Weekend hike options

https://www.reddit.com/r/mumbai/comments/1ghphp/weekend_hike_options/

created by umma_gumma on 17/06/2013 at 03:09 UTC

11 upvotes, 10 top-level comments (showing 10)

1 day

Kanheri Caves- Go as high as we can on the Kanheri Hill and enjoy the breathtaking views of Mumbai and the beautiful Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It's a easy hike and anyone can join in.

-Karnala Bird Sanctuary and Fort http://wikitravel.org/en/Karnala_Bird_Sanctuary

2 days

Rajmachi Trek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajmachi

Korigad http://www.placesnearpune.com/2011/07/trek-to-korigad-fort-near-aamby-valley-lonavala/

Both treks are easy.

Let's select a weekend where most people are available and then decide on a 1 or 2 day trek.

Comments

Comment by [deleted] at 17/06/2013 at 07:47 UTC*

5 upvotes, 6 direct replies

I had gone to Rajmachi earlier this year. Let me tell you how it was.

There were two of us. We started from VT around 6.30 in the morning. We took a local at Karjat and reached the station around 8 in the morning. Even though it was the end of February, the place was freezing. From Karjat, we walked a kilometer to the national highway from where we caught a rickshaw to Kondana (I think that was the name of the village, don't remember). There are share autos but since it was starting to get hot, we decided to pay 80 bucks for the 8 km trip. There is one bus which is very infrequent.

We reached Kondana by around 9.15 and immediately started the ascent. The sun was already high up in the air and we were sweating lyk nything. The terrain for the initial one hour of the climb was easy to conquer. There were multiple waterfalls we had to cross except there was no water in any of them. We soon reached a Buddhist cave which had beautiful ancient inscriptions and sculptures. We rested there for about an hour before continuing the climb. The terrain kept getting tougher as we climbed higher. The sun was unrelenting too. Every now and then we had to sit down and breathe some air.

About three hours into the climb, we reached a plateau which looked like a crater. There were cattle grazers all over the place. We walked through the plateau for about 15 minutes and soon reached the base village. Most of the houses in the village serve as pitstops and allow you to spend the night there. They also provide awesome home-made food. If you're lucky, you may even get chicken curry.

We found at least three other trekking groups there already. Two had come by bikes from Lonavla through a jungle road. We had lunch and rested for a couple of hours there. Though we had the option to spend the night there, we decided to borrow some blankets and a couple of mats so that we could sleep in one of the two nearby forts.

There were two forts. One was quite big and the other was moderately sized. We chose to trek to the bigger one first. There was a Hanuman temple right at the point where the paths to either fort diverged. The temple is open to anybody for boarding. There already was a group of ten staying there. The place was filled with our simian cousins too. You really gotta be careful with those motherfuckers, trust me. The climb to the fort from the village was quite easy. After a while there we even had the luxury of traversing through properly laid out stone steps that were part of the fort itself. It was evening by the time we reached the top-most point of the fort. We roamed around the fort and finally found a place to camp outside a man-made cave. We tried gathering twigs and shit for the campfire, but most of it was moist. There were loads of dry grass which exactly wasn't useful.

After multiple failed attempts of started the fire, I turned to google for help. I got hold of some tissue paper, crushed it to make a ball, sprayed some deo on it and threw it inside the twigs that we had gathered. By this time we only had some seven match sticks left. The two of us could have escaped the freezing cold if only I was successful in lighting one match stick, but I crumbled under pressure. It was like facing Malinga in the the last over of a match with just two runs required and you're the last wicket. Pressure, bro. Ravi Shastri should have been there.

The night was dark and full of darkness. Thankfully it was a beautiful, starry night. We also had direct view of the distant trains passing through the ghats between Karjat and Lonavla. My only regret is that we didn't carry an alcohol. Would have been some respite in the cold.

The next morning, we woke up and climbed down from the fort after roaming a bit. We ascended the smaller fort. There was a huge tank where you could swim. Unfortunately the sight of middle-aged men in chaddis wasn't particularly enticing for my female friend. So we soon left the tank and the fort. We got back to the village, had some food, returned the blankets and started exploring the plateau. The best part was the villagers were super-nice to us. They refused to name a price for the food and the blankets. They just asked us to pay whatever we saw fit. Ended up paying them some 300 bucks for everything.

We decided not to go back to Karjat and instead make the 20 km trek to Lonavla by the jungle road. That was quite a trek, phew. There were again many seasonal water-falls on the way. We reached Lonavla around 6 in the evening and took a train back to Bombay.

*TL;DR: Had great fun trekking to Rajmachi from Karjat. Spent a night under the skies at the fort. Trekked 20 km to Lonavla the next day while returning. AMA**

Comment by thetuxracer at 17/06/2013 at 03:25 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Alright, Im in. I am leaning towards Kanheri Caves, because of the 1 day thing. But open to other options if there is crowd interest.

Comment by blahblah0987 at 17/06/2013 at 06:41 UTC*

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Im in... love hiking! :) May I suggest Gorakhgad? The difficulty level is medium but its really beautiful in the rains. If you want I'll upload some of my pics to an album later and post them here.

Edit: So here's the album[1] I said I would post, I know nobody really asked but yeah... :P Took us a little under 3 hours to go up and a little over 3 back down. It has four rock climbs out of which we scaled three and skipped the last (the most steep one) as we would have had to do a complete 180 degree rock rappel using ropes etc and it had become too slippery due to fungus. Double edit: crap forgot the watermarks... Thats the guy who organised our trip

1: http://imgur.com/a/RB5V4

Comment by Zvan at 17/06/2013 at 08:19 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I am in for a 1 day trek.

Comment by sbforsale1 at 17/06/2013 at 05:25 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

1 day sounds good to me.

Comment by homie_erectus at 17/06/2013 at 07:42 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

if you guys have a fascination for waterfalls, there's this one near vihigaon, kasara. 120ft height.

train to kasara. catch a cab to the village vihigaon, or to jawhar phata from where a road cuts off from kasara ghat and goes straight to the falls. it is a 30-40 minute to the falls from jawhar phata.

clean. isolated. no beer and whiskey bottles lying around. no rowdy people making a scene. you might meet a few smalls groups and families there. have been there twice. the latest one being y'day.

pictures

Comment by PlsDontBraidMyBeard at 17/06/2013 at 06:04 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Haven't been to either places. Will agree to either places. Will also need time to arrange for vehicle if we are planning to drive all the way. Let me know.

Comment by reddit_kk at 17/06/2013 at 18:57 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Rajmachi and Korigad and nowhere the same.

Korigad is simple and rajmachi is endurance

all my pics at http://amitkulkarni.info/pics/

out of the 30+ forts and none are as raw and beautiful as rajgad/torna/lohagad/ratangad