Hello Everyone, Never have I felt so tired after a trek with my twisted ankle still hurting.
Well, here goes the storyline of the trek. As decided to meet up at Welcome at 8, Doc and Parimal were on dot with Rajesh (from BN) joining in later and me touching the place at 8.30 thanks to my slow pace owing to the heavy rains that have been lashing and washing the city since the previous day. Sanket joined with unexpected and suprise guests Salil (wasnt comfirmed) and Ravi (Amit Ved's bro). We all finished our breakfast by 10. On the way towards our destination, we reached Kondhivade village in an hour's time where the car couldn't go any further. Dumped our helmets and non-requisite stuff and carried on towards Mundhewadi- one of the base villages, but not before a small dose of offroading. By 11.30-11.45 we were on the hike. As is the case usually, the initial sections were done at the slowest race flooded by talks and photography clicking the greenery around and the trains in the hills in the distance making their way in and out of the tunnels. The progress was slow and the pack split with Doc, Rajesh, Sanket and Ravi going ahead and me staying back with Salil and Parimal to ensure these guys don't run away halfway in abandonment ;) Salil somehow upped his pace and went ahead. Finally Pari and me reached the tabletop at 3.15 with another walk of 15 mins to reach the house of the Vare family whom Ravi knew and had requested to cook lunch for us and it was ready within 5 minutes. Through with lunch and tea in a short duration with a dash of Sanket's Machu-pichu crackers- Doc, Sanket and Parimal decided against the idea of going up the fort as it was already late. We rest 4 were prepared to trek in the dark and continued on our way to Shrivardhan Fort. Took us less than half an hour to reach the top...every calorie burnt and every second of the effort going up was worth. It was simply paradise up there, the view of the surroundings, rain clouds covering us up and a few floating under us down the valley, the super-cool climate...undefinable. Those were the last of the happier moments and they ended once we started our ascend from the machi around 7.30. Heavy rains made the descend very slippery and half the time the torches were in our mouths rather than in our hands which were used for holding onto anything we could find for support. We had a couple of slips and skids here and there, but all taken in a humorous spirit. Dragging our bums over the rocks and the slush..... frustrated we were running out of patience as the stretch somehow didnt seem to end. Ravi with experience of having trekked the place twice was leading, and Rajesh was kept in between as he didnt have a torch, then Salil and me trailing. Reaching a familiar stream we passed was the last place recognisable- we started feeling uneasy and inside guessing something had gone wrong. Seeing Ravi confident enough, we were simply following. The uneasiness started growing and we were sure that it wasnt the path we had come through. Ravi insisted that we follow the arrow marks and continue walking....but the trail didnt seem to end and we ran out of arrow marks for guidance. We decided to give up the walk and return to the stream, but guess what....we missed the path we came through. Though we had arrow marks for reference, but they were simply too many pointing in different directions. We were lost- it was more than an hour since we were walking....recollecting the trek, the duration from the village till the stream wasnt much. We weren't at all prepared to stay back in a jungle this time of the night..didn't give up we continued walking losing our way even more. Tried taking every path visible in the torchlight, but again we were landing nowhere. Tired legs, tired mind, frustrated, agonised- continuing to push ourselves like dead-bodies on the move and there is this sudden loud roar and noise in the bush...the growl voice it would have been a wild boar. We all pushed ourselves back in fright and decided not to move any further- it was enough walking and we didnt have the energy to even walk an inch. We somehow managed to drag ourselves in the open and decided to spend the night right there- keeping awake and alert. Salil caught fever and we put him to sleep after a dose of Metacin.....praying hard that it doesnt rain coz we all didnt have raincoats. We had already informed Sanket who was waiting for us at Karjat and by now was extremely worried. He tried to come back to the village, but he too lost way. He called up Doc, who by now was already home and was about to go to bed...and on no second thoughts Doc decides to come to our rescue. He had the GPS trail of the trek and a laser beam to beam up from base so that we could see. I never thank him enough all my life for this act of his....I doubt if I would have returned after such a tiring trek. Speaks volumes of his character...hats off to you Doc and your spirit!!! In the meantime, we 3 were awake and alert for any wild intrusion with brim-level concentration. Salil got up and an idea struck him...he suggested we check out the snaps we clicked while going up that should give an idea of our trail. And it simply struck....the two trees near us were exactly the same in the snap. There was this rush of energy within of having located the place and the tiredness and fatigue just escaped into thin air. We started looking for the trail in the bushes....and there we were, we could see the lights of the village. The adrenalin rush of joy rushed to our legs and we scampered to the village in no time. Told Sanket to stay where he is while we catch him up on the way. The sight of our bikes was the most relaxed feeling one could have after an incident as this. 2.20 in the night, we hopped onto our bikes and whizzed ourselves out of the village onto the main road where we caught up with Sanket and Doc. Apologized to both of them for all the inconvenience and trouble they had to go through for us....all ready to receive the mouthful they would shower us with, surprisingly and to our good luck they took it all in a jovial mood. Doc guided us till NH4 and left for home. We came back to Welcome Restaurant around 3.30 and had whatever was available to eat at that moment....disbursed into different directions later on for our respective homes. Was a memorable trip and somehow my words dont do justice to the experience we had on the outing. I'll try to frame it better and close to the real thing later on my blog. As for now its enough said and time for some pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/pulsurge/GroupTrekToRajmachiAndShrivardhanFort# And here's a video shot from Shrivardhan Fort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5q1eNy1AeU Regards, Deepak [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
