Kalsubai - 8th Feb 2014

We left Pune at 545 pm and after picking up the last member at Chakan, it was a long frustrating drive negotiating the narrow, busy Nasik highway. After a quick dinner at Daulat, we reached Sangamner at around 930'ish. Took a left towards immediately after Sangamner bus stand to Akole --> Rajur --> Shendi. The last part was really lonely, no one to ask for directions and no GPS. Reached Shendi at 1130. Stayed at Yash resorts which we had booked a day before. Decent clean place.

8th morning: Started off with cold, probably stale kande-pohe in the morning. While driving towards Bari village the terrain keeps you guessing which one is Kalsubai. While driving in the previous night we didn't realise that we are gaining height. Once the pinnacle is spotted, it doesn't look like 1646 m at all because of the fact that Bari itself would be at approx. 500 m.

An enthusiastic guide Kiran caught hold of us even before we parked the vehicle. School-going sharp kid. The other Kalsubai temple you reach almost immediately after starting is in a nice location. We met an English speaking gentleman who was a sort of care-taker at the temple.

It is an easy climb up.

Pic 1: The steel ladders are something different that help you navigate some difficult patches. Total of 4 of them. The 3rd and 4th one nearest to the peak is steep. It must be fun when its raining.

The 2 camping spots are one each near both the temples. There is a well just before the peak so one good itinerary could be reaching up there, almost up to the peak in the evening. Pegging your tents there. Summit the peak next day morning, hardly 10 mins climb. Pack up and leave by 9 am.

Pic 2: A clear day that it was, the view is 'Top of the world'. Bhandardara reservoir, the AMK range and far-away in the horizon, Harishchandragad.

The small pinnacle gives you a summit feel. 2 hours 20 minutes was the time taken.

 Pic 3

Pic 4

Some uncalled for histrionics make the descent interesting. Pic 3 and Pic 4.

Lunch at Hotel Anandwan was good. The local fish was different. We took the other route via Bota avoiding Sangamner. Dont think we saved on distance. Definitely didn't save on time..Took 5 hours to reach home in Pune. Total odo was 420 kms. How apt.

Korigad - Jan 18th/19th, 2014

Giving the kids a taste of camping was the simple purpose of this trip. So here we were, 2 families off to Korigad accompanied by Mama-Mami from Mumbai. Korigad is an easy trek for kids, not far from Pune, not remote in case of emergency, ample water up there etc. Just ideal for the purpose. The winter chill is gone but it is cold enough to enjoy a camp fire.

We had to discourage the youngest one (3.5 years) out of the plan by describing the place with exaggerated details but the elder two cousins (10 years old) were all enthusiastic.

Route

Pune --> Lonavla --> INS Shivaji --> Bhushi dam --> Amby valley --> Peth Shahpur. Our total odo from home to Korigad and back was 177, so not very far as you can imagine. After a little confusion the 2 cars took separate routes, old highway and the expressway. We reached exactly the same time, so no value in paying extra for the Expressway. Lesson No. 1.

Pic 1 - Getting ready. The white structure you see on the left is amby-valley. The heaviest bag seen in the boot is left for the guy not seen in the picture. Seriously considering an alternate career.

Pic 2 - Initial portion is a bullock-cart road (gaadi rasta). This was followed by a jungle patch and finally the last portion was about 500 plus steps. Simple and easy. 60 minutes approx. The kids started picking up firewood as soon as we started and when it got too much to hold in the hand, we emptied a bag for the purpose. Anvit started feeling like an early man for whom firewood was the most important asset. And we haven't changed at all. Have we? Even today for the modern man, fuel is the reason to wage wars, albeit we have hopelessly complicated things.

Pic 3 - It was my turn to feel like an early man now. We had the whole fort-top for ourselves and it was a problem of plenty. Selecting the best spot to peg our tents. No constraints at all. I am sure it was the same question that haunted early settlers. And possibly like early man again, we had to get the ladies to approve the location. We pegged our tents on a flat area a bit away from the main darwaza to stay as far as possible from nuisance of others on the fort if at all. But not far from the pond.

Pic 4 - The kids were super excited once we were all set up. We trekked downhill a little to pick up a ready pack of unutilized firewood left back by a previous group. They were kind enough to point it out to us. The last batch of 3 reached while we were going down. Its a good feeling when all sheep is home.

