First trekk of this monsoon - Lohagad
Monsoon arrived. This is second monsoon for me in Pune. Rains might of already made all my favorite "ghads" around Pune. Time to goooo for trekking. Our trekking team got no change except Amit is out as he moved to Bangalore and the new joinees are :- shankinee sorry poonam singh and nagina (Iqbal's wife). Iqoo got married last Feb. Stick is still the boss. Since its our first trekk this year, everyone thought of starting with a easier one. And the choice is Lohaghad. Hey Amit, everyone is missing you here. Rather your car :p. Vjaya is too enthusiastic, but we have to stop her till Sunday (17th July), as Iqbal is not ready for Saturday.
Lohaghad is one among the beautiful forts around Pune and easier to climb compared to all. Lohagad means "Iron Fort" located around 50KM from Pune. Its elevation is 3450 feet (1052 m). The fort can be reached by Train. There is a local train from Pune to Lonavala every one hour. The nearest station from the fort is "Malawali". This is the station nearest to both Vissapur fort, Lohagad fort and Bhaja caves. From Malawali station it takes 2KM walk to reach the base of the fort. There will be many waterfalls on the way. The Lohagad is not as much commersialised as Sinhagad. But the crowd will be more to the fort on weekends compared to any other fort except Sinhagad. People who doesn't like to drench in the waterfall in a pack, better go on weekdays to Lohagad. But walking on the road in the rain from the base to the top will give immense pleasure. There is a plain area in the midway from where there are steps to clip the hill. The fort has good amount of remaining compared to any other fort around Pune.
We boarded the 8'O clock train. Stick, Vijaya and I got woodland shoes specially for this year trekking. Man!! they are really comfortable. After crossing few stations everybody got settled in the train. Within 1 hour we got down from the train. Malawali is such a small station, but most of the passengers got down from the train there only. Hmm.. all are waiting for monsoon. We started walking and stopped at a roadside hotel. Charge the bodies first :) Now, photo shooting shuroo .. Stick posed as a traditional girl (with jeans and T on :p) Vijaya took the brand new Sony Cam out. Mann it has got 48x zoom!! Done with breakfast, started walking again. Vijaya is not happy walking on that road, she was asking "Is there a jungli road?". "Wait for sometime ma'm" we replied. After around a KM of walk from the station, the road splits. One way to Vissapur fort and Bhaja caves and the straight way leads to Lohagad. Most of the crowd are split up at that place where there are many waterfalls. We continued walking towards the Loahagad and reached the base after 2KM walk. Again photo shoot. Someone sculptured a nice "cow" on the sideways with mud. Artistic! People gave poses sitting near. As we started climbing up and up the rain got increased. Wowww you have to feel it. Stick protected her highly sensitive ear from rain with proper arrangement of cap. Poonam and Nagina were keep asking, "how long we have to walk more?" Stick keep on answering "just 15 more mins". Poonam who is reluctant to take pics (rather too many pics) also gave some her own bollywood actress stills. The Bhaja caves are visible for most part of the climb. The Pune-Mumbai express highway also makes a good sight. There are panoromic views at many points on the way up. We reached the plain after climbing for around 45 mins. And its all water in there in our woodland shoes. So we got remove and ware them again.
From here onwards there are steps. I started counting them, once the count reached twenties, hatt .. there are too many of them. Gave up the counting. We are searching for a tree to climb. Without climbing a tree how can we finish the trekking? Found a nice one. The 3 monkey are again on the tree within minutes. Now we found difficulty in climbing the tree - reason, the comfortable woodland shoes. "woodland shoes are meant to be on land" I said. "woodland shoes are not meant to be one wood" Stick says. I tried hanging onto a branch like every-time, but this time it funny and different. The branch I tried got broken. Ha Ha everyone started laughing. Surprisingly I didn't get hurt at all as I fell down on the mud. I tried again this time taking a stronger branch. "Bas karo .. " stick warned. But will I stop? I took pic with my favorite pic hanging to the branch. Stick found a nice "spider net" and asked Vijaya to show her photography skills. Poonam - again the same bollywood poses. The new couple also took some pics and we tarted climbing again. We reached the top in another 20 mins. As I said, there are good amount of remaining there on the top. Since the fort can be easily climbed, the crowd is more. We waited for sometime to get a clear pic of the fort. And then we started doing all our usual monkey acts. Poonam, first to see us like that started warning us. But she had to see. 3 of us climbed the wall of the fort and sat there for some time and felt the beauty of the heights. On the top, there is a darga. Must be built by the muslim kings after shivaji. We could barely see anything other than the fog when we stood at the edge of the top. Since we are actually above the clouds there is no rain, but lot of wind with water drops sparking on your face. You will feel as if its raining upwards. As a whole its a nice trekk to start this monsoon. Waiting for the next one...
