Yana Trek

I am just back from a wonderful trek to KP. Will be writing about that shortly. Before that penning down my trekking experience to Yana.

May 2006 ...

It was the time of our sixth semester. It had been a long time after our last trip to chennai for the Shaastra event. We wanted a break and an excuse to miss our college. And we got a reason to do just that. One of our college lecturer was getting married and the marriage was in Shimoga, around 270 kilometers from Bangalore. We thought we would attend the wedding and also trek Yana and visit other places. Like they say in kannada, "Swamy karya, Swakarya". :)

We were seven of us in all, Balu, keerthy, Gupta, Pavan , Datta, Sudhindra and Me. We boarded the bus to Sirsi, a small town in Uttara Kannada District around 425 from Bangalore. We reached Sirsi at around 5:30 in the morning. There is a bus that leaves towards Yana at 7 in the morning. We boarded that bus and got down at a place called Vaddi cross. Yana is around 17 kilometers from here. There is a motor able road from here until 3 kilometers before Yana. We had to walk all the way with our luggage among the canopy of the forest trees.

We reached the Yana Cross, where the road ends and entered the deep forests for the final stretch to Yana. Amongst the forest trees we were able to see the magnificent structure of the 2 rocks, Bhairaveshwara Shikara and Mohini Shikara. We reached the place around 12-1, I guess. The two rocks are a treat to watch. We roamed around the caves of the Bhairaveshwara shikara and visited the temple.

Bhairaveshwara Shikara

Bhairaveshwara shikara is around 120 ft high and taller and larger of the two rocks and is a home of loads of bats and honeybee colonies. We were constantly told by the locals and fellow trekkers not to make loud noises since it may disturb the bees and bats. Mohini shikara is around 90 ft high. There are many theories on the formation of these rocks and a mythological story too which u can find here.

Mohini Shikara

My initial assumption was that we can climb to the top of the peak but was disappointed when we were told that it was not possible. But recently, in a movie, I saw a scene where the hero takes the heroine to the peak !!! So, still confused if it can be done.

We had our lunch near the base of the Bhiraveshwara shikara. We didn't go to the base of the mohini shikara since we had get into the woods again and our plan was to reach back to Shimoga that night. We were told that there is a bus to Kumta in the afternoon which never arrived. The condition of the road that leads to Kumta was in a pathetic condition covered with at least 2 feet of red soil. We had a real tough time walking in the red desert each time watching our feet disappear in the sand.

The bus facility and condition of the roads needs serious attention from the tourism department. Such natural wonders needs to be preserved and maintained so that it can attract more tourists.

Balu and Gupta enquired the locals for jeep that could take us to the main road where we can find a bus to kumta. After a lot of effort, one of the estate owners sent their jeep to drop us to the main road, From there, we got a lift to Kumta in an open tempo and that was a real fun ride.

All in all, the whole day we walked around 22-24 kilometers, a day of hard hiking in the forest and the red soil filled roads. Disappointed with Yana, that I couldn't climb it ,we reached Shimoga at around 11 in the night.


The next day we attended the marriage of our lecturer and left to Jog Falls. We reached Jog Falls around 2-3 in the afternoon and our bus to Bangalore was at 7 in the evening at the Jog Falls gate. As everyone knows, Jog Falls is one of the wonderful waterfalls on Sharavati river where the water falls from a height of 829 ft.

Since it was an off-season, before the monsoons , there was hardly any water in the falls. Out of the 4 parts of Jog, Raja and Rani were almost non-existent,I must say, and Rocket was a small stream of water and no roars from the Roarer was heard. :( . Since we had lot of time to kill, we thought we can do things interesting. We started to climb down the Jog falls. There is a visible path made of stones boulders and it took around one hour to reach to the base of the Jog Falls. This was an awesome experience to see the Jog from right below. The volume of water that was gushing down was quite high, though it was looking very minimal from the view point. We took bath and after photo sessions by our officials photographers, Datta and Pavan , we started our climb back to the top.

View from the bottom of Jog

The trek to the bottom of the Jog and back to the top was quite tough compared to the hike to Yana. The birthday boy, Sudhindra, had a tough time climbing back to the top. With constant scoldings from the Big Brother,Gupta, he finally made it..

We had some snacks and finally boarded the bus to Bangalore ending our rather tiring trip to Yana and Jog Falls.

The Gang minus PK