It was a lazy Sunday morning. I had to struggle to get out of bed in the chilly January morning in Bangalore. But the thrill of the ride and the day ahead were motivation enough to get me moving. I started from Bangalore around 8am. It was a group of four (Me, my wife and two of our friends). We all had a quick breakfast and wanted to start the trek before it gets too hot.

Although it was a Sunday morning roads still had traffic blocks until we reached the toll gate on NICE Road. After that it was like a waltz for me on my RE. The cool wind blowing on your face randomly some cars whiz by. The feeling is just amazing and highly intoxicating, it makes you wish the ride was never over. We entered the Mysore road and then took a deviation that takes you to ‘Dodda Alada Mara’. We passed by the gigantic Banyan tree. Having heard legends about it, I wanted to stop there very badly but then  we were already getting late for the trek. I just enjoyed that marvelous tree as I drove by.

The next couple of kilometers had some dusty roads and nothing interesting. Soon we were riding through scenic Karnataka Country side with lush green fields on both sides. Once you approach Savandurga, you can see the Monolithic hill from several kilometers away. There was a Narasimha swamy temple at the foothills.

Without much delay we started our trek of Savandurga. At first the steep slope looked intimidating but we were confident that this is doable, at fair distance we could see a stone wall and we believed that was the top of the Savandurga hill. We all somehow managed to climb taking rests where ever we found a rock to lean on. There was a guy selling ‘frooti’ carrying a load of those tetra packs walking so leisurely. He told that us that further ahead there were steps. Then we saw a lady in a sari climbing the hill, all we could do was watch this with our mouths wide open. I wondered does a desk job make you so unfit (Or maybe it was all the Junk food that I eat). Any way these gave us hope and inspiration although short lived. To our surprise when we reached the stone wall we realised that we had not even made half of the trek. And the path ahead was even more steeper and and even more challenging.

Beyond a point I was literally crawling praying to all the gods that I don’t slip. There were certain stretches of the trek which had to be done in one shot. If you stop in the middle you will just slide or roll back down. Anyway after 2 hours we somehow managed to climb upto a point where there were some kind of ‘steps’ but by then we were all exhausted and we also started worrying as to how we will descent. The sloped would be even more challenging on our way back.

My descent was something like the spiderwalk in the movie Exorcist. I was the slowest in the group and I was happy that I came back in one piece.

Yes but we somehow made and we all felt proud that we were part of some sort a dangerous adventure for the weekend. We never missed to take selfies. The view from the top was really breath taking . The beautiful river Arkavathi flowing towards the Manchinabele dam and the nearby hills. Even at around 12 noon the visibility was not that great and you could see  the mist slowly drifting away. After all the tiresome and scary trek was for this view. Once at the top we forgot how hard it was to get there and we chose to ignore the thoughts of getting back down. For a few minutes we all were lost in this beautiful view and mother nature caressing our sweaty foreheads and cheeks with a cool breeze.