A sensor node is naturally exposed to various sources of unreliable communication channels and node failures. Sensor nodes have many failure modes, and each failure degrades the network performance. This work develops a novel mechanism based on a hybrid cluster-based routing protocol to specify the best reliable routing path for sensor networking. Table-driven intra-cluster routing and on-demand inter-cluster routing are combined by changing the relationship between clusters for sensor networks. Applying a reliable routing mechanism in sensor networks can improve routing reliability, maintain low packet loss, minimize management overhead and save energy consumption. Simulation results indicate that the reliability of the proposed routing mechanism is around 25% higher than that of the Dynamic Source Routing and Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector routing mechanisms.