Koraigad 18th June 2005

Well guys as sanket wrote abt last trek I eagerly want to pen down abt our trek on 18th june to koraigad.
Destination: Koraigad (23 kms from Lonavala exactly above amby valley)
Participants: Ketan,Sanket,Sushant,Janmajeya and Sandeep(first trek) Read on diff parts as : Twin-Spin, Dudes -1,Lal dabba journey,Lost and Found, Lunch with Sahyadri Mountains, Trek down, Rain and Dudes(ohhh again), Lal Dabba-2, TMC vs KDMC
highlihgts: total cost 180 Rs per head, Much of sightseeing in Lonavala, amby valley, bird watching from truck on return journey

Twin Spin: I woke up at 4.45am and reached Thane station and bought ticket to lonavala and was waiting for Indrayani.Bit nostalgic bcoz I used to go by same train every monday morn to pune 2 months back.There came one of my old buddies from my Pune trekker gang. I surmised as I talked with same guy 2 days back abt some plans.
How come this guy from in thane and what the hell he is doing in thane at tghis hour.He ignored me and went straight on.am bit frenzied went straight on to ask(why am not apply same attitude to gals :D)" Hello Mr Kedar, do u know me?" He gathered his thoughts and told me " Well, I am Mandar Kedar's twin bro". We boarded Indrayani, rest all joined at Kalyan. Afetr small round of intro to newbies we started discussing our fav topics Treks and affairs of school buddies, their know hows. This is becoz me and sanket being from same town and diff school we have enough topics to chew on. Well then i expressed my concern that korigad is not the dest for us if we wanaa do somes serious trek. No one was interested in Tung-Tikonaa(but that could have been much much better what say Jay, sandy ;P read on to read real story)

Dudes -1 : we alighted at Lonavala stn. kedar went on to catch lcoal train to chinchvad. Lonavala air already had done its magic on Sandy and sushant's mood. New to this and being excited. quite of course! Janmajeya(jay) insisted on breakfast after our packing of sandwitches in his fav hotel. meanwhile I bargained and got good deal for sandwitches. quite weird but it happened. well I enquired and bus was at 9.15. so we had abt 40 mins spare. In jay's fav hotel I bumped into my old buddies from Pune Infy.All of them in rockstar appearance with their mean m/c Pulsar 150 and 180 DTSi. One of them actually ditched our plan 1 day earlier. They were interested to join for ride but somewhat hesitant for trek. we parted our ways and again met at Koraigad base villege ambavane.
I being aware of eccentricities of my infy friends was ok but rest trek group shattered with thought that this drool brats actually do work for India's most fav company Infosys. This group must have njoyed their bike ride till amby valley. Much thanks to Mr. subrato shara for best roads in Maharshtra till amby valley and what scenic beauty this region has no one can imagine.Well its par Malshej and not famous.

Lal Dabba / Loast and Found: we started with state transport ST(lala dabba) from lonavala to Sahara lake city. We passed on empty bushy dam and its silly visitors.(damn silly, whats point in visiting dam which has no water) We moved on to reach INS shivaji and Air force juncture and entered ghats. Sanket with his digcam ready to take snaps.
But he being novice cant take pics of moving objects and was in same situation as hunter aiming for his pray.
This thing amused our fellow passengers nad villegers. We knew peth shahahpur is simplest route and from ambavane its steep climb. So we passed on Peth shahapur and alighted at Ambavane-Bhamburde juncture.
Infy dudes do reached here at same time. I hate them being called as dudes (" duh attitude") as they are as normal as any one fo us in workplace just trying o be different! they moved on to amby vally entrance.
we started on our way and reached a gate and realised Sahara grp had blocked this way. somehow we persuaded watchman and get ourself inside actiual territory.but after 30 mins also we aren;t able to get actual route. each time we reahced some exotic locations. Rocky patches, bamboo densities. oh my god we took almost 20 snapa there.A true heaven one could imagine. We asked neighboring watchemen and workers on the other side of fence that how to go up. NO one had done this.I thought why sahara emplyed these outsiders to look after a fort of Maratha King. well quite illogcal that one has reached till summit.
well sanket some how found our beloved " trekker arrow" on one rock. This is fav tricku used by trekers to make marks ont their way so that fellow trekkers can follow.This thing has been useful fro night treks especially.I was charged and covered 30% of total hike in one go. rest alsof followed and then just two breaks at some of relly difficut patches. They were quite risky one mistake. one slippage and one would doen direct 600-800 feet. I had some bitter exp at Lohgad-Vinchukata so I told them to follow steadily and everyone is now 5 mins away from summit. we climbed the rest with confidance nad we are on top ar 12.15 PM.Sandy,jay,sushant managed evrything in good spirit and confidance.

Lunch with sahyadri Mountains: We started to look around for familiar peaks and forts. I rather correctly identified Lohagad and Visapur. Sanket identified karnala peak(the famous thums up).This peak is such a dstinct peak.Not much height(1100 ft) but can be seen from most of the ranges being not a single range to hide it. Its almost 80-90 kms from where we were standing.God! sky was clear and we could see so many ranges of sahyadri.This very picture after long toll on body is real thing acts as a kick for me any future treks.
We moved on to side facing Amby valley. we just reached the edge and oh god is this posiible ? Am i in India?
This being rather straight fal down I told sandy come slowly nad please have a absolute surprising shock!
wow! Even one thought gone through mind, that I dont mind buying this home in partenership with 10 other guys.
Every bunglow is priced at 2.5 crores. This valley has helipad, runway for chartered flights and so mnay swimming pools.My eyes glued on those little huts for Indian cricket team and had a envy abt Parthhiv patel.whay there is so much economical gap in india? I felt poor whole day.
Moved on to Korai devi temple where we kept our bags started taking bites of packed veg s/w (sandwiches and not softwares). Finished our lunch and time for small nap now. well we actually avoided this and now praing for Rain.Clouds gathereed and every time moved on Lohagad.Me and sandy already out with wind-cheeters but rain didn't come.
Then we moved on to other part of fort where we saw some water reservoir and around thousands of frogs!(well its true) after lot of time we saw some gujju couple on fort who must have cme up from stairs a way from peth-shahapur.By this time we reached 100 snpas target. nad then started to climb down through stairs way t peth shahapur.

Trek Down:

We had bus to lonavala at 5.00pm but weren't aware that this is last bus.On the way sushnat pointed out that as famous marathi writer PuLa syas that maharshtra has 3 distinguishing comon traits as Mumbaikar,punekar and Nagpurkar he added one more as trekker. and their common trits as 1. trekker dont like stairs on fort 2. trekker never likes to reach top along with some other group or second to any other.
3. trekker hates totake gals with them for summit.(I am exception here) 4. trekker never leaves any plastic on fort and if possible collects prev scrap and dumps in his bag.
(myself follows first clause and dump those plastic bags in sankets bag :)) well there more traits, join the gang and explore...
We almost cursed sahara group for building those stairs.but much to kudos that is the only fort so much clean than any other forts.This whole fort gets in lights bcoz of floddlight at its base by sahara group. At the base we managed to find hand-mump("nalika-vihir" to sanket) then moved on to village peth-shahapur and we saw a bus going towards amabavane. so same bus is going to come back we ordered some tea nad oh god rain starts pouring me, sandy , sushant ,janmajeya already on road to enjoy that. finally our carrying wind cheeter was real worth.meand sandy enjoyed for 10 more minutes and saw the bus coming. me hinted jay, sandy that let it go. sanket realised that later after we hinted driver to do not wait. he almost started runnig carrying his bag. chhay wala told us that this was the last bus to lonavala but dont worry you wlil get somehtig till 1000 pm. it was 6pm and i dont know how weird it was saying you will get something in next four hours.
but bus was gone and so the rains ...... :( :(
Dudes-2:
we were waiting for some trnsport to take us bak to lonvala. their were pajeros,scorpios,tata safaris.but as I said we were poor ppl there. then we saw some trkeers were comig towards peth shahapur carriyng proper tre bags rucksags and drenched in rains. sanket w=enquired whats their plan. we were baffeled by fellow mumbaite's accent.Now I felt we are not mumbaikars. after bit of eye-hinting we decided to march towards lonavala and reach ghosalkhamb fataa. well trekkers weren't alone they did have their female friends with them too. we had quick eye on them and sandy.jay thouhgt it was worth leaving bus.sanket was cribing as he have to go to seepz next morn anyhow.well we stil on our way and no one is cared abt our sitiation.then there came lal dabaa but it wasnt st bus it was red colored truck. we were reay to give any amt to him but he insisted on only Rs 50 (5ppl for 22 kms ) so one more good deal.
Jay,Sandy still lost in thoughts of better halves of mumbai dudes.well this truck has peculiar thing.one extra wheel-tier has been placed at the back of drivers cabin. Jay quickly climbed up and soon all three were standing and enjoying everything on our way back.jay had very good eye but he missed one scene which we enjoyed on Lions point.Well now suddenly ppl on road in their accents,esttems,scodas felt envy abt our innovating way of enjoying truck ride.
soon we are back to lonavla. on our way to stn we got bus to kalyan-dombivali.Yeh we got stuck around sheel phataa but that price was negligible in front of what we enjoyed in daylight.

that was the story and u can join next trek on 17th July