Savandurga, Magadi Road Arrampicata su roccia 33 vie in falesia

Savandurga or Savandi is The Holy Land for many of us rock climbers around Bangalore. The place is steeped in climbing tradition dating back to the late 70s and the early 80s.

The dozen odd multi-pitch lines of over 350-400 meters continue to stoke the imagination of the local climbers. Climbing one of the more serious routes here is a coming of age ritual for a rock climber in Bangalore, until the restrictions on climbing by the forest department came about.

Located about 70 km to the west of Bangalore, Savandurga is one of the biggest monoliths in the world and hosted an old fortress. During the Third Anglo-Mysore War, the fortress at Savandurga witnessed a three-week siege in Dec 1791. About a decade later, during the initial years of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India, a Theodolite weighing a ton was dragged up the eastern ridge of the monolith to be used for measuring distances and altitudes around the Deccan.

The GTS mound used for the Theodolite is still evident on the highest point of Savandurga, close to where ‘Shantidas’ route tops out. The same survey eventually discovered that the Everest was the highest point on Earth, in 1853.

Nearly 200 years since those events, the first technical climbing route was successfully established after half a decade of attempts in 1984, by three Delhi based climbers. 1991 saw the first bolted route - Beladingalu, put up by Jean-Francois Hagenmuller and KV Mohana. Another decade of energy saw many more such routes established by local legends such as KV Mohan, Rukmangda Raju, Dinesh Kaigonhalli, Mohit Oberoi, and others. Then after a long lull, the most recent new routes were established by Gaurav Shah (aka Gujju Razzak).

For the older generations, the routes here forged minor legends out of ordinary men and women, by the sheer virtue of climbing here in various fashion in a show of will and skills. Bold first ascents, free soloing (climbing without the protection of ropes), fastest ascents, volume climbing, and such exploits are still recounted with certain regard.

Savandurga both presents, initially as an exciting objective, and eventually works as a training ground for anyone with big wall aspirations. Most of the climbing here is slab climbing, with some crack climbing involved.

A story recounting the first ascent of Dipavali appeared in The Outdoor Journal in the summer 2013 edition, along with the rest of the routes. The TOJ copy that carried the story and the topos of the Savandurga routes (the best topos yet) is now a collectors’ item of minor proportions. Restrictions and fencing up by the Forest Department seems to have dampened the traffic up these routes in the recent years.

The southeast face of the hill is where most of the routes are; there is no wildlife activity here and abuts the human habitations.

Hopefully, the climbers would be successful in convincing the forest department to open this face up for recreational climbing in the future.