My First Trek to Savandurga

Blogging abt my first trek almost a month after the trek :) . After a lengthy discussion and sorting out all possible weekends, v finally arrived at May 31st for our trekking and our first team(??) outing in Oracle. Thanks Prakash for choosing Savandurga and Anuj for arranging all stuff. It was an awesome experience.
First, few lines abt the place.Savandurga is a hill 60 km west of Bangalore off the Magadi road.The hill is famous for a temple and is also believed to be among the largest monolith hills in the world. The hill rises to 1226 m above mean sea level and forms a part of the Deccan plateau.


30th May 2008
"Hey I m bit scared abt trekking..Did u see the blogs abt Savandurga? Bears and other animals..omg. The rock is 70 degrees steep at few places it seems. ".
"No..v ll hav fun there..No worries.."
:) Diviya,Me,Samridhi kept saying the same almost whenever v met the day before trek. Evening, 7(Me, samridhi,Diviya,Prakash,Anuj,Harishi,Nikhil) of us met in cafe for a short meeting ;)(Surprisingly,Samridhi was awake the whole of ths meeting). Few took up responsibilities of bringing bread, first-aid kit,etc... It was decided to assemble in front of Lex around 5 in the morning(midnight for few of us..)
All set for the trip... :)

31st May 2008:
Though our plan was to strt by 5 or 5.30, V managed to leave Lex by 6 and reached Savandurga by almost 7.30. The most active participants of the trek are DOGS of Savandurga. As I m very much fond of dogs, I keep screaming wenevr they come near us. (rather, wenver I see them). But somehow, convinced myself that these dogs are gonna be with us till v reach top. But so sweet of those dogs, as they showed us the way.

There are 2 routes to reach the top. Route-1 and Route-2. Route-1 was for beginners and 2 for advanced trekkers.
"Hey, lets try route-2. Tht would be gr8"
Of course, Samridhi's voice. And all our response was "U mad or wat??" :) Finally v strted our trek by 8. Alas!! After 5 to 10 min, v realized we were on Route-2.. Thank god. Nikhil traced transmission lines and soon v were on Route-1.

Climbing up the hill took more than 4 hrs I guess. V stopped evry 5 min to take snaps and meanwhile rest. Samridhi, Prakash, Anuj, Nikhil would never leave a rock. Diviya calls Samridhi "Madam Curie". Yeah..she is.. She would try anything and evrything.. :) We reached a fort after an hour. Diviya was hesitant to climb further. Somehow after all motivation from Prakash, she agreed and v continued our journey towards Nandhi on top. V had brkfast in a tiny Mandir. Indeed, a very small one. :)

Ah...I forgot to mention abt tht 70 degress steep part of our trek. V completed that b4 brkfast :) .Cheers to Diviya(for her determination) and Prakash (for helping her out) here...U rock Diviya!!!!!

V followed the transimission lines and dogs and, finally reached the Mandir on top around 12.30. Nikhil needs appreciation for his enthusiasm. Evrytime, Prakash,Nikhil or Harish would go, analyse the path and would help us out. The way Nikhil would motivate us needs to be mentioned here.

"This is very easy. Jus imagine that u are in Tavarakere Main Road and walk."

Yeah...he climbs up the hill(walks!!!) like that only. :) But he expected the same from us too. A real difficult task. :(
The mind-blowing view from top is really worth the effort v put in.Nature's beauty is at its best(!!!) all thru the way to top.

Now is the time for us to capture all possible snaps. (Yuva pose, Hum saath saath hain, Titanic. watever crap(;) ) tht v could think of... ) Jumping pose is the ultimate fun. Anuj,Me and Samridhi wanted a snap in which all 3 of us are in air. None of the others were able to capture it. Thanks to Nikhil for bringing Chapathis, Panneer and Aloo gravy. V had our lunch and strted our downward journey by 1.30.

Anuj was bothered tht v need to descend down as early as possible as it would be tough if it starts raining.Thts true. Diviya and Harish got slipped wen they stepped on water for a moment. Fortunately, the climate was good tht day..Neither too sunny nor raining.

Descending down was verrrrrrry easy except for our most favorite 70 degrees part. Right frm the time v climbed up ths "70 degress" part , we were worried abt facing tht huge rock while descending down. Steps kinda impression were there on tht rock which helped us in coming down. but there was another problem waiting for us. (Not us...For me!!). DOGS. why the hell they want to come down with me, tht too here only???? But Prakash was our saviour. He stopped the dog on top until v descended down tht "70 degrees" rock... The way he stopped the dog is chanceless(:)). A picture here would explain better.


Thereafter, v managed to come down easily.But I was surprised,if I only climbed up ths tht morning. Finally v completed our trek around 4. It strted raining soon after v left Savandurga :).

From a very beginner of trekking, few advices. Dont carry too much weight. Carry Glucose and atleast 2 litres of water each. Dont forget to carry first-aid kit. And also a spray for sprain and cramps. That was the most utilized resource(by Prakash and Samridhi) after water during our trek. Carry breads or rotis and not heavy food.Thats it...

We stopped at Kaadu Manae, a restaurant near Ramnagar for snacks on the way back. V also went to Big Banyan tree. V reached Lex by 7.30 after a tiring and exciting trip.

On the whole, it was an amazing, evergreen trip. Thanks to all guys who provided shuttle service and helped us in evry possible way. Seriously, had they not helped, v gals would not hav made it...


Waiting for yet another trekking experience!!!!! ;)