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Excursion Report: 16 Mahindra Thars go off-roading
We stopped there to brief everyone on how to operate the Thar, primarily on which gears to use.
BHPian ishanvyas recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Hi Folks,
This is my second post on a big convoy trail. The first post made a big difference, more people are now willing to do these trails and we have a lot of beginners now in the group who attempted to do this because of my last post.
Vehicles: 16 Thars - 2 Old and 14 New.
Highlights:
- Moderately Tough Hill climb.
- Ditches.
- Rabbit hole trail.
- View Point.
- Rocks.
- Tough rock crawling.
Trail Details:
- Hill (Munishwara betta).
Timeline:
Total Time: 14 Hours (home to home).
- 6.30 AM Assemble at NASA Hotel, Near Kanakapura - Location on map.
- 7.15 Am - Start for the trail.
- Finish the trails by 2 PM and have lunch.
The total run would be about a 140 kms round trip from the breakfast meet-up location.
Couple of us met at MG Road around 5 AM to start towards the main meet up point.
The Thars started assembling at NASA. The reason why we choose NASA this time was because its opening time is 6.30 am vs MTR only starts by 7.30 am.
After a great breakfast, we started toward our first trail:
Pond:
Before the first hill climb starts, there is a large pond where we had to took a diversion. We stopped there to brief everyone on how to operate the Thar, primarily on which gears to use. 4x4L 2nd was the most preferred one, the torque and speed both remain good on that.
The man above in the above pic is one of the most experience and adventurous guy in the group, he is one of the senior ones as well. He fell down because of some slippery step towards the pond.
But we have some great doctors in the group so medical helps are immediately available.
Though none of us ever thought such situations would come, it seems like these things keep happening when you are trying out some adventure. Better to keep basic medical boxes always ready.
Most of us now have a walkie talkie. I personally have 3 now, 2 Baofeng for me and my wife, communication becomes easier on the trail, she helps me with spotting obstacles while I am driving and 1 BruteForce 001i, it has a 6 km range and everyone in the group has Bruteforce so frequency is same.
Trail Begins:
We missed out on creating good videos here, it was moderately tough. Below are the only pics / videos which were captured:
As we finished the uphill climb, one guy on the horse (he helps out the local forest officers) came and notified us that elephants have been spotted in this area.
Rabbit hole trail:
This was the most amazing part of the whole day. I had never experienced something like this and it was shear fun to drive in the bushes, the terrain was slippery and there was a rock on the go.
We thought to walk the route first but since there were too many bushes, we decided let's do it on the go with our Thars.
Just to be cautious here, Soft Top and Convertible people might tear their top, fortunately nothing happened on my Thar. One guy broke his snorkel, another one guy lost his antenna and one guy ended up bursting his tire, there was a rock on the trail from which you have to be really cautious.
The rabbit hole trail ended and we all assembled our Thars. Also to fix one tyre.
One big learning that we had on this tyre burst was, if you go for a rim upgrade, also make sure you have sufficient equipment to change the tyre, else in situation like this, it would be impossible to open the tyre, we fortunately somehow managed it this time, otherwise to get equipment from the city would have easily consume 2-3 hours.
Warning: This rabbit hole trail is a hide out for elephants and you would be allowed here only if the elephants aren't there, if they are there, the forest guards would not allow you to move, couple of vehicles passed and then an elephant was spotted hence not all vehicles were allowed to go in this trail.
View point:
Tough rock roll:
Just before this rock crawling, I was in a dilemma of why do I need an under body protection, I am capable of making sure I don't hit the bottom anywhere. But I was totally wrong.
The guy whom you have seen being treated by doc for a small scratch on his hand said I am taking my THAR down from the hill. Most of us were in double sentiment on whether it's a good idea or now, by the time all of us can digest, he was already in his THAR gearing towards the hill. Rest is in the videos:
The view from downhill was like this.
And another Thar succeeded on the same rock descend:
Maybe the video doesn't seems too scary but just to be clear, you need big balls to do this, there is rocks, trees and no understanding of where should you move your vehicles. Only two folks from the convoy attempted this.
Then we came ahead and parked our vehicles near to a temple to take few minutes rest:
Two guys went ahead and found this water splash area, but a forest officer asked us not to come in that region so not everyone could go there.
Followed by lunch, we wrapped up around 4 pm
This dog was quietly sitting in the hotel where we had our lunch:
Took me 3 hours to come back to my home from the hotel on Kanakapura Road, the Bangalore traffic as you all know.
Note: We now do trails on every 2nd Saturday of the month, all the new Thar owners are welcome to join. For any other vehicles in Bangalore and want to do off-roading, hit me up, would be happy to do trails around this region.
Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.
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