I had just got my Sem 5 result, cleared with a decent score. Just when I was talking to Vishwesh about the result he replied with greetings and a note. "This ones for you. Harishchandragad on 4th-5th" it said. Sone pe suhaga I thought! Getting the permission from home was easy as they were quite happy about the result. They hardly knew I was giving some important college duties a miss (got into trouble later for doing this) in going for the trek. So there it was, all set, ready for Harishchandra.
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| The troop |
I left home at about 11.30pm on Friday, 3rd Feb. We had to take the last Kasara local from Dadar at 12.30pm. It was there that we realised from the intitial 6 members, only 4 had turned up, 2 dropped out last minute. This was a very small group considering we had something as huge as Harishchandragad to cover. It was only Kedar, Sushant, me & Vishwesh for the Sahyadri Rangers this time.
We reached Kasara at 3:15am. About 20 minutes late. We were supposed to take a passenger train from Kasara to Igatpuri. But to our surprise there wasn't a single train until 7 in the morning. Waiting till 7 would have screwed up every bit of planning that we had done. We just had to find a way to get to Igatpuri somehow. Just about then we saw a few brake coaches arrive to which engines were being joined. Inquiring we learnt those coaches were being sent to Igatpuri, but we weren't allowed on that brake train. Knowing that was our only way out, we went all out at the guard to convince him to allow us, no stone unturned. He finally agreed and we were off.
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| The brake train |
This brake train travelling was one hell of an experience. Just to give you an idea, a brake coach is the last coach you see in old hindi movies, its open, has a balcony sort of thing, that! This was the first (and probably the only) time I was travelling on an open train. I have been through rail tunnels a million times but never did it feel so epic! Seeing the complete tunnel from inside, even the top, noticing the temperature change as soon as the train entered the tunnel, it felt amazing! The chilled air (mid-winter), pitch dark surroundings were making the journey even more enjoyable. We reached Igatpuri by 5.25am and rushed straight to the Bus Stand for an ST bur to Rajur. A cutting chai each and we were on a bus to Pune, that would take us to Rajur.
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| Insides of a tunnel |
The bus took about 2 hours to reach Rajur. Picturesque views of the mighty Bhandardara dam en-route made for an incredible bus journey. After breakfast at Rajur we took a jeep to the base village, Pachnai. On the way we stopped near a river for another experience, a dump in the open, my first, felt weird but relieved :P Sad how millions of Indians have to live this way! We reached Pachnai by about 11.30am where we had our go-to man 'Prakash' waiting for us. The Rangers had met him on a previous trek to Harishchandra. He pitched tents and did related stuff on the top of Harishchandra, we were already good friends with this guy. As long as there was Prakash, in his typical village tone, "kay bhi, tension, nai!!"
We soon refilled our bottles and started our ascent. Thre route from Pachnai is the simplest one. Although there are 7 different routes to reach Harshchandra, we chose Pachnai as it was the least time consuming. We wanted maximum time at the top. We were quite relaxed while climbing, there was no rush. Taking short halts at scenic spots, we reached the top in about an hour. Prakash cought up with us with our tent and mattresses giving us valuable info about different routes and peaks around.
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| A weird plant and a lizard spotten en-route |
We decided to first go to Kedareshwar temple which was in a cave. A
shivaling in the middle of icy cold water. We took it as a challenge to complete at least 3
pradakshina of the
shivaling. A chill ran down my spine the moment my foot touched the water. The water was outrageosly cold. Some 4-5 degrees it must have been. As I went further in the water I went completely numb. I couldn't even feel any of my body below the waist. They even made a video of everyone's reactions on entering the water :P I quickly took a full
dupki, paid my respects to Kedareshwar and was out within 10minutes. Even though the water wasn't that deep, its temperature, the fact that I couldn't swim and the claustrophobic feel of the cave had got the better of me. Vishwesh, Sushant and Kedar however completed the
pradakshina and did a small
abhishek while I took it all on video. It was here that we met Bhonsale and group.
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| Harishchandreshwar Temple |
After Kedareshwar we moved to the Harishchandreshwar temple. We decided to have lunch here itself since we were all getting hungry and it would have been too late to reach the Kada (where we were staying the night) and have lunch there. The temple is a beautifully carved masterpiece and has an iconic
kalas. Entire temple, surrounding caves and that enclosure is set up on a huge water tank beneath. The
kalas oof the temple even has a secret room which can fit about 5 people. It must have been used to hide idols and other precious things during the period of Shivaji. As we were seeing around, Prakash was busy collecting firewood and and setting up a
chool to cook I must say maggi never tasted so good this before. Maybe it was the water, maybe the
chool, its the mountain Prakash said.
