Trekking Fort Purandar.

It was Kille (Fort)  Purandar this Sunday. This was to be a group trek. I was pretty excited. We were to visit one more of the great King Shivaji’s Forts.If you are a first-timer on this trek and going there in the wee hours of morning in the dark, and from Pune side, you are likely to miss out on the big arch on your left , indicating  the way to Narayanpur village and temple. We did, in the pitch dark at 5.45am. We had to drive ahead upto  Amruta Garden Restaurant,  take a U-turn to come back again.....This time we found it easily as the first rays of sun had started peeping in! Also please do carry at least a cardigan as it tends to be  very windy and chilly in this season. It was so chilly even at 9.00am in the morning and we who had none, were actually experiencing the windy chill! The difficulty level of climbing it, specially for first-timers may be graded as “medium” . It takes about a total of two to two and a half hours  hours for such climbers to reach the topmost point.
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I had learnt a bit about this Fort in history in School and vaguely remembered a few things from there. Thanks to Wikipedia, we can re-live it all. This Fort has an elevation of 1387 mtrs. The earliest one heard of its existence, was  from the 11^th Century, the “Yadava” ages. The Persians , later, grabbed this fort from them and re-fortified it in 1350. Between 1347 and 1490, the Fort was besieged many times. In 1596, Maloji  Bhosale,  King Shivaji’s grandfather was granted this fort by Bahadur Shah of Ahmednagar Sultanate. In 1646, a just victorious nineteen year old Shivaji was known to have taken control over Puranadar.  Much transpired in-between and in in 1670, Shivaji  Raje re-captured Purandar. Shivaji Raje is known to have  spent prolonged periods of time here. Shivaji’s first son and successor Sambhaji Raje was born here!!!  Even then to now, its almost 350 years and it still stands there, in all its glory.... rock-solid!

We do trek a lot of Forts but I found the mightiness of this Fort, deeply enthralling! My thoughts strayed to the times of King Shivaji and his rule here and I momentarily dreamt about soldiers running about, dressed in  uniforms, mighty swords occupying their hands........Emotions stirred and deep down I felt a great love and respect for this King, who had left his footprints so firmly on the sands of time.....The great  King Shivaji!

We drove there in car-pool and reached the base of the fort by around 7am to start  the trek. There are early ST buses too, starting from Swargate to Narayanpur, which some of you out there, may like to take. In Narayanpur, please ask the natives for correct directions to reach to the start-point of the trek! Having reached the base, there are two routes one can take to go up. One is the road route , through which one may also drive up to the Level one of this Fort. One thing to remember though is that this place is currently owned by the Indian Defence Services,  hence there are rules to be followed. The main gate is opened by them only at 9am, so if you have reached there earlier, either  trekking or driving, all you can do is to wait outside. The other direct trek route starts straight from the base village. This route may be taken even as early as 6am in the morning as it brings you up to the Level 1 directly.

Our group got divided into two, one wanting to take the road route and some others the direct ascend route and for all to meet up at Level one. My husband and me preferred the direct climb. There were many School children on this particular day,who were running all over the place with loud  slogans of "Jai Bhavani, Jai Shivaji" enthusiasm and vigour sounding in their sweet voices. Their energy was worth envy by people of our age! The climb, which we found otherwise easy, only gets a bit slippery at some places due to gravel and soft soil, where you need to watch your step.  Once you reach level  One, you can again go up this rough way or through a nicely carved rocky path!

It was a lovely trek upto Level one. We were up there by  8.00am. Some of the young restless from amongst us started for the final climb upwards. Some others, waited patiently for the road trekkers. It was 9am and they had still not shown up, so we, who had explored a lot of level one , decide to do the final climb too... We were on the top in another 45 minutes, taking pictures of the breath-taking beautiful landscapes enveloping the fortress from all sides. It really feels as if you are walking in heaven when you look upon the minuscule villages , down below! They were all shades of brown and I was left to imagine their beauty in monsoon, when the World would be only green! Instantly I made up my mind to visit again in Monsoon

We met our road trekking  friends, halfway up and it is from them that we learnt,   that from the main gate, behind which they had to wait till 9am,  it was a direct climb upwards and they never had reached the “binny darwaza” at  level one , which we direct climbers had done! So for all you people wanting to trek the roadway, please   do remember this, especially if you are in two groups or more! Finally, we all reached the top from where we admired not only the villages down but the expanse of the fortress itself, which is a small township. No wonder people lived here. We saw many natural as well as built in  water-bodies. There is a colony of the Defence personnel staying up, a couple of very old temples, a church(looked pretty recent, maybe only about 100-200 years old) and proper roads plying their trucks and cars on the Level One. Taking photographs of the defence work places, new constructions etc; is  prohibited!! 

 At the topmost level, the group sat down to snacking as all were tired and hungry. Having finished with it, all of them wanted to start down, spare husband and me.........We still wanted to climb further up to the highest point, a temple,  which was a 20 minute ascend from here! So even as the group started descending, we were on our way up! The view from up here,  was just amazing! The fortress  was encompassed by mountain ranges and small villages from all the sides. One could see Fort VajraGad in the distance!  I loved it so much that I could have stayed up there, all day and night , but learnt that camping for the night is no more allowed on the Fort! Thus like ' all good things must end', so did this! We started descending  and  directly reached to the base in an hour and fifteen minutes. End of another great fort trek!!

KamalGad Fort Trek – An Adventure!........(1)

(My first post on my blog TnT  with an adventurous trek.....Thought of doing this ‘upside down’...:....enjoy)

26^th January 2014...Republic Day and a Sunday......Trek time......:)  We had heard a lot about Kamalgad trek, the grade was medium  some said, other thought it was difficult....and having ‘conquered’ trekking  Fort Torna( another graded difficult) directly,  after a very long gap of trekking we were ‘raring to go’ and take  up the  challenge of trekking KamalGad........me and my best friend – husband Sandeep!

Kamalgad Fort is almost 32 kms from Wai, ie if you mean to do the trek from Village Vasole. There is also another route up to KamalGad  through Nandgaon, but, since Wai itself  is a 88 odd kms from Pune, we decided to make this a nature-viewing  roadtrip via KenjalGad and Raireshwar forts. We planned to start early but one thing led to another and we finally left our home in Pune at 6.30 am.

With one tea stop on the way, we reached Wai  between 8.30-8.45 am. We went around asking our way to KamalGad. My first doubt about many people trekking this Gad came  out here as everyone asked was neither sure of the distance nor how to get there. Each version was different. Finally, with much difficulty, we managed to reach Vasole and it is here that we got some more, though,  yet ambiguous details of Kamalgad. What was more surprising was the fact, that the villagers could not define the exact route. They pointed at a way (which did look like the start of this trek) and told us to follow it religiously. Don’t leave this path else you could get lost they told us and believe them we did, when we saw it was through a forest!

We started climbing up at around 9.45 am. The temperature was in our favour  and it was unusually cool out there so there was no question of feeling hot and  sweaty! The climb was not very easy, but then, so what? Had someone not said that it was a difficult trek? We were pleasantly surprised to see the environment, devoid of debris and plastics, but we only did see a couple of Parle-G biscuit wrappers, assuring us we were going the right way. But wait, it was an hour and we had still not met anyone , either going up or coming down!  A little later, we noticed that the climb was now at a steep incline, and I began to sweat profusely..no......not with the heat but by a sudden rush of adrenalin which had gripped my body as I saw a very slippery and steep path ahead....slippery because of the very soft soil!!

 Another thing which struck me was that we had not met a single soul up there. Unlike so many forts where we meet quite a few groups for trekking, this one was completely deserted. The path was so steep and so narrow, with nothing to cling on but dry grass and a few dry shrubs! Also there wasn’t enough space for one to barely stand up straight. No, there was no question of letting anyone pass by you, not until you had flung yourself on the dry grass, which you were able to grope somehow.....Phew.....the trek had suddenly turned into adventure for us. We had reached so high up that there was no coming down now and if yes, only again by the dreadful road which we had just treaded up! Surprisingly my best friend was cool and composed, though I could sense that even he was not feeling good on this one! The only thing he said to me then was we should have taken a village guide wid us...:)

After what seemed like forever, we managed to scramble our way up..(me, crawling on  all fours, like a cow). Somehow, we managed to  reach right upto the strong ridges that we thought were of the fort KamalGad itself. They were too steep and vertical and we had no clue how we were going to manage getting around them. Both of us were contemplating going down but the thought of treading that horrendous route again left us grimacing!! Down and again by this way? No way! We were still thinking and making plans aloud, when we heard them.......

We heard a noisy crowd coming up with shouts of little children amongst them.....It was the most pleasant sound to my ears at that time although simultaneously my heart skipped a few beats...children and on this path...OMG! I though!. We could barely see anybody as there was no possibility of bending down to see. Bending would have meant a direct fall @1000 plus mtrs.....:) We heard lots of voices now and decided to wait and see....maybe there was a way since all those many people were coming up......And then we saw them...believe it or not , on a path so risky were three couples with six children, four of them big and two children actually being carried by two daddies.....And that was not all....all the three women had done this way with sarees and slippers and the men in shirts,trousers and sandals!!!! I just opened and shut my mouth in shocked disbelief.....We were still gaping even  as they came towards us......I wanted to just stand up and salute each of them, individually.....Phew!!!

Their reaction too was no different....We got talking and learnt that they too  had only come up as they had watched us climb up from below and thought this was the right path!! Somehow, it felt better to be with these bravehearts....:) Then, the men got exploring a bit and over a waterfall we managed to cross with each other’s help.....Then the rest was easy...We were in a forest and a steady walk up in the forest brought us to a clearing and farms. In it  stood a solitary house, the farmer’s.

In the farmhouse we saw two young boys who had come up the same way too, but were completely battered as they had dragged themselves through the throny shrubs, to avoid falling off the soft soil.....that explains the biscuit wrappers, I thought! Soon we were talking to a very old lady who was probably in her late seventies. She told us the way up to Kamalgad from there. The big team(our new friends) as also the two young men, refused to go any  further as they were all very tired and hungry. They rested in the farmhouse while my best friend and me continued... Having encountered some more hurdles getting atop KamalGad, we were finally there...We had done it!! Thus concluded the ‘adventure’.

But once atop KamalGad, the view was oh! so breathtakingly beautiful, that all else was forgotten in a jiffy! Imagine a fort, shaped with curves like petals, hence the name Kamal (or Lotus in english) surrounded by dense green forests...and beyond them clear blue waters from the Dams of Dhom.....We were dumbfounded by God's spectacular creation!It had been worth the while, adventure or not!! They say there is 'no gain without pain' and this gain had healed all pain!! Beautiful and a must-do, this fort!! Only collect the correct information and go in a  group, well equipped and appropriately dressed!!

Coming down was so very easy as the old lady guided us to the right path....this path was through a temple site of Gorakshanath . The villagers there heard our story in disbelief! “what”, they said, “you all came up from there? Neither we nor our Cattle tread those paths “they said looking at us all in wonder!! Supposedly, the correct path is the one that people find difficult or so they say.......As I was on my way down I silently wondered, if this was the difficult path, what would people think of the one which we had gone up by??? Was that one a nightmare  or was it for real???

Whatever it was, it was one hell of a thrilling and exciting experience of a lifetime as also one to cherish, not to mention the 'learning' we got from it!!!