Pic 5 - The sun went out. The toil of climbing up and setting up the camp ensured that the puri's and paratha's were quickly consumed. The kids were asked a question that had an obvious answer. Maggi?? YES. Came out the stove and flame-O. Thanks Ameya. It was for the first time I learnt maggi tastes so delicious when sipped from a funneled paper dish. No fork or spoons. Some really juicy black grapes made a perfect desert.

Pic 6 - It gets chillier when your stomach is full. After wasting a few newspapers to stoke the fire, a small piece of leftover flame-O from the stove came to our rescue. It was almost full moon. Some star gazing, some chit-chat kept the fire raging. There were no takers for the ghost stories I was trying to bring in for the kids. There were spectacular fireworks blazing from amby valley. And it was fun watching them way below us. We retired to bed at 915 pm but I couldn't sleep well. The tent started fluttering vigorously after midnight and the it was too bright moonlight piercing through the tent. Till 4 am we had the whole of fort all for ourselves until a noisy group appeared. I couldn't but help compare the civilized troop of curious monkeys who bothered us a little while setting up the earlier evening but disappeared into their homes leaving us to ours as soon as it was dark.

Pic 7 - Some tea in the morning. We used the natural stove this time and the tea was yum.

Pic 8 - Packed up. The only trace of a camp left behind was a bunch of leftover unused firewood for the next group. Don't want to get philosophical but hope you get the point. I kind of gained perfection in folding sleeping bags (seven of them) and a tent (twice).

Pic 9 - We started our descent at around 9'ish followed by high drama.

Two of us lost their way and ended up in an unintentional security breach for Amby valley. Thanks to cellular network, we got a frantic call by the lost party of having reached a place that has tar roads and bungalows around but no soul in sight whom they could ask where they are. Turning back was ruled out. We asked them to stay where they are until further instructions. After painfully explaining the situation to a zapped security apparatus at Amby valley and a going thru a meticulous SOP to resolve the crisis, they finally let our car inside accompanied by a security guard. One hour lost in the bargain but happy reunion. Last lesson: Though you are in a group, remember landmarks and names of places. 

Some chikki shopping and late breakfast at Ramakrishna, we were off to Pune. This time the old Mumbai Pune highway and it wasn't bad.

Harishchandragad - 23/24 Nov 2013

Plan

It started with 5 of us. Harishchandragad was too important a gad to not have a check-mark on a reasonably decent list of treks done. 5 dropped to 3 but so strong was the purpose, to smear a humble tent with 'real' soil which was so far only used 'extensively' in a friends drawing room, that we persisted. 3 is good to go.

Route 

Pune --> Bhosari --> Alephata --> Otur --> Dont go to Khubi Phata if you are driving..bad road --> Pimpalgaon Joga (right turn) --> This patch is super. You go along the banks of the dam back-waters (first 2 pictures) --> Khireshwar. Park your car here. 142 kms was the odo reading.

Pic 1 - Harishchandragad range in the backdrop of dam backwaters

Pic 2 - Makes the 3 of us.

Start

Spent 10 minutes on finalising a guide, Sahebrao. 1030 start was good timing given the fact that we started at almost 7 from Pune and a pohe break we had enroute. We had read about 4 to 6 hours of climb but Sahebrao promised to take us thru the jungle route eliminating climbing up and down a few hills. Barely 30 minutes after the start we bumped into a group of trekkers who had started much earlier but lost their way in the forest. 

After negotiating a walk-way cut on a rock patch (pic 3), we reached Tolar Khind (pic 4). Sahebrao and the limbu-paani fellow were prompt to describe an accident that took place on this rock patch in the rainy season and what a task it was to stretcher down a thickset trekker in that slippery terrain. Stretcher a Trekker. Good rhyming.

Pic 3

Pic 4 - Tolar Khind

Rock patch immediately after Tolar Khind

Its easy. Similar to Torna.Pic 5 and pic 6. Pic 6 is a little bit of kida. It can actually be bypassed.