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| Idols inside the secret room |
At about 3.40pm we left the cave after resting there for about 40 minutes. We left for Konkan Kada. This was going to be THE MOMENT. My first date with the Kada. And you can imagine the excitement when you've heard from so many people that your date is an absolute beauty! As we reached near, Vishwesh asked me and Kedar to stop. He wanted on video, our first reactions to the Kada. As the camera got ready, we moved ahead slowly.
There it was, this massive, colossal creation of nature, right in front of me, most of it right below me! Extremely overwhelming! I stood speechless, expressionless, numb in awe of this supernatural creation! As I slept, crawled and leapt over the edge, the traditional position to view the kada, I skipped a beat, lost track of time and reality! You tend to get lost in the depth, beauty and ruthlessness of the grand Konkan Kada. I could, just for a moment, totally understand why someone would want to jump off this place. I never realised it had been almost an hour I had stood admiring the Kada.
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| Kada on the left & sunset on the right |
It was only when Prakash interrupted we moved to the location we had to get our tent pitched. The location seemed perfect. Just a few metres form the Kada. Far enough to be safe, close enough to get a glimpse as and when we pleased. We had asked Prakash to teach us to pitch a tent so we could use it in the future. It wasn't that difficult and in 15-20minutes we were done with it. We now moved to explore the entire expanse of the Kada to the right, right up to the point where
nalichi vaat (another ascent route) starts. It was here that we met another group, Mr. Manoj Kalekar and his folks.
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| Sunset from Konkan Kada |
There were some exceptional views of the Kada throughout. We also spotted a few vulture colonies on the crevices on the wall of Kada. Also many beehives. By now we had reached the extreme end of the Kada. Initially we had planned to see the sunset from the place in front of our tent but now decided to stay there itself as it gave great views of both the sunset & the entire Kokan Kada. The fast changing colours seemed magical! Soon after the sunset and a few photos, we started rushing back to the tent before darkness. Enroute we met Bhonsale and group again, learnt that their campsite was quite close to ours.
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| Our home for the night |
By the time we reached the tent it was almost dark. But the moon was bright that night which meant it wasn't going to be pitch black. We gave Prakash sugar, milk powder and coffee packets and asked him to make us all a cup of coffee. Meanwhile we started cutting vegetables for the
pulav we were to make for dinner. Soon Prakash returned with coffee for all of us. Its hard to explain how everything tastes so amazing at such a place. Easily one of the best coffees' I've ever had. You need to be at such a place to enjoy coffee. I went up, sat on the Kada and sipped coffee, felt so peaceful! The silence up there was defeaning, wind soothing and the light, just perfect. Did feel like a date :P
We had Prakash light up a
chool for us to cook the
pulav for dinner. Unknowingly we used up all the rice we had, which was actually meant for 6 people. Problem of plenty. There was so much
pulav even if all of us ate to capacity, there would've been a lot left. So we shared some with Bhosale and group before we started. We ate and kept the rest for breakfast next morning. Done with dinner we took a final stroll on the Kada and packed ourselves into the tent for the night.
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| Dinner prep |
I woke up at about 6 next morning. I had slept well except for a few antics I pulled at night :P. Strangely the wind had got to me and I had caught cold in the morning. I am still sniffing as I write this blog. Soon prakash came to light us a
shekoti since we were all shivering in the cold. He had slept in another tent nearby. By the time everyone got done with their morning rituals we heated the
pulav for breakfast hand had Prakash make us coffee. We had to scrap the plan to go to Taramati peak as we were short on time. We finished breakfast, packed our sacks, bid Prakash a goodbye and started the descent by about 9am. '
Pudhcya veli phone kara dada, Sadhale Ghat ne yeu apan' he said as we left, mentioning a new route.