We boarded the 8'O clock train. Stick, Vijaya and I got woodland shoes specially for this year trekking. Man!! they are really comfortable. After crossing few stations everybody got settled in the train. Within 1 hour we got down from the train. Malawali is such a small station, but most of the passengers got down from the train there only. Hmm.. all are waiting for monsoon. We started walking and stopped at a roadside hotel. Charge the bodies first :) Now, photo shooting shuroo .. Stick posed as a traditional girl (with jeans and T on :p) Vijaya took the brand new Sony Cam out. Mann it has got 48x zoom!! Done with breakfast, started walking again. Vijaya is not happy walking on that road, she was asking "Is there a jungli road?". "Wait for sometime ma'm" we replied. After around a KM of walk from the station, the road splits. One way to Vissapur fort and Bhaja caves and the straight way leads to Lohagad. Most of the crowd are split up at that place where there are many waterfalls. We continued walking towards the Loahagad and reached the base after 2KM walk. Again photo shoot. Someone sculptured a nice "cow" on the sideways with mud. Artistic! People gave poses sitting near. As we started climbing up and up the rain got increased. Wowww you have to feel it. Stick protected her highly sensitive ear from rain with proper arrangement of cap. Poonam and Nagina were keep asking, "how long we have to walk more?" Stick keep on answering "just 15 more mins". Poonam who is reluctant to take pics (rather too many pics) also gave some her own bollywood actress stills. The Bhaja caves are visible for most part of the climb. The Pune-Mumbai express highway also makes a good sight. There are panoromic views at many points on the way up. We reached the plain after climbing for around 45 mins. And its all water in there in our woodland shoes. So we got remove and ware them again.
From here onwards there are steps. I started counting them, once the count reached twenties, hatt .. there are too many of them. Gave up the counting. We are searching for a tree to climb. Without climbing a tree how can we finish the trekking? Found a nice one. The 3 monkey are again on the tree within minutes. Now we found difficulty in climbing the tree - reason, the comfortable woodland shoes. "woodland shoes are meant to be on land" I said. "woodland shoes are not meant to be one wood" Stick says. I tried hanging onto a branch like every-time, but this time it funny and different. The branch I tried got broken. Ha Ha everyone started laughing. Surprisingly I didn't get hurt at all as I fell down on the mud. I tried again this time taking a stronger branch. "Bas karo .. " stick warned. But will I stop? I took pic with my favorite pic hanging to the branch. Stick found a nice "spider net" and asked Vijaya to show her photography skills. Poonam - again the same bollywood poses. The new couple also took some pics and we tarted climbing again. We reached the top in another 20 mins. As I said, there are good amount of remaining there on the top. Since the fort can be easily climbed, the crowd is more. We waited for sometime to get a clear pic of the fort. And then we started doing all our usual monkey acts. Poonam, first to see us like that started warning us. But she had to see. 3 of us climbed the wall of the fort and sat there for some time and felt the beauty of the heights. On the top, there is a darga. Must be built by the muslim kings after shivaji. We could barely see anything other than the fog when we stood at the edge of the top. Since we are actually above the clouds there is no rain, but lot of wind with water drops sparking on your face. You will feel as if its raining upwards. As a whole its a nice trekk to start this monsoon. Waiting for the next one...
Comments
Post a Comment