweat.
" The best view always comes after the hardest climb " is 100% truth.
Around 1.30 pm we started to get down slowly. Those black clouds surrounded us and surely we know that there going to be a rain. After few minutes it started raining and the path become slippery. We are more careful on our steps. I feel that my shoe grip is not sufficient but there is no major slippery. Due to rain, the surrounding becomes more greenery and fresh. The rocks emits heat smokes and few magic water falls appeared in front of us.
After some time, its become too difficult to walk down, so we seated back and laying down to downside as it is safest movement on slippery.
After a little struggle we safely reach down to the base around @3.10pm and rain becomes heavy. We waited sometime for rain to stop but it didn't. But rain slows down then we started our bike. Also there is a restaurant at base and we didn't feel hunger so skipped our lunch and ride back to Bangalore.
Riding back we have few beautifull pics, its is heart warming and also shared that below with you guys.
Stopped near to NH road and had puffs and tea as a evening snacks around 4.30pm and reached back to our room @6.30pm.
This trek is a wonderful experience and feel good throughout the day. It energizes us for our next working week and pumped our adrenaline for our next trek.