Turahalli Forest: Lost In My Backyard

Of all the biking trails I have explored, one common factor is that they will be far off from my home and I never had the interest nor the patience to explore trails close by. So when going through a fellow cyclist's blog I came across this place called Turahalli forest, damn close to my house and I was never enlightened about this place before. So on a lazy and cloudy Saturday afternoon couldn't resist the temptation to explore this forest, so off I went alone without any idea about the road directions and relied a lot on the localites.

BSK 6th Stage Road

Directly hit the BSK 6th stage road and the area becomes more or less desolated. Few vehicles and even fewer houses build on this newly developed layout.  Soon started to get the glimpse of the boulders filled forests, the trademark of Turahalli forests. But the main problem was I was not finding any proper access paths into the forest. I had an MTB for gods sake, but the entire forest seemed to be  cordoned off by barbed wires. So on and on I went searching for an access and finally found one , a foot trail which starts from a desolate colony.

The Offroad Trail

Thus started the offroading trail. I would say it was kinda extreme and at many places I lost the trail. So trail or no trail was cycling on any flat piece of land , and at some place had to get down and walk to negotiate huge boulders. Technically speaking I was more or less lost and I was loving it :). Offroading and lost in the jungle , what more can an andreline junkie ask for :P. After exploring aimlessly found a proper trail going to the Turahalli temple. There are infact a lot of peacocks in this forests and I caught sight of nearly 3 of these beautiful creatures.

After I hit the motorable kuccha road there is a very steep climb right up to the temple. And in addition to that my wheels were not getting enough traction while climbing up due to loose sand and stones, so making it somewhat an effort. After I reached the top the views where simply superb. The dark clouds forming above the city of Bengaluru was nice.

Dark Clouds Forming

When I reached the temple at the peak the poojari and some assistant of his where closing up the temple. Striked a conversation with them regarding the routes and stuff. Also they told me to be careful because of lots of thefts happen at this place and I was all alone. I somewhat agree to that because these forests are completely desolate and I didnt come across any human apart from the poojari and his assistant for the entire ride inside the woods.

View From The Top

Temple At the Top

After spending nearly 5 mins at the top left the place. The descent was quite thrilling with the state of the road. You got to be 100% alert when descending such roads. One mistake and you will take a fall. After some 15-20 mins reached the main road and took a wrong turn towards Mysore road instead of Kanakpura road. But even then the detour was total worth it. The bike cam video uploaded was on this road.

[Bike Cam - Next time got to focus more on the views than the roads :P]

After I was informed I was travelling in the wrong direction took a U turn and reached Kanakpura road and finally reached my house at 3 pm. You wouldn't believe my timing becoz as soon as I entered my house it started to rain very heavily. Even if I was slower by 30-40 secs would have surely got drenched :).

Road to Turahalli from the Vajarahalli Road

Overall a good ride and the weather was awesome and so was the trail. Got to explore these forests still more, but with some company after being warned by the poojari.

Figures:

Trip 'O' Meter -> 25 kms (cycling and walking)
Time Taken -> 1 hr 50 mins
Average Speed -> 13.63 km/hr

P.S. -> Mobile Phone Pics
P.S. 2 > Got my first flat after this ride :P

Route Map- Red Circle Represents Extreme Offroading No Defined Paths, Brown Circle represent the normal kuccha roads