We were descending to Khireshwar now, not Pachnai from were we started. The original plan was to reach Khireshwar via Tolar Khind route but on a previous trek we had found this route to be long, boring and monotonous. Hence we decided to try a new 'shorkit' route Prakash told us about. The route went through Balekilla - Junnar Darwaza - Khireshwar. Tolar Khind was bypassed and precious time could be saved. But it was a rarely trodden route and wasn't markde that well. But it saved almost an hour so worth it we thought. The chances of getting lost were more and that, in style, we did :P
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Where we wrongly ended up
Should have been on the other side of the nedhe |
After walking about 15-20 minutes from Harishchandra Temple we reached the spot where the route from Tolar Khind and Balekilla met. Tolar Kind to the left and Balekilla to the right. There was a
limbu sarbat wala here. We asked him about the route as we sipped
limbu sarbat (lemonade). He too said the route was not advisable without a guide. Yet we saw a map there and continued on the same trail. Since we had never even read about the trail, we had passed Balekilla without even realising we did. We were a bit lost, trying to find a the
nedhe (needle hole in the mountain) using the map we had and we reached a dead end, a deep valley. We could see the
nedhe in front of us but couldn't see a way to reach there. It was now about 12pm.
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| Junnar Darwaza |
It was here that we met the group of Aditya, Sudarshan & others, Trekvede. They, equally lost! Since we were just 4 of us we decided to join them and descend as a big group, it always helps when there are more heads. Just the I found a right turn on the trail that we had missed earlier. Going further on the trail I reached a few steps that took us into a col. I didn't know then but that was the Junnar Darwaza! From Junnar darwaza we had to go down through the col and look for a left turn in between. The rocks in the col were loose which made walking very difficult. We had to test the sturdiness of every rock before we set a foot or a hold on it. Even after much precaution, a huge rock was set loose when Aditya set foot on it and it started rolling down towards Vishwesh and Sudarshan. Aditya frantically started screaming 'wach out' as the rock was rollong down. Fortunately they were alert and escaped, but just! It was a heart in mouth moment. This episode scared everyone hence our speed slowed down further.
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| Route through the Kalshya col |
About an hour of descending through the col we reached a point where we could see a trail going to the left but it didn't seem that used, neither was it marked with an arrow. Thinking that this was the left we had to take we all took to the trail. Soon we realised this was not easy.There was a lot of scree and we were keep on our feet only because of the wild grass that we held with our hands. Hence we decided to stop. Only Vishwesh and Sudarshan went ahead to check if the route was correct. Just then out of nowhere we saw an old local shepherd walking behind us. On inquiring we realised we had taken the wrong turn. But by now Vishwesh and Sudarshan were so far ahead they didn't return our calls. So we had to wait for them to realise by themselves that it wasn't the correct route and then return. Here a lot of our time was wasted, more than what we were going to save.
As we waited for Vishwesh to return it was almost 3pm. We were out of water. The only refreshment we had left was the
limbu sarbat we had Prakash make for us with the lemons we had got. By the time Vishwesh and Sudarshan returned Aditya and Gaurav had moved ahead and found the correct left turn. and to our rejoice it was faintly, but marked with an arrow. Soon we were on the right trail, this too had a lot of scree but was manageable.
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| Tractor to Khubi Phata |
After two more hours of walking by about 5pm we reached the base to see a tractor being loaded with rocks. We were a little ahead of Khireshwar, kind of bypassed it too. But the sight of the tractor after a grueling 8 hour descent sent a wave of excitement through everyone. The tractor meant we didnt have to take the agonizing walk from Khireshwar to Khubi Phata on the Khireshwar dam. Within an hour we reached Khubi Phata on the rocks in the tractor :P After a brief photo session with our new friends, the Trekvede group, we moved to freshen up and eat. Everyone was hungry since we had no food since breakfast in the morning, it was almost 5.30. Trekvede had a few packets of maggi left whcih we asked a local shop owner to cook for us.
Just then we noticed another group loading themselves into a tempo nearby. We learnt the tempo was dropping them to Ulhasnagar. So we all left the maggi and rushed to the tempo since we knew the transport scene from Khubi Phata wasn't that great. Few of them quickly bought a few VPs and bhajjis meanwhile. We were happy that we had easily found transport to some raillway station. Traveling the ghats of Malshej in an open tempo was an amazing experience. Add to that the different views of the sunset as we moved through the Malshej. By 8.15pm we reached Shahad railway station and decided to alight there itself. There we bid adieu to the Trekvede group since they were from Dombivali, promising to meet on some other adventure.
I reached home by 11pm, with more than just fresh air and sweet pain. The number of different experiences I had on this trek cannot be counted.That is what made it a fantastic trek. Undoubtedly the highlight of the trek was the Kokan Kada. This was easily the best trek I had ever been on and I am definitely going again, for Kokan Kada if nothing else!
