A recount of my trek to
Harishchadragad via Tolar Khind for the first time. Apologies for the worst vocabulary and ruptured English :p
Finally, YHAI Mumbai Unit had
scheduled a trek to Harishchandragad in this monsoon schedule on 24-25 September
2011. I had heard a lot about Harishchandragad and its photos on
net increased my excitement to a great level.
The day before the trek, I packed my
bags...didn't have a trek rucksack at that time..and packed everything in
my sister's Vidyalankar class bag (big and strong one... 5 stars!!)...even
cleaned my sports shoes(named AdiBok=Adidas+Reebok
hahahahaha)...and couldn't sleep with the excitement of going to the first overnight trek
of my life.
Next day, I woke up early
morning..and as we were supposed to carry the lunch..mom packed a lunch of dozen of
parathas and sauce with it. Everyonewas supposed to meet at 8.00 a.m.
near the ticket window of Kalyan Station on the east side. I hadn't trekked
much with YHAI Mumbai then and the ones I knew from before were just Archana
& Mangesh. Umesh Sir had come to bid us bye at Kalyan and Mangesh and our
trek leader Satish persuaded him to come with us..and he agreed finally
to come with us...without any belongings....no clothes, bag,
anything...salute! :) There were 15 of us in total...14 guys + 1 girl = the group!
:p Leaders then took us to a nearby hotel for breakfast..and after a good
our tummies full we then approached towards ST stand to board a bus.
Boarded an ST going to Alephata...was a 2 hour journey. Any ST going via
Malshej Ghat can be boarded to reach Khubi phata. Well, Khubi phata is where you
are supposed to get down and start walking towards base village
Khireshwar. As our ST reached the top of Malshej Ghat we saw the magnificent
view of Kalu waterfall on the mountain besides ours. Kalu waterfall is the
best waterfall in the Malshej region....height of 1200 feet and
drops in 5 patches. We reached Khubi phata which comes just after a couple
of minutes as Malshej Ghat ends. Leaders gave a briefing and then
there was a short round of introduction. After that, we started the 4 km walk
over the Pimpalgaon-Joga dam to reach the base village of Khireshwar.
It was around 11 a.m. by now and it
was decided to have lunch at the base itself and then start the long trek.
After a delicious lunch of theplas, sandwiches, sheera, etc. etc. we
started the trek. The route is a straightforward one and carries slim
chances of one getting lost. After a 2 hour trek from the dense vegetation
and crossing innumerable small streams, we reached the first checkpoint i.e.
Vyaghra Shilpa a.k.a Tolar Khind. A 5-10 minutes break was taken to get
recharged for ascending the rock patch that lied ahead. The patch was
approximately 60 degrees tilted and there was no need of ropes to climb. Iron
poles were fitted by maybe the archaeology department at some
exposed parts on the patch, however we came to know that they were stolen by some
notorious villagers and sold away. Each one ascended the rock patch
successfully. Then there was just a long trail to walk, crossing 7 small
hills, with small ascends and descends, to reach the Harishchandreshwar temple
summit. The trail displayed one of the best picturesque scenery I have seen
till date. All the hills were covered with yellow coloured small flowers
and we came across several streams. It was a bit foggy and the complete
mixture of fog, flowers and streams made that place a mystic heaven! We had
small stops at a couple of streams for rejuvenation. Fog was so much thick
that someone standing at 10m distance was hard to see. Finally, after a
1-1.5 hour walk we reached the Harishchandreshwar temple which was
our summit for the day. No one seemed to be tired as the atmosphere was
cool and we hardly lost any water from the body. As soon as we reached, our
leaders rushed to check out if any of the caves were empty to accommodate
us for the night. It started raining heavily. Unfortunately, we reached a
bit late and all the caves were already occupied. But, it was not
possible to spend the night camping under the open sky as it was rainy season.
