Anaghai Fort on Republic Day 2011

On the event of 26th Jan 2011 (Republic Day 2011), Me, Amar and Chaitanya planned for visit to one of the offbeat fort in Sahyadri range i.e. Mruggad and Anaghai fort. These forts situated in Raigad district. One has to approach towards Khopoli. Then on Khopoli-Pali road, you need to take left turn towards Jambhulpada phata. From Jambhulpada, you can take approach to base villages of both of the forts. But we decided to go for Anaghai first as i have visited Mruggad in recent times http://picasaweb.google.com/prasadpardeshi23/MruggadBallaleshwarGanapatiPaliVillage#


The base village of Anaghai fort is "Kalamb" which is 5kms from Jambhulpada. The road is in good condition. One can see three mountains in a row when we reach near Kalamb. The leftmost mountain (Thumb like structure) is the Anaghai fort. See the snap below.

To go on top of the fort, one has to go in the colony (First left colony) between Anaghai fort and mountain adjecent to it. Do not go in Second colony as this is wrong approach. First you will encounter bridge within 5 minutes of walk. See the snap below.

 Then one need to go to extreme left colony but we did mistake, we climbed second colony and went on top of the mountain which is adjacent to the fort which was difficult and time consuming. See the snaps below

We clicked one snap of topmost part of Anaghai fort from the adjecent mountain. One can see, there is small temple and few water cisterns on top.

  Now the big question was, how to go on top of the fort and where is that actual route? Then we decided to descend this mountain on half, traverse the mountain and reach the correct colony between fort and this mountain. We proceeded further. We had a tough time to implement this. We had a few scratches on our hand. But taking lot of efforts, finally we reached in the colony. Now the big question ahead of us was, How to climb rest of the patch exposed to valley having 50-60 ft? But, anyhow we need to do that also. Fortunately, there were some footholds made by villagers in order to climb this patch. See the snaps below.

 One need to take extreme precaution on last 20 ft as the footholds present there were eroded due to rains and there was hardly any place to take a hold / grip and proceed further. Finally we reached on top. On top of the fort, one can see small temple of Anaghai mata, series of water cisterns.

 We filled our water bottle took a rest under one and only one tree on top for 30 minutes and started descending the fort. Descending part was quite difficult. But we managed somehow.

Then we started descending the fort via proper route. It took us 2 hours to descend up to the river bridge. The descending part is through the same col.

Then we enjoyed in river for half an hour. See some snaps.

Then we moved towards Khopoli. We had uttapa at Khopoli naaka. Then we proceeded towards Pune. We reached Pune at 9:15 P.M.


Note: This trek is not at all easy. Please carry one 80 ft rope to climb final patch. Please carry ample amount of water with you. If you have any confusion, take villager with you up to the top from Kalamb village.


You can find entire trek photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/prasadpardeshi23/AnaghaiFort#