Madhugiri Fort
3:15 AM
Our early morning plan began at 8:30 (the actual plan was 7 but late night alcohol party previous day was bound to give us some delays ;)). I took my car and picked up my friends and we drove towards tumkur road via the city. Morning time the traffic is less and easier to reach. So we reached yashwantpur station via malleshwaram and Mg road and took the inside routes to reach Tumkur road. From there it is around 100 Km. You can follow Google maps and reach the destination without any glitches. We did the same.
The route is good, nothing great .. On the way, you will see few boulders sitting together and few lakes and few trees.. Nothing very scenic.. Well may be the climate was not perfect for it to be scenic.. The Journey is not that great, the destination is! En-route we did stop over for breakfast at Kamat. It was a little late for breakfast but glad we had a heavy one. U need that much amount of food especially if you end up like us reaching there by 1.
For you guys if you plan to do this trip, try to reach the place by morning at least by 8. It took me around 2:45 to reach on top and 1 hr to come down. It takes 4 hours of journey with several breaks. And make sure you eat enough to get you up and energetic till you reach top. And have water and some sugar based drinks (energy drinks, cold drinks, mazaa would be great.. ) per person. We just had like 2 liters of water and half bottle juice for 3 of us. Which we thought for every sip that we had. And on top while climbing up, one bottle water with 1/4 water remaining fell at least 150 meters down. (which we picked up on way down. Good trick to ensure some water is left when we climb down. )
When we reached the bottom of the hill, I was a little excited and little nervous. The climb and height was making me nervous and the view was exciting. The Fort must have been so well thought of while building. Why I say this because during the climbing phase, every climb gave a view of next climb. But nothing at one shot. Which was great for me, cause that was the only way my friends could get me to climb up. My point, carry good shoes that can give a strong grip on the stones. The stones are not slippery as such but would help you do the climb effortlessly(to say). I am a no trekking person, so I made several stops in between with a crib face and lots of ruckus. "I am not moving anymore", " I can't do this guys", "I will stay here, you guys go ahead and pick me on way down", "Do we have to go up?", "Is this the last mile?".. Oh!! I was a baby! Just to get my friends feel good about themselves I said all this.. (I hope they don't read this ;)) But I know they had a laugh and were very satisfied that they got the revenge of me for troubling them at office.
But once you reach up the next tension begins.. At least that is what happened to me. The climb down is crazy when you are scared of height. But when we were on top, My friend decided to trick us! (PS: dude if you are reading this.. Not the place to do such pranks) I was totally freaked out and scared.. I was praying that he was alright. Ufff! Let me tell what happened. So our photographer friend decided that climbing on top was not enough of trekking. So he climbed down on other side of mountain to take pictures etc .. We sat on top enjoying the view. And me finally happy to breathe normally. After few minutes it got sunny where we sat so we moved a few steps back and sat. Time passed not sure how long .. But that made us realize that our photographer friend should have come back up! Oh! So where the hell was he.. So my other friend started shouting his name and went down to see where he could be. Well hell! We could not see him .. And our mind is great that it thinks all negative before anything positive. After few minutes of shouting and fretting .. Walah, From behind us, he comes out .. "Pstttt I am here .. what are you guys doing !! " I was so royally pissed that i could have probably pushed him off .. So my volley of all known bad words rolled out! Well i settled after a while, knew no point being upset. He was fine anyways..
Our journey then began down. Downward journey is not as bad as upward. But I was hungry and tired and scared of height. So my legs were giving me away. But I managed with help of my friends to climb down.
I hope when you do this trip, You are more prepared than i am and have a uneventful trip. Happy travelling. Travel safe!