Finally, our leaders managed to find a very small cave which was at the very
end. The cave was so small that hardly 2-3 of us could sleep after
the space was occupied by all our monstrous luggage :P But, our smart
leaders discussed with the villagers who were staying in the cave next to
ours to let the rest of us sleep there. After that, we started the
preparations for dinner. The plan was to make mugachi khichadi accompanied by
loncha. It was later found out that Satish had brought all the
ingredients and cooker, but forgot the cooker's shitti...hahahahaha. Later it was
decided to provided all the ingredients to the villager family in the next
cave and let them cook us the khichadi on their chulha. No doubt the
khichadi was very tasty and everyone ate to their heart's content. We then went
to sleep in the villager's cave. A small waterfall was falling outside
that cave and the sound of it was quite pleasuring to the ears. I could
hardly sleep for 2-3 hours as I had not carried anything to cover my body and
the temperature dropped upto 15 degrees at night. How stupid of me!
:/
I was the first one to wake up next
morning....as I had hardly slept :p I peeked out of the cave to see the
best view of the day. Harishchandreshwar temple could be seen at a far
distance surrounded by the yellow Sonki flowers and green bushes and a small
stream. We then finished with our morning chores and the plan was to
visit Kokankada and the Harishchandreshwar temple. We left
our bags in the cave itself as Satish had decided to stay back and set off
for Kokankada. Kokankada is at a distance of 2 kms which takes around
30 mins to reach there. The path is a bit tricky, however it is properly
marked with white arrows on the rocks. We reached Kokankada to only discover
that the valley full of fog :( It was decided to sit there for sometime and
wait for the fog to clear although there was no guarantee that it would.
We could see people standing on the cliff ready with their tripods and
cameras and waiting like us for the fog to clear. There were also people
throwing coins and sonki flowers from the cliff down which would then rise high
in the sky as the wind was blowing upwards due to the semi-circular
pattern of the kada. 15 minutes had passed by and still there was no sign of fog
to clear. Due to time constraints it was decided that there was no point
waiting and Archana began to call everyone to re-group together for
heading back to the cave. Obviously everyone was quite depressed and no
one was willing to go back without catching the glimpse of the might
Kokankada. The further description would sound a bit filmy, but yes it
actually happened: We stood to go back to the caves and....suddenly wind changed
its direction and started blowing from leftwards to rightwards....which
ideally pushed forward the cloud from the valley and in around 10-15 seconds
the cliff and the valley could be seen clearly. Here it was the mighty
Kokankada! There was a panic of photographers and trekkers to watch
and capture the beautiful Kokankada. To get the complete and proper view of
Kokankada one should go the extreme right where there is a small descend.
Without wasting any time Umesh sir instructed us to move to the extreme
right. We reached a spot where there was place to stand and then I was
watching one of the most beautiful sights of my life...the majestic
Kokankada...and at the extreme left end tip of the kada a small waterfall was
falling....exactly in the same way as Paradise falls was shown in the
animated movie UP. The view was simply mind-blowing and I won't be
forgetting throughout my life. The valley was clear just for 15 mins and again a
big cloud occupied the open space in the valley and everything became foggy.
It was goddamn lucky of us to catch the glimpse of this terrific place and I
am very sure...hadn't I seen the Kokankada in my first visit I might
have not visited the fort again and again. This magnificent spot is the
main reason for attracting me to this heaven year after year.
We then headed back to the caves
happily where Satish was done with packing his huge bag by now :p We then had a
breakfast of pohe and tea prepared by the villagers from the neighbouring
cave. After that, we started our descend via the same route from where
we had ascended. We crossed the hillocks and after climbing down rock
patch and reaching Tolar khind soup packets were passed on to a couple of
villagers in a small hut there. They prepared tomato soup for us and we
feasted on that along with everyone's remaining dry snacks. It didn't take
us much time to descend and we finally reached the base village Khireshwar
at around 4 p.m. Everyone was exhausted and desperately needed a dip in any
source of water.....and a small constructed dam came to our need!
The worst part of the trek was the
last part of the trek :p After the tiring trek, we had to walk all the
way to reach Khubi phata i.e. for 4 kms on the Pimpalgaon Joga dam, as there
was no jeep available to head back to Khubi phata. To add on it, the
ST that we boarded to get back to Kalyan was damn crowded and we had
no option to travel by standing. We got down at Murbad and boarded an
empty ST for Kalyan and I catched a window seat and slept for the next 45
mins. We reached Kalyan by 7 pm and