Pic 5

Pic 6

Jungle route

Almost 90% of the climb is thru dense tree cover. At times you have to use the camera flash for better pictures. (7 & 8)

Pic 7

Pic 8

After 3 hours, 3 breaks, 1 Chocolate bar, 1.5 liters of water with all sorts of additives (limbu-pani, electral et al....it rhymes again :-) and an apple we were at the top. Good mileage. My friends had packed enough food for all of us. We were blissfully unaware of the commercial activity there. Also, we were carrying almost 10 liters of water amongst the 3 of us. I was the lightest and had started getting a complex seeing the level of preparation my co-trekkers had done. We still decided to support the local economy by ordering some Pithala to have along with the parathas and lemon rice my friends were carrying.

After a little bit of temple and cave sight seeing (refer wikipedia), we did a recce for a tent site. Identified a couple of spots but still not happy with them, we picked our stuff and started walking towards Kokan-Kada at 4'ish. It is a 20 odd minutes walk.

Pic 9 - Kokan-kada

Its so beautiful, no wonder it incites suicidal tendencies in the sanest of insane's. 1800 feet, concave and semicircular. A notebook paper-plane stays aloft for close to 2 to 3 minutes when flung from here before landing safely on the cliff. How I wished I had a wing-suit. The concave and semi-circle is sculpted from wind gushes of the past so many centuries.

Pic 10 - Kokan-kada. Note the people standing top left corner.

Pic 11 - Kokan-kada. We are looking bored waiting 1 hour plus for the sun to go down. 

Camping

And finally the cake. We pegged our tent bang on the cliff. Just about 15 m from the edge. We were told to be careful about being blown away by the wind but thankfully it was quiet. A group of about 10 monkeys making war cries looking at us upset me a little until I realised it is an intruder dog behind us with whom they have a territorial dispute with.

 Pic 11

Pic 12 - Tent as seen from a distance

The crowd came & disappeared quickly after the sunset.

Pic 13

We were left with a group of 3 trekkers from Mumbai with whom we chatted till it was almost 730 pm sitting on the same spot pic 9. Subject was obviously experiences of various treks. The huge starlit dome was getting sharper as it got darker. Deep down 1800 feet, villages were lighting up for the night ahead. We flashed our lights to many international flights those fly bang above Harishchandragad traversing their demarcated route approach landing into CSIA. They were not very high above us as much was the artificial satellite that we faintly spotted in the clear sky.

Dinner was at Bhaskar's shack. Paratha's/Lemon rice again but this time with some mixed rassa bhaji. You can see Bhaskar on his facebook page. Kokan-kada is the keyword, I guess. +91 98818 83893 in case you want to talk to him. He comes there from a near by village every Friday evening and goes back Sunday evening.

Prakash (+91 73508 26486) was another enthusiastic & trained local guide who had escorted a group from Nalichi waat that day. He specialises this route and makes arrangements for equipment, ropes, tents et al. You just have to carry your sleeping bags and water. His wife accompanies the group and she was diligently taking care of the cooking for the group. He invited us for a camp fire and offered some 'ayurvedic' fish from the not so clean water hole nearby. I resisted the temptation after quickly realizing how difficult the descent next day would be with 10 kgs of luggage and an upset stomach. Dozed off pretty early at 930. There was a noisy bunch of people staying far-away who were pretty illiterate, English speaking illiterates at that, to differentiate between a resort and a camp site. We dreaded the fact as to how noisy it would be near the caves. Avoid weekends if you want to listen to complete silence. The wind got stronger middle of the night and while it was complete silence otherwise, the flutter of the mist wet tent was equally noisy.

Return Journey

Morning was pleasant. Not chilly at all for the warm clothes we were carrying. Got ready, packed off the tent, had pohe at Bhaskars shack which was about 25 m from where we were. Kamlu Pokla, was ready to guide us back to Khireshwar. We realised yesterday itself that its impossible to discover the forest trail back all by ourselves.

2 hrs 45 minutes later we were at Khireshwar. 11 am. After off-loading the sack in the boot of the car, it took quite an effort to walk with an upright back. The 4 hour drive back home, thanks to a jam on the Nasik highway, restored the back in that awkward position again. Misal at Rajkamal, Narayangaon was the only consolation.

Next.. Nalichi Waat and unfinished Taramati peak with similar camping. Rappelling will just make it complete.When????