Visapur Fort Trek (3-July-2010)

With the setting of monsoon and the thick cloud cover, activities like trekking and motor-biking into the mountains come as no-brainers. Especially if you are living in Pune. It takes a really sad person to stay at home in such a magical environment. Also better to enjoy whatever serenity left in the nature, before the burgeoning population destroys everything. Case in point - Sinhagad, Lohagad.

Anyways, Visapur was on my mind for a long time. It was sad that I had been to Lohagad, but gave Visapur a miss that time. So finally with the monsoon setting in, Visapur was finalised. One of my colleagues was to join me in the morning local. But he didnt. So I was all by myself for the trek. Not my first time going on my own though. Once the mind sets on a trek, there should be no notion of turning back. So I marched on alone.

On my way, during breakfast at a local hotel on the way, the hotel-owner cautioned me against 'dangerous' route to the Visapur fort. He kept asking why I didnt bring any company with me. I guess he was more worried about me falling into the valley while climbing and nobody knowing about it. So much so that he avoided answering my question about the route to the top, and suggested I should go to Lohagad as it was safe. That was not an option. I didnt ask him again.

I kept walking, and another local that I met on the road suggested I go up the stairs towards Bhaje caves and in the midway, where the stairs meet the mountain slope, take the mountain route। I followed it, and just as I was to divert from the route, I found couple of teenagers sitting on the guard-walls. I enquired about the route, and as luck would have it, one of the guys was going on the fort himself and was happy to lead. Problem solved. In fact, as a bonus, we had three more lives giving us company - 3 cutie-pie adorable pups. One of them bright-white and very sharp, and other two light-brown with white patches, and very feeble at heart. Cute.

We started trekking upwards. It was a bit steep and we were going quite fast. So after sometime, I asked him to wait for sometime, and I went to relieve myself. Just as I was about to go near a bush, a rabbit shot past me in a flash. First time in my life, I saw a rabbit in the wild. I realised the origins of that Marathi vernacular proverb - '......ला गेला अणि ससा सापडला'. Guess, our ancients were quite good observers. They had a saying ready for every 'sensitive' situations. ;)

Anyways, we continued and along the way, the local guy showed me couple of Lava bird running helter-skelter and even tried setting his pups on them! But thankfully the birds were sharper and vanished in the bushes. Continuing, we reached a very small hamlet called Dhanagar-vadi, comprising of not more than 4-5 houses. That Dhanagar-vadi platue was quite exotic though. Camping in the area would be great fun in full moon, provided those crabs dont ruin the night. Seriously.

On the way to the top, we had to tread couple of quite exposed and risky corners. The pups were all eager and raring to go with us, but were petrified to the guts to negotiate those corners and climbs. So we carried them on the corners where we were not sure of ourselves! Fortunately, there was no drama and we reached the top safely after finally climbing the fortification wall.

The plateu on the top of Visapur fort is huge and expansive. It took us almost 2-3 hours to just go around the fort. There are lots of relics on the fort, including few Hanuman carvings in the stone, few Temples, lots of water tanks filled with clean water, some caves and the fortifications. At lots of locations, the fortifications are still rock-solid. Good enough in my opinion to sustain canon fires even in these days.

Apart from that, quite a huge expanse, at the base on Malavali side, is visible from the top. So huge, that I kept wondering if even a super-wide-angle like 10-22mm will be able to do justice to the view or not. On a clear morning after heavy rains, this location has all the ingredients for a photographer to compose a winner. Alas, my photography is doomed after I detected a fault in my 17-85mm, and after forcing a refund for the same, I am still not finding enough time to go to Mumbai and pickup the Tammy 17-50mm (non VC) that I have set my eyes upon. So I had to make do with my old reliable Powershot 530A with CHDK mod. But 5MP resolution is just not enough to capture the intricate details of the terrain viewed from the top. It just kept reminding me how big a difference a DSLR makes.

We spent a lot of time on the fort wandering around. The area is full of small mounds and greenary and is literally infested with all types and sizes of crabs. From a very small ones to absolutely giant ones. The local guys who was accompanying me was insane and kept catching the crabs, to the extent that when he saw a *giant* crab in one of the fresh water tanks, he entered the tank to catch that crab, without any regards to personal safety! That crab was big and muscular, so much so, that one snap of his claws would cut a human finger into two! To my surprise he came out with the big bad muscular crab holding its claws in his hands.

Later on I talked him into setting the crab free and before he did that, I accepted his challenge and held the crab in my own hands, despite the underlying fear of the crab attacking my fingers and wrist. My fingers earn me my daily meal, damn it. No fingers, no typing, no software, no fun, no money, and no hopes. But I somehow managed to hold on to that scary thing which was moving vigorously, making sounds and cracking his claws.

We also had some knowledge transfer there. It's on the Visapur fort that I came to know that crabs or herbivorous (dont know how true). He also told me one horrible procedure of throwing those giant crabs in hot oil to prepare an oinment to treat serious and deadly skin burns. I shuddered at the level of cruelty and changed the subject.

While we were roaming around the fort, we noticed at least 3 routes to the top of the fort.
One route was: Bhaje caves stairs-mountain slope-Dhangarwadi-connecting ridge-Visapur Fort. This is the route that we took.
Second route was through Paatane village near Malavali, which, I think, we pass just after the Malavali fly-over on the expressway. A route from Paatane take one to the top through a ravine which seemed quite easy to negotiate.
The third route came from Lohagad, on the Pavanaa-dam side of Visapur. This route also seemed quite simple, though the final climb appeared to be a little bit tricky.

From the top, it should have been easy to notice Tung, Tikona, Lohadag, Korigad, Pavana dam and maybe Duke's nose as well. But due to the characteristic monsson weather that day, hardly any of them was visible. Bhaat-raashi mountain was visible though, being quite close to Visapur. We also noticed couple of shanties on the slopes of these mountains, and kept wondering how the people living there would make their ends meet. And then, like typical metro public, I blind-folded myself, denied existance of people who have to fight harsh conditions for a day's meeth-bhaakar (which itself is not guarranteed) all life long, shoved myself into the cosy, comfortable, feel-good mindset and moved on. Crocodile tears - what would we do without you!
Somewhere it ached though, and somewhere down there, the pain persisted.

We started climbing down. The pups were again restless on the slopes and corners. Any regular trekker would know that climbing down is a bigger risk than climbing up, especially so, when the rains make the trekking route slippary. With my heart in my mouth, somehow I managed to negotiate those slippary patches and risky, exposed corners. On the way down, the local guy dug up a 'kand-mool' for me. It did smell eatable, but I didnt dare. It reminded me the climax of "Into the Wild" where the camper guy eats wrong roots, which turn out deadly. So I just followed the thumb rule of - dont eat any roots until you are absolutely sure about them.

Anyways, we descended and parted ways. On the way down, I also visited Bhaaje caves. Got bored in 5 minutes. Came down, had heavy snacks and lots of egg-whites. caught a local and returned to Pune. Turns out, even though I had to go on my own, without any company, this is one of the best treks I had done recently. Of-course there is no match to what happened on Harishchandra-gad. But all in all, a very informative, exhausting, thrilling (the giant crab!!) and 'real' trek after so many days, and that too in the monsoon weather.

More snaps from the trek here on my picasa stream - - http://picasaweb.google.com/shyran