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!!