An adventurous trekking on Savandurga hill.

Yes! Finally I did an adventurous (quarter) trekking on Savandurga hill.

The plan for this trekking was since last one month when Shruthi.H surprisingly created the “The Croods” group in Whatsapp and invited all of us for Skandagiri hill trekking. Yes, our actual plan was to do the trekking on Skandagiri hill but in a strange way at last moment we did it on Savandurga hill. On 24^th night at 10pm, we (me & Chetan) left from here (Kengeri) to Shantinagar in Tempo-Traveler (which we booked, prior) to pick up four more friends from there (Sangeeta, Vinayak, Shruti.H, Preeta and Shruti.N) and then from Shantinagar we went to Madiwala to pick up Karthik (Who had came all over from Dindigul to meet us) and from Madiwala we went to Silkboard and picked remaining friends (Vinay, Ravi, Vikas and Kishore). So in a way, inadvertently we peregrinated half of Bangalore. From Silkboard we headed straight towards Skandagiri hill. On the way to hill, we did nothing but stopped somewhere and had midnight tea in roadside-stand and of course posed for each other’s cameras in the vehicle. (These days no trip is considered as trip unless we carry at least one camera of worth more than 15K, isn’t it? Forget about Mobile cameras, they are for regular memories, not for special ones)

Photo taken in vehicle.

Photo taken right after having midnight tea.

Han! Coming to the journey, after having tea and little photo session in the vehicle we went towards hill, when we reached base of the hill it was 1am. Yes, we actually had a plan to do wild, weird and crazy midnight trekking in Skandagiri hill but unfortunately there were cops over there who restricted us from entering into the hill and they also informed us that trekking in Skandagiri hill is banned since 2011. To say, actually we knew about the ban, but yet we had planned. It was because of two prejudiced things 1) We had overconfident on our police that, there won’t be anyone to restrict us and 2) if by chance, anyone was present means we had planned to use money as allurement. But neither two happened. Second one is mostly because, as it was Christmas holiday there were too many people came to trek that, if cops had accepted even 100₹ from each of us means, the very next morning, ride would have happened in their houses for possessing large amount of hush money. May be, for this reason they were in so confuse, whether to take money or not that they even didn't talk with us properly and just suggested us to go for Nandi hill, which was near. We too had no option other than to turn back and to head towards Nandi hill.

@Savandurga Hill

In this context we stopped at the juncture of Chikkballapur road and Nandi hill road to decide whether to go for Nandhi hill or to visit some other place. As some people in our group were been to Nandi hill before and found that place was not for adventurous group like us, so we decided to visit some other place.

As our friends were more inclined towards doing trekking than to just visit any place we thought do the same on Savandurga hill (The idea was given by Kishore)

If we take Bangalore as center point, Savandurga hill was located exactly at the mirror distance to the Nandi hill (in other words, we were supposed to travel the double distance of which we travelled for reaching Skandgiri hill from Bangalore) nevertheless, as we had plenty of time and besides because of our voraciousness to do trek, we decided to go for Savandurga hill and headed towards the same. At 4:30am, we reached Savandurga and seen the Lord Narshima temple which was gleaming in its sodium-vapor lamps. We were so crazy that we wanted to start hiking immediately but people over there, who were there in temple warned us about the possibilities of bears in hill, so in order to avoid risk we decide to trek when dawn rises, to spend the time somehow, we just roamed here and there around the temple and in doing so, we took a sudden glance at the hill and scared to death. It’s because hill was located just right behind the temple (that we didn’t know) and it appeared so enormous and steeply in manner that we literally thought it is impossible for us to hike on it. Any way, we had planned to do hiking no matter what! So we thought to spend the time by lighting a bonfire but as there was no firewood available we plucked woods from trees and used them for bon fire.

Plucking woods from tree.

Arranging woods to lit the fire.

Man! Tell you what; here we clicked more number of photos than the firewood we placed for bonfire. As fire in bonfire diminished and dawn came, we brushed our teeth and got freshen, took blessings of lord Narshima and got ready for hiking.

Weird Bonfire

Bonfire

Temple gleaming in its Sodium-vapor lamp

Bonfire diminished.

Dawn came.

Initially, we were so enthusiastic and energetic that we hastened across the hill but as route become steeper and steeper, our energy level reduced to lower and lower, so we took more sojourns. Especially me, who carried two 250gms of glucose packet to get energy in-between got enervated quickly that, I really had no energy to even eat glucose.

Sojourn

View of temple from middle of hill.

When we completed 30% of our trekking distance I was completely exhausted and felt nausea, thus eventually I gave up. But my friends after taking one lengthy sojourn and having snacks, said bye to me and continued their trek.

Felt nausea and eventually stopped hiking

When they went, I slept over there for sometime and woke up in a serenity of nature. I sat there nearly for two hours completely merged in tranquility of nature (which we rarely experience in Bangalore) and after spending three hours there, I descended from the hill and waited for my friends to come. My friends who reached top of hill took more photos than the total photos we took earlier (Those photos they showed to me later, and also told me that Sangeetha opened the, reaching-the-top-of-hill-accomplishment-coke). After my friends joined me, without wasting too much time we went to restaurant had lunch and came back to Bangalore.