166) Medigeshi Fort Trek: (5/3/2019)

Place: Medigeshi Fort Trek

Distance: 150kms x 2 = 300kms

Directions: Bangalore > Dobbaspete > Madhugiri > Medigeshi

Krew: Madhu (Howle)  > Karthik (Sippy)

Bikes: Pulsar                                                                                  

Previous Visit: Kunti Betta trek

Budget: Rs 425/head

IN LESS THAN 50 WORDS:                                                  

Alright, this trek was one of those scorching hot treks on the borders of AP in the middle of peak summer. The trek as such was awesome, but the heat drained our energies pretty bad. Last time, if you remember we were stuck on the mountain as on fire. Climbing down the hillock with fire all around you, yeah something crazy alright!

INTRO & PLAN:

Medigeshi is the hometown of Aditya and we had last visited this beautiful and peaceful town in 2017 when we had been to Ratnagiri Fort. Last time we had trekked Medigeshi was in Feb 2014, 5 years earlier. Regarding the crew, as usual Madhu, who was forced to empty his quarterly leaves was always game :P

TIME: 22:00 (21/2/2019)

ASSEMBLE & LEAVE:

Yeah I was up at 05:00, as usual, did a few push-ups and sit-ups and was all set to go. As Madhu had returned late previous night we decided to leave by 7AM. Left my home at 6:30, picked up Madhu and we left Bangalore.

TIME: 07:00

RIDE 1: (Bangalore – Dobbaspete – Madhugiri – Medigeshi)

Okay is this was about 135-150kms ride. To start things off we rode on the wide Tumkur road at a slow pace enjoying the wonderful sunrise. As we had the entire day to ourselves, we decided to take it slow. Cruising along at a comfortable place in the cool weather, we pulled over at our regular hotel for some tasty breakfast at Dobbaspete.

TIME: 07:45

After a light breakfast, we took off from Dobbaspete and entered the butter smooth snake way to Madhugiri. With the Koratagere by-pass finished the ride proved to be a kick-ass one. The roads being nice, traffic being less and surrounding views being awesome, we just allowed the bike to take us to Madhugiri. We rested for a few moments at Madhugiri as we wanted to buy a water bottle, looking at the gigantic beauty we winked at her, promising a trek shortly we carried on. Continuing further, we reached Medigeshi, parking our bike near the temple premises, we were all set for the scorching trek ahead of us.

TIME: 10:00

MEDIGESHI FORT TREK:

It took us about 60mins to reach the top. As the sun was burning in all its glory, we did take a lot of stops to cool down. But yeah, the trek proved to be a really nice one. Like always I have divided the trek into the following segments:

i) Gateways – 10 to 15mins

ii) Rock Face – 10 to 15 mins

iii) Steep face – 10 to 15mins

Sooo, these were the stretches, let me run you through each one. Keep up with me here!

    

i) Gate-ways:

To start things off, we had to make it through a lot of gates. The path is quite clear and runs you almost to the top. But this initial stretch has a lot of steps and pretty much drains you, if you add the hot weather into the equation you get the zombie walk.

ii) Rock face:

Once out of the gateways, we found ourselves in the open, with the sun’s mighty rays crashing right down on our skull, we had to cross a pure rock face. This, actually we found to be a little better and easy than the previous phase. We spotted a lot of old halls in ruins with pillars fallen here & there.

    

iii) Steep face:

The last phase of the trek consists of ascension of a really steep rock phase. Steps had been carved, but nevertheless we had to be extremely cautious during this ascent. After ascending the steps, there a few gate-ways again and once out of them, you can spot the huge Indo-Islamic style building which marks the top.

TIME: 11:00

TOP:

The top of Medigeshi fort consists of lot of buildings and granaries. You could easily spend an hour or two just exploring these places. Firstly we kept the large building for the last. We glimpsed through the resting homes one by one and made it to the strange tree. The tree is just spooky, and the path to reach was through a door of thorny shrubs. Crazy! After fooling around the tree for sometime, we next made it the granaries where food/oil used to be stored.

    

These granaries have only an opening on top and are about 15-20feet high. Climbing these proved to be risky but damn fun and a perfect test to all the exercises I was doin back home. Finally we crept into a small cave kind of structure and rested there for good 15-20mins. Waking up fresh, we had a sip of water and check out the main building which we had reserved for last and decided to head back down.

TIME: 12:15

DESCENT:

The descent was quite straightforward. We took the same route as we had climbed up. But as we reached the steep steps, climbing down these was actually pretty intense. And amdist all this we just sat on the steep steps for 5-10mins and took in the view in front of us to the fullest – talk about getting acclimatized to danger! Once we reached back the gates, the temperature was soaring past 35degC and we were pretty much zonked out. Reaching the temple premises we hopped on our bike and saying sayonara to the beautiful town we took off.

TIME: 13:00 

    

RIDE 2: (Medigeshi – Madhugiri – Dobbaspete - Bangalore)

This was about a 150kms ride back to Bangalore. As we left Medigeshi, we were pretty much de-hydrated. We were cruising along at a slow pace and all off a sudden we saw this place “TUMBADI” we were like woah, I started thumping Madhu’s back “maga tumbad, hastar, wait, pull over, pull over”! Thinking I had gone mental, Madhu pulled over and asked what the hell had just happened, said I was only thirsty and bought some water bottles. Hydrating ourselves back, we rode non-stop to Dobbaspete and stopped there for some full meals batting.

After a nice heavy lunch we rode back to Bangalore. Dropped Madhu home and reached back home in one piece!

TIME: 16:30

CONCLUSION:

“Well, the second trip of the mind-flusher series was a crazy one. Hiking up Medigeshi in peak summer was basically like putting yourself into the furnace and locking the door to see what it feels like inside. But the trek as such, was very nice and all the working out had shot up the stamina, felt good \m/”

Until next time Cia \m/

PICASA ALBUM:

MAPS: