Andaman Dairies – Trek to Saddle Peak

As we were supposed to be spending most of our time on beaches, we had planned to add Saddle Peak to the itinerary to bring a little change and at the same time experience something different. We had heard that saddle peak is the highest Peak in the Andaman’s and that was one of the reasons we thought of visiting it. Little did we know that trekking in the Andaman’s would be nothing like trekking in the Sahyadri’s or the Himalaya’s for that matter and we were minus any preparations food, water or other things that need to be carried on a trek. 

Saddle Peak Entrance
Saddle Peak Entrance

According to the things we had heard or read on the internet, Saddle peak was an 8 Kms Trek one way and the trek needed to be started at 6 in the morning. This was our first mistake as we left our rooms at 7, Breakfast on the way of some Malabar parathas, usal and wada’s we reached the base or the starting of the trail at 8 o clock some permits formalities later we were on our way minus 2 people Abhishek and Nikhil as they were in no mood to trek for 16Kms and decided on relaxing at the base where there was a small garden with small cottages.

Board to saddle Peak
Board to saddle Peak

The First 3 Kms were easy and it was a normal trial through forests, beaches and crossing streams. The huge trees and weird noises made us feel that we were trekking through a prehistoric forest which was not touched by the human civilization, unlike its Mumbai and Himalayan counterparts the forest of Andaman’s did not have any trekkers and we were the only ones trekking it, found two students from a local village that gave us company till the end. 

River on the way to saddle peak
River on the way to saddle peak

The main climb or the trek started after 3 Kms after crossing one of the bigger streams, the route is marked with arrows and crosses which guide you through the trail. Once we started the climb we knew we would be climbing 5 Kms but trekking near the beach increased the humidity and the environment was also different making us tired and thirsty quickly and we started getting low on water. Taking small halts on the way we somehow came across a cottage where we rested for some time before continuing with the trek and here is where Vikram gave up and said he would wait and told us to go on ahead.

Saddle Peak Forest
Saddle Peak Forest

From here we thought it would take us another half an hour or so as we could see the horizon but we were wrong and we had to keep on climbing from one step to another and every climb steeper than the previous one, finally after an hour and a half we finally managed to reach the top, but it wasn’t actually the top but a watchtower from where we could see the top, it was already late and it would have taken us an hour or so more to climb but we decided against it as we did not know much about the area and as it was near the beach there were high chances of high tide which could block our paths so we spent some time on the top clicking photos. The view from the top was worth all the effort and it made us forget all the tiredness, the view of the islands, the sea and the forests the frame contained all that we were going to experience in the Andaman’s in the 8 days we would be spending in the there. 

Saddle Peak top
Saddle Peak top

After chilling on the top for some time we started descending and we reached the base by 3, where Nikhil and Abhishek was waiting for us, Boarded the Tavera and started our journey to Rangat, we had a few halts for lunch in Diglipur where we had some good fish and chicken biryani, We reached Rangat in the night it was already 7 730, we had already made our booking when we were headed to Diglipur the previous day, After a not a very good dinner at a local joint we went to sleep  the next day we were supposed to head to Havelock where we would be spending majority of our time enjoying the various activities we had booked /planned there.

To watch the Saddle Peak video Click Here

For things we did before visiting Havelock islands Click Here

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