Savandurga Hike

Date: Sunday, 4th Sept 2005

Trip to Savandurga was totally unexpected. We (me, Anil, Poornima and Manjula) were suppose to be doing rock climbing at Ramanagar in preparation for our Himalayan trek. When I reached the bus station early in the morning got a call from Anil. Rock climbing was cancelled due to heavy rain the previous night. He suggested we go somewhere nearby and do the trek instead. Had I received the call at home I would have opted to sleep. By the time I reached Anil's home the destination was already decided. It was Savandurga. This was originally knows as Savinadurga (death fortress). It is about 10km from magadi and 60km from Bangalore. This was the capital for Magadi rulers, the Kempegowdas in 17th century. The landscape will remind that of Chitradurga. After having breakfast at 'vidhyarthi bavan' (also packed food for lunch) we hit the Bangalore-Magadi road. From Magadi one needs to take a left that goes towards Ramanagar.


Death Fortress

There are two routes to reach the top. One is through the forest, which is on the left hand side of the hill also know as karigudda or black hill. The other way is to climb the biligudda or white hill which is devoid of any vegetation. We took the latter one mainly because we didn't know that there was another route. There are no steps to climb here. Only thing that will guide you to the top is the white arrows painted on the rock. Keep going along the marked arrows unless you have some kind of rock climbing experience otherwise you would make a front page news only in a local news paper though. So it is not worth taking so much risk. Even along the marked route, which is suppose to be the easiest one, at some places it becomes so steep you will find yourself crawling like a lizard. It took us almost two hours of climbing before we reached hanuman temple. Next to this is a small pond. From here it will take you another 15 minutes to reach the top. There you will find a small nandi facing the valley. Atop the hill one can also get a view of river arkavathi, shivaganga and siddhaganga peaks.


The top!

As we started descending we realized it is more difficult to climb down a steep rock than going up. Not only does it put lot of stress on the knees it also makes one go weaker in their knees when they actually realize how steep the descent is. Another two hours we were back at the bottom. Having nothing else to do we headed to Bangalore. I had one more reason to make it to Bangalore as soon as possible. I knew my sweetheart would be waiting for me! Wondering who this new character is???

Some basic tips:
- Take longer steps while climbing up
- Take shorter steps while climbing down and also lean backwards.
- Do not attempt to climb after or during the rain otherwise you would be history.

PS: We had not taken any camera for this hike. So the pics are taken from here.