Date : 11 Jun 2011
Note : All pics are added in the end … please scroll below to avoid a boring travelogue. 🙂
The planning had begun long long ago for an early monsoon warmup trek. Guys at the office were keen on a short trek and I started hunting out options for the same. The early rains hastened things a bit and we finalised the date to be 11th Jun. The green carpet was not yet laid out and we wondered if it was still too early or should we have waited till July.
All said and done, everyone was really in for the trek and we had almost finalised on Ahupe Ghat. However, one of my “trekker” friends discouraged me to do this since it involved a hectic climb and would most probably require a local guide for newbies. He suggested Naneghat instead. When we started gathering info on Naneghat, I wondered why I had ignored this place for so long. It looked so beautiful in the rains.
And so Naneghat it was. We got into last-minute scamperings for booking the transport. Starting with options for two Tavera/Sumo/Qualis kind of vehicles, we settled for a 17-seater Tempo Traveller instead. The plan was for me to start from Mulund and pick up entire junta from Kalyan station – that way we could ensure the minimum wastage of time early on.
I started at 6 am sharp and was at Kalyan station by 7:00 … some guys had not yet turned up, so by the time we left Kalyan it was already 07:30 .. no complaints about that since that was our secret pre-planned target, as usual unknown to the group 🙂
Everyone had left homes in the wee hours of morning and were understandably desperate for a breakfast. We took a short halt at Murbad, which had just one decent (???) restaurant to have some udipi-style snack. Yogesh and myself preferred the idli-wada .. whereas others desperately wanted to gorge on the street-side vadapav. We ended up wasting a good half an hour here with Nishant and Kini out to search for Jam+Bread. After stocking up we finally made a move by 08:10 on the NH222 that goes towards Malshej Ghat.
It wasn’t raining, but the mountains were still covered in early morning mist and we couldn’t spot Ahupe ghat (which was our earlier plan). And just as everyone started cribbing why there were no mountains around, the weather cleared and we could spot “Nana-cha Angtha”-(the peak @ Naneghat) from a distance. People laughed at me when I said we were to scale that peak … but they soon got to terms with it 🙂
The driver dropped us at the diversion by 08:45 and then began the walk into the forest. The entrance gate showed some pictures of a leopard which got some of the guys worried. Everyone hesitantly re-assured the other that there were no animals here .. yet no one wanted to be the first or last in the group 😛
It took a good hour of walk in the forest , crossing couple of streams on the way till we could reach the point where the gradient begins. A couple of guys tried to explore their own route and got lost. Lot of shouts and growls 😛 later they promptly returned to the main route. The pathway is helpfully marked by earlier trekkers using white arrows on rocks. It hadn’t rained much in this region and were walking on a flat bed of what would be a flowing stream by August.
On the way we spotted a tree with a green sari (the kind village women wear) on it and some bangles below. Everyone started to make their own conclusions. Some were scared – others amused. I had just seen “Ragini MMS” the day before so no prizes for guessing what I was thinking 😛 … we quickly moved on.
The entire walk is through dense forest and it is advisable to carry enough food, water, glucon D/Electral when it is humid else the sun can drain out every bit of energy before the final slope begins. We took some generous halts to replenish our energy and take pics in the meanwhile. Some rain may have got the leeches out on the hunt – luckily we were saved from that attack.
Halfway through is a small plateau where we saw a group that had camped for the night. A small waterfall in the distance gave us an idea of how beautiful this place would look after a heavy spell of rainfall. The destination looked much closer from here yet there was a good one hour of steep climb ahead. It’s easy to lose way here since the path almost gets lost in the plain, but some looking around is all it takes to get back on track.
The climb from here was steep and entirely through rocks but when we reached the clearing on top it was a strange sense of satisfaction which can only be understood by a trekker. There are more than a couple of caves here and water tanks as well. These are mostly from the Satvahan era and were built for facilitating rest for the travellers through this mountain pass. The large cave was a short pitstop for some pics as we were the only group that had arrived so far.
Another group of 3-4 guys had come from Junnar by car and as usual we had some murmurs through the group asking why we had walked so much when we could have easily driven down. There is a way to come here from Malshej Ghat as well, but the roads are seemingly in bad condition.
Just near the pass was a big earthen pot which was used in medieval times to collect the toll from merchants passing by. From here we could see the fort Jivdhan and it’s peculiar edge called the Khada Parsi / Vanarlingi. We soon got onto Nanacha angtha trying to scale it’s peak. But the force of the wind gushing downwards was enough to discourage most of us as it was almost throwing us off our feet. I lost the lens cap of my camera in the process. Some of us did make it to the top. This was undoubtedly the best part of the trip.
Soon we were back in the safety of the cave for lunch. Bread-jam was over in a jiffy and guys were hungry for more – luckily there was enough to eat and drink. Another group had come in by them and were to camp in the cave for the night. They had brought in all stuff for cooking including stove and veggies.
Suddenly someone spotted a green viper on the rock. It was a tiny baby, but very attractive – supposedly poisonous – but no one dared to find out :P. A short rest later we began the descent and were back at the parking lot by 4 pm. An impromptu decision to go to Flamingo resort was taken unanimously as some of the guys were still hungry for a decent meal.
Malshej Ghat was awesome as usual and the windy top was in its usual gusto. We again had a full meal at the only resort on top and rushed back to Kalyan. By rushed, I mean literally rushed .. as the driver happened to realise his dream of being a pilot, driving @ 100-120 kmph in the ghats. Let me not include what hapenned after that as that can easily make do for another blog.
Some Pics from the trip .. .
Map Location
[googlemaps https://maps.google.co.in/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Naneghat&aq=1&oq=nanegha&sll=19.293585,73.676012&sspn=0.012334,0.01929&t=h&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Naneghat&ll=19.29239,73.674724&spn=0.007088,0.00912&z=16&iwloc=A&output=embed&w=425&h=350]