Sunday, July 10, 2011

Chambhargad & GandharPale Caves (किल्ले चांभारगड आणि गांधारपाले लेणी)

Me and Chaitanya decided to go for trek to"Chambhargad-Songad" near Mahad in Raigad district. The plan was to go by ST bus. There are lot of ST buses from Swargate ply to Mahad. Finally Amar, Laxmikant and Kaustubh joined us. We caught early morning 6:00 A.M bus from swargate. ST bus took lot of time to reach Mahad. We reached in Mahad at around 10:00 A.M. We had some breakfast of Misal, Wada-Paav on small hotel on Highway. Due to late arrival, we cancelled the plan of Songad and decided to do only Chambhargad and Gandhar-Pale caves.


Then we move towards "Chambhar-Khind", a base village of Chambhargad. Chambhar-Khind village is situated near to Mahad ST stand. 10 minutes of walk from ST stand leads you into the village.


Then we started ascending the fort from the village. The path was well-trodden. As Monsoon was at the pick, there were couple of waterfalls flowing everywhere.


Slowly the path becomes steeper and due to the grass it became slippery as well.
Then we have to climb through one of the colony which will lead us to the back side of the fort. See the right hand side colony in below snap
 
Then from the back side, a small travel from left side, we reached near the water cistern on the fort.



 This is the only sign remains on the fort. One can also see Bhagwa on topmost part of the fort.
 Then we started descending the fort and again came on highway to go for GandharPaale caves. GandharPale Cave is situated 5 kms before Chambhar-Khind village. We hired auto-rickshaw and in no time we reached near caves.


 After 10 minutes of small climb using steps, we reached in front of the caves. One can see water cisterns and rooms and other remnants near caves.



 After this, we again went to Mahad to catch return ST bus. Unfortunately, the next 2 buses from Mahad to Pune were full in ADVANCE BOOKING. So, we decided to catch Dapoli-Pimprichinchwad bus. We caught that bus, but inside the bus there was no place to sit. Oh my god.... I worried with the fact that, we are now going with standing from Mahad to Pune (4 - 5 hrs). But luckily there 4 people was to stop at "Lonere" village on the way. So, we got our seat and return journey completed.
Note:
1) If you are going with ST, Please book the return ticket to Pune in advance for Mahad on weekends to avoid last minute headache.
2) If you want to cover Songad as well, you need come here early morning in base village of Chambhargad and then you can do Songad also.


You can find entire photos of this trek at  
https://picasaweb.google.com/110853779229661321949/ChambhargadGandharPaleCaves


Enjoy!!!!!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Songiri Fort a.k.a Palasdari Fort (किल्ले सोनगिरी उर्फ पळसदरीचा किल्ला)

The monsoon have already started and in full flow. So, obviously me and Laxmikant have decided to go for Songiri fort also known as Palasdari fort. This fort situated near Palasdari village. Palasdari is a small village and having small railway station which is just before Karjat Railway station. There is no direct train from Mumbai / Pune to Palasdari. To reach Paladari station, One needs to get down to Karjat and then move with "Karjat-Khopoli" local which stops at Palasdari Railway station.



Palasdari fort is standing just in front of station.
To begin climbing, one needs to go towards Palasdari tunnel. There is one lineman cabin near tunnel. Behind the cabin, there is way which go towards top of fort.




We started ascending the fort and soon we realised that, this climb will become challenging as the forest on the way becoming very dense and we are struggling to locate the proper route. Look at the dense forest in below snaps.



Fortunately for us, we are on the right path till now and after climbing for an hour, we encountered one rockpatch which is not that difficult but bit challenging.


Entire Bor ghat region looking spectacular after climbing the rock patch and we reached on one huge plain plateau.



Still, we had covered only half distance. Songiri fort is like kept on this huge plateau.


We decided to have some light breakfast now

Now, to go further, one has to search for "Forest department compund" and with that compound one has to climb up to go on top of the fort. These compounds leads you to the another plateau on top in jungle and then you can use you judgement to climb last 15-20 minutes of way.

Soon, we reached near bastion of the fort.


View of surrounding area from top of the fort is spectacular. We rested here for 10-15 minutes looking at beauty of the nature.



One can also see one water cistern on the fort. This water is not much portable but in case if you are running out of water on top of the fort, you can use that.

We took then some lovely snaps of greenary and surroundings. Here are few of them.





We then decided to descend the fort as we need to catch the local to karjat. Descending was quite risky.



While descending, we saw small water flow flowing. so we filled our water bottles there.


Soon, we completed our descending of songiri fort and reached near tunnel. It was indeed quite memorable experience.


Note:
1) Jungle is quite dense on the way. we saw "wild boar" and also heard the roar of "leopard". So, please be extra careful. One thing is very imporatnt "Be in the group and Be with the group".
2) Remember last local from Palasdari to Karjat is 6:30. Schedule your time accordingly as it may take 3 hours to go on top and 2 hours for descending.

You can find entire photo gallery of this trek at https://picasaweb.google.com/110853779229661321949/SongiriFortAKAPalasdariFort#

Enjoy!!!!!