MahaTrek: Salota-Salher-Mora-Mulher-Hargad-Mangi-Tungi-Nhavi(Ratangad)
Day 0:
Yes, being a programmer I always start counting from 0. I am writing this at the Nashik Central bus stand and time is 2.40 a.m. I had planned to write in detail about this trek; and now I got opportunity as I can’t sleep while travelling as well at the public places. Other trek mate Shailesh is already sleeping on my carry-mat and other guys are on their way from pune to Nashik. As we planned we will be visiting fort Salota and Salher later in the day. Once all people are here we will be taking bus(es) to reach base village waghambe via satana/taharabad/mulher. As per my guess this will be toughest day in our trek schedule. Lets see. Salher is the highest fort in Maharashtra. Kalasubai is the highest peak while fort Kulang offers the highest ascent when base height is taken into consideration. There may be some errata for above info J. The whole range we are visiting is called as selbari-dolbari range in baglan region. Shivaji followed the same route when he looted Surat. Salher was captured by Marathas in 1671 and was again attacked by Mughals in 1672. Shivaji fought the biggest battle on this soil and this lead to biggest win for Marathas in terms of money and armour. Around 10K soldiers lost their life from both sides. Marathas captured 50 mughal sardars; and got 700 camels,350 elephants, 3000 horses and lot of money as a result of the battle.
Well all Day1,2,3,4 were really busy to write anything. Here is the narration I wrote when back from trek.
Day1 :
We reached taharabad at around 8 a.m. and the bus which lead us to waghambe was scheduled half an hour later. After a quick breakfast we headed to waghambe. All of us were singing Marathi songs and then started Sandeep Khare songs like “Mi morcha nela naahi”, “kase saratil saye”, “nasates ghari tu jevha” Bus conductor as well as fellow travellers hardly knew these marathi songs. Hope they liked it. One of us just returned from Canada on Saturday and he was here on 4 day trek on Monday night. He carried a big bag with clothes for children. We called someone senior (may be sarapanch) from the village and told him to distribute it to school children. Neeraj and Chetan hats off to you for showing us how simply you guys told the person about the motive and then action to be taken. I mean ‘doing it’ was may be simple but while doing it you made sure that it is for right purpose and message gets conveyed to villagers and onlookers like me too. Our trek started a minute later. We enquired about the route and 3 or 4 children from village joined us for company. It took quite a while to reach salota-salher col ; as some of us were carrying really heavy haversacks. We put down our bags under a tree on the way to salota and asked one of the 4 children to wait there. It was a bit tricky to reach the top of the salota as there is no well trodden path also the whole terrain is without solid rocks. It looked quite simple to run up the way at some moments while at some other moments it was quite risky job. There is nothing to see atop on Salota but the rock cut path offers good views of Salher fort and way that leads to Salher from salota-salher col. We finished our luncheon on Salota itself. All guys carried excellent food from home e.g. god purya,dashmya,pickles etc. Some of us were exhausted because of the scorching sun. It took another 20-25 minutes to reach salher-salota col. We picked up the bags and started following the route to salher top. The way to salher leads on the east face of the Salher and then run upwards and connects to step –way carved in the rock on the edge of the pyramid shaped salher. We took our time to reach this steps. For some of us it was safe destination; the way ahead wont take more than 40-45 minutes. Once we reached steps spent lot of time chitchatting with each other. Finally decided to move up when chetan came back running to see if everything is alright. Once I reached the caves; thought most difficult part of the trek is done and that too before sun went down. Happy and exhausted we picked up cameras and went clicking the ranges around. After seeing DSLRs in action I felt really bad with my Canon A530. I need some more money to buy such goodies. Stalwarts or we can say seasoned trekkers ran back to task of cooking good dinner meal. Everybody helped the way they can. I had trekked with lot of different groups but this one particular gang carried lot of food and made no compromise about individual choices. We had 4-5 types of regular spices; 3 types of pickles and what not. Within 10 minutes whole mini kitchen came out of our bags. We carried cooker, mini cylinder, utensils, plates and some regular stuff. I thought we can go whole week with this if our stamina remains intact. I was carrying documentation for the whole range with maps etc so It was up to us what to cover and what not. After a tea and refreshments dinner preparation was in full swing. There is a lot of teamwork involved as no one cooks food on regular days back home. In my some of last treks guys only cooked food and female counterparts enjoyed the recipes. Regular trekkers do best what they can in this task. Their approach is to cook just enough food that everybody gets something and nothing wastes away. Also they have to keep mental calculation of what things are remaining and what we will need in next 3-4 days. This time story was absolutely different. We had enough choices and time to cook too. Anyways the point is regular trekkers could be good coordinators in life and also at work from their experience. I mean some of them are already are but hint for someone less fortunate.
Some of us already started what they call a “StarParty” i.e. exploring the open sky in starry night and exchanging information about them. Yogesh sir was most knowledgeable person in this domain and he guided us to identify some of them e.g. hydra,kruttika,magha nakshatra. Suddenly everybody started discussing about gravity and stuff and its effects on the height of particular species. Then moon,aliens and then lot of jokes. We played lot of pranks on shailesh all these days but he outwitted each of us in his unique manner. Shailya is outrightly smart as well as foolish at the same time when he makes arguments on the topics for which he may or may not have any air. Great to discover you on trek J. Rohan was shivering with cold and had bit of fever too our onboard doctor Mr Sachin helped him with dose and advice. After a dinner and bit of a masti we hit sacks hmm carry-mats. Me, Krissh lead the snoring session then; other followed J
Day 2: We couldn’t catch the sunrise from the extreme top of Salher only sachin could take good snaps as he left early. The view from Parashuram temple was breathtaking. We could see complete selbari-dolbari range also the satmaL range which includes Dhodap,Saptashring,Ravalya-javalya etc and may be the Ajintha range (with the help of binocs). Rohan then narrated the salher battle in his unique style. Indeed very few people know about this battle thanks to our school textbooks. It must have been mentioned in great detail for its after effects on maratha kingdom. There is one mythological story too. Lord Parashuram the sixth incarnation of Lord Vishnu stayed atop salher and He created konkan region(reclaimed land from sea ) by shooting arrow from the very top we were sitting some hundred centuries back. I enjoyed the view and thought what better place than this to sit and speak you heart out to your friends, soulmates. We then headed back to caves where we stayed the earlier night. Our breakfast included khava-poli, cream rolls, Nan khataai, and milk too. We were running behind the schedule and it was already 11.30 and we were on Salher only. We decided to go down from the other side which leads us to village Salher. This is the proper route for fort but quite exhausting if you decide to reach salher from this side. It took around 2 hours to get down from this side. View of Shailkada from the bottom of Salher reminds you the beauty of kokan kada. En route to village we also stumbled upon the Samadhi of “Suryarao kakade”; the great warrior. We later came to know about this in village Mulher. We hired a jeep and listened the music from full bass/treble stereo. Sachin changed the lyrics of “aashik banaya “ to “naashik bulayaa”. It was fun ride via telyaa Ghaat to mulher. It was a market day for village and hence the main street was crowded. Local boys asked us in their typical ahirani tone “kathaain unaat? Gadavar jaai raahinaat kaa?” I understand this dialect fairly but failed in vain to answer to one of them J. After a quick enquiry we decided to put our bags in Uddhav Maharaj Ashram in mulher village and head to mulher fort. On the way we encountered very old house with wooden carvings and it was very beautiful. I met old man there and he explained the history of the village as well as the salher fort. He told me about the battle of salher and suryarao kakade Samadhi; parashuram story too. Mulher village is historic place with its name mentioned in Mahabharata etc. Udhhav Maharaj ashram gave us a small room to stay when we mentioned that we are trekkers and exploring the places around. We put our bags in the room and headed to visit mora-mulher immediately. The base point of this fort itself is 30 minutes walk from Mulher village and it was already 3.15 in the afternoon. Yogesh,Sachin and Chetan were already leading ahead and by the time we started the climb Krissh and rohit opted out of exhaustion and they returned back to village. So there left two groups one leading and ours was the second one. When we reached the Ganesh temple we saw the leading group following the route to Mora but suddenly quick calls with them confused us whether they are on right track or not. They told us to “come up” and we came up and followed the route to Mulher. It was clear after some time that first group is reaching Mora and we will be reaching Mulher. It took lot of efforts to reach Mulher top where we met the first group. They easily covered both the forts. It was not easy for us to go back to Mora and come back again on Mulher for descent. First gang headed back whereas we waited for sunset atop mulher. We saw carcass of some big animal buffalo or may be bull. Shailyaa said someone had really big feast there and we thought lets go back before some animal decides to make new kill J. We were bit disappointed due to fact we couldn’t cover the Mora. Things suddenly became dark and big task was ahead to reach Mulher village back in pinch darkness. We missed the way at 3-4 crucial spots and it was a bit dreary when torches put off. Add to that torch bulb of Neeraj’s torch went off. Thank god and pretzl he had the spare bulb too. At one point we headed into bushes after we lost way and trodded for around 15-20 meteres without knowing what lies ahead. The direction was the only criteria. We decided to head back but gave another thought to continue and it put us on our correct path. We called the way as highway then. Once we reached Ganesh Tenple it was clear we are out of danger and 45 minutes from that place we can reach the village easily. In pinch dark we spotted one injured bird and clicked some pics. Shailesh and rohan then decided to walk the remaining way without help of torch and it was sure fun. Seemed like college days are back we sat on the road clicked some pics and finally reached Uddhav Ashram. I had complete documentation for this forts and still we missed the point we could have covered all 3 forts in a single day if we had started early in the morning and started from mora. That lead us to dedicate a whole day to Hargad for which we have to reach again almost the same location we covered on the day 2. Krissh our bhaatMan cooked rice already. Sachin made a1 zunaka and we had best dinner that day.
Day 3:
Next day I got up and after the regular chores visited the temple and places around; clicked some pics and read the history mentioned in the premises of the temple. We got to know that there is a “Bal Sanskaar Kendra” as well as “Yuva Sanskaar Kendra” run by Temple trustee. It is really good initiative by temple trustee for school children and then started recollecting my school days and thought gone are the days to get this kind of education in metros like Mumbai and Pune. I suddenly became more observant and saw the innocent faces of the children there and thought how simple and beautiful is their life even in this rustic settings. I am sure if you want to take good photographs go to villages; faces of these people talk a lot and even their pics are refreshing which is missing in city life sometimes. We loose outlook of life in daily grind and suddenly discover new dimension to everything meaningful to you in small conversation with or without spoken words.
Hargad was not on my must do list but because of the earlier wrong decisions /time constraints we have to dedicate an entire day for it now and some of us also decided to reach the base of the Nhavi fort (which we anyway couldn’t do). Visiting Hargad was fun anyways. Rohan got injured and because of my upset stomach I was lagging initially by almost 30 minutes. I had to really pull myself to catch the other guys and while doing it I went all the way downhill on the traverse. Some lady from the fields called me up and asked me to go up as other guys were moving up. I don’t know whether I was correct or the group. We did mistakes here too. We traversed the whole hill to the extent that at one point I started thinking if we would continue for 30 minutes more we would reached the same point where we had started in the morning that day. Also we chose the way which generally herds follow. Rohit the youngest lad of the group had to pay the price. He slipped at one point and lost the balance and dived almost 20 feet downhill. Thank god he recovered very fast and terrain was easy. This was his first trek and he joined our group on insistence of his uncle. Hargad is not often visited place and we had hard time to get the correct way. By the time we reached col; we thought this is the same place where we could have come after visiting Mulher in hardly 10 minutes earlier day. Luckily we came across some villagers there and they told the further path. There was one shortcut too but it was really risky as it involved some free climbing. After yesterday's night trek and this long and boring traverse made me think to abandon further trek and head back and have decent bath and sleep. That didn’t happen though. I kept the lingering thought away and followed Neeraj. Just before we start the climb thought the col Krissh or somebody shouted "saap, saap". It was a Russel's viper (ghoNas) around 3-4 feet long. I had hard time in finding the camouflaged creature. The moment you loose the eye on it; it’s gone; very hard to find it again in bushes. I clicked in vain to get the pictures. Now only 1 picture out of 4 I clicked shows it; yeh Russel's viper not the computer language by Guido van Rossum :). No problems as such as my other friends do have really close up pictures. It made our day. Good things happen only when you don’t loose hope. That made my mood lighter and I was ready to trek ahead. We climbed almost for an hour or more to reach to the top of the Hargad. It is barren hill without any tree; just cactus and dry grass everywhere. There is one Hanuman temple and cannon on extreme end of the fort. I didn’t bother to run all the way; just asked the fellow trekkers who went and had clicked the pictures. To our dismay; the water on Hargad was not good and it will be really bad in the summer as there is no water source all the way till Hargad top from mulher village. The nearest spot is Ganesh temple on the way to Mulher fort. After resting for 10-15 minutes we started the return trek to mulher village. We have to move tonight to the base of Mangi-Tungi or Nhavi which is around 14 kms from Mulher village. This was the most pleasant walk on our 4 day trek. It took almost 2 hours to reach Ashram from Hargad top but clear sky, breeze and singing on the way made it look like a picnic walk. Just before the final descent somebody came across the Heart shape cut in the grass on the ground. We jumped to this opportunity and clicked some good pictures. On the way down I talked with Neeraj about his job etc and future plans. I broke the unwritten rule that you should not talk about office/work related things on trek/while traveling. After returning and resting for some time we packed our bags. We gave our contact nos and references to Temple trustee and listened to the story about the temple and importance of the place and local beliefs and traditions etc. Then started the lazy walk to mulher market and on the way entered roadside stall for tea and vada paav. We discovered the difference beween Vada pav and Pav vada that day. We hired a six-seater and started journey through darkness to Mangi base village Bhilawad. Dark Scene outside and mood was just correct. Starry night, 10 people in a six-seater, empty road with potholes but no lights. Chetan started singing "So gaya yeh Jahan ..." everybody enjoyed the melodies later on. Interesting thing happened then When Rohan was on call nobody budged to stop the singing but when auto driver got the call everybody stopped singing. What a strange reaction? How much we take granted for friends hehe :) It was like typical college crowd hitchhiking their way on the journey. We loved it. Like all good things this too came to an end in short while. Once we reached Mangi-tungi base; we got a place to stay at very nominal rate. Thanks to Jain community there. Sachin's battery charge once again put the lights off the room. Anyways it was some other problem. Our Bhatman Krissh agreed to cook his trademark recipe after lot of persuasion. Shailesh looked like helping people around but I still doubt how much work he actually did that day too :))
Day 4:
At 4 a.m. a person called us from outside to wake up as the bus to Magi-tungi base leaves quite early and you have to get ready for darshan. We ignored it and slept till 5.30. I finally got bath on the last day and waited for other people to get ready. Four of us were ready by 6.30 and thought lets lead trek today. Reaching to the base of Mangi tungi was pleasant walk in the early morning. But climbing those 2000+ steps was heavy workout for legs. I am still in awe of some of the elderly people there who did all the onus bare footed. I had to remove my shoes too as it was smelling really bad and it needed some fresh air as well as sun. View from the ridge was amazing. We had the best pics at this location. Pilgrimage is the age old concept in India and building those steps had really helped lot of people to reach there. Without them it would be daunting task for lot of people. There are lot of carvings and structures related to Jain tirthankars. I have to read about them on net now or ask some Jain friends. We started Mangi-tungi as any other trek without any information but now I am more curious about this stuff. From my guess this work like buddhist caves have must have been started long back but it was not complete as there is lot of discontinuity in the whole architecture. I was stunned by willpower of so many people who in general sense were not physically fit to do the task. They exhausted themselves just to visit pilgrimage and offer prayers. Belief makes a man stronger. Day before Sachin and Chetan also commented that they are not best trekkers amongst us or more fit physically in the group but it’s just a mental block in each of us that whether we can do it or not. True; we all know these things but when a picture becomes clear after some experience then only it makes sense to you. Human body is amazing machine. It responds to your mind and you can stretch and develop the stamina. You feel exhausted only when your mind says "No, Its enough now!” Later you give up; stronger you come up each time subsequently. You throw yourself out of regular box while traveling or on trek. Different people with disparate experiences some times; new places/surroundings; even a simple conversation can initiate a lot of thought process. While climbing the last patch on Mangi a gentleman told me to breathe deep and slowly from nose and not mouth and I obliged immediately. You always know right ways. You lack right company; right mental setup and the urge to do it. You keep your ego out when such things happen.
On the way to tungi we met other teammates; after lot of clicks and sightseeing we moved to tungi. Rohan was taking lots of snaps of old idols. Some lady enquired him why he was taking pictures and what would he do with them? Is it for selling? Rohan made clear that it is for his own sake; nothing commercial but that made clear how people are finicky about little things. Here everybody has the strong opinions about the things which don’t fit in dos and don’ts defined by stereotypes. Photographer/Trekker-Traveler/Dancers are generally not appreciated much. Who cares?
It was time to go back to base village now. On the way back we met very old Jain lady and her son. We asked her whether she need water or anything else. Her son told us that she would get down first; offer her prayers in temple below and then only take water or food. We have to learn a lot about belief and most importantly discipline. I imagined what I could do if I believe in myself even 10% of what she shown to us. On the way back Rohan told us about his EB camp, last years coastal bike ride; korlai forts; Portuguese home in goa,andaman trip etc. Then came the topic of nasty things like rave parties and such growing culture in Pune.
After reaching base we packed our bags and got ready for Lunch. Lunch was good in bhojanshalaa there. While returning from there I saw staunch naked digambar Munis. Most ascetic form a man can be in. just before leaving the Mangi-tungi chetan told me about one more interesting experience about jain sadhvi. She beat seasoned trekkers bare footed while climbing all those steps. Chetan said that they are glad that hare and turtle story remained true for this occasion too.
Well I wrote lot of other things here. Trekking is physical activity at the start but when you are get used to it; it becomes part of your thinking too and you do both these things while walking/climbing/traveling around the places with few friends.
To reach Nhavi one has to reach village vadakhal by crossing small riverbed. It would take around 90 minutes to reach there. From there one can take a route to Nhavi village and stepway to the top of the forts. After this I was not really exhausted like earlier days but thought I had enough fun and Nhavi(ratangad) trek wasn’t enticing enough. Also coming back to routine life will take at least one day after rest. I told my decision to head back home to fellow team mates. Everybody asked me to finish the last one too but I said lets meet on the next trek now. Something at the back of my mind kept calling me away from the mountains. I owe a great time to you guys; thanks for organizing this wonderful trek and including me there. I wish you; just like my Che Guevara Tee says "Grow Change Evolve"
Happy Trekking and best luck at everything you do!
