Every trekker who works in corporate environment faces this.
All my friends at work had been appreciating the ‘AWESOME