Yana, Unchalli Falls, Magodu Falls and Sathodi Falls

When Maheshwar called me on last Wednesday afternoon to ask if I am interested for a weekend trip/trek to Yana and surroundings, I said 'Yes' without a second thought.
Friday night at 10 PM I, Maheshwar, Kamesh and Vinod assembled at the entrance of Majestic bus stand. After buying some fruits, we boarded the bus to Sirsi at 10.30. Had a good sleep in the bus and reached Sirsi at 9 Am on Saturday.

We refreshed ourselves at Sirsi bus stand. Had breakfast at the KSRTC canteen and hired a jeep to go to Yana and other places as public transport to these places is not reliable. Yana is ~40 kms from Sirsi. It took an hour and a half to reach the starting point of the 'walk' to Yana. It is nothing but an abandoned jeep track of 2 kms. But a beautiful scenery unfolds as you walk past the last turn. There are a few huge clusters of rock. 'Bhairaveshwara Kallu' and 'Mohini Kallu' to name a few. We were told that there are around 30+ rock structures in the forest. The bigger stone cluster is taller than 490 fts.


There is an old temple of Shiva at the base of 'Bhairaveshwara Kallu' which is very silent and looks like a place with lot of positive energy. There are cement steps towards a stream. We walked in there and took a dip and that was worth it. Again walked back to the Jeep.

It was a 45+kms journey to Unchalli falls from Yana and the roads were really in bad condition. It was 4 Pm when we reached the view point of Unchalli falls. We had to walk a Km to reach the view point. After this Vinod and Kamesh went find the route to the base of the falls and two of us walked back to the Jeep. They found the route and again we descended around 2.5 Kms (It was a steep decline) to reach the stream and we camped there Saturday night. Found two flat stones, collected the firewood, lit the camp fire, had the food (Fruits and dry cup noodles) and slipped into the sleeping bag. That was the deep sleep, we woke up at 5.30 in the morning, had some chocolates and started back towards the view point at 6.45 AM. We reached the jeep at 7.30 AM on Sunday morning from here it was a 70 kms journey to Magodu falls.

Again came back to Sirsi , had breakfast and proceeded towards Magodu. Magodu is a wonderful falls and even there we tried to trek towards the base of the falls. Myself and Maheshwar did not complete the trek and returned from half. But Vinod and Kamesh completed and told that it was very challenging.

From here again we traveled 40 kms to Sathodi Falls and I have to say that this is the dirtiest place we saw in this trip. Mainly because lot of people consider this place as a public bathroom and they take bath with verity of shampoos and soaps. Also lot of families come here with cookers, cooking ranges etc and cook food here and eat and dirt the place around. There are also a lot of liquor champions with their crates of beer.

From Sathodi we started towards Shivamogga and the Jeep dropped us in the railway station at 9.15 PM. It was a sleepy train journey towards Bangalore and we reached Majestic railway station at 5 am on Monday morning.

Team Size : 4 Team : Myself, Kamesh (Mars Adventures), Vinod and Maheshwar
Details : Took the 10.30 Rajahamsa to Sirsi from Majestic. Sirsi is the central point for all these places. Best thing is to hire a jeep from Sirsi and go to all these places.

Signing off -Prasanna

Photos:

Yana - 'rocks!!!!!!!!!'

Unchalli Falls - From the view point.

Unchalli Falls - From the place where we camped.

Magodu Falls - From the view point

Magodu - Another view

Sathodi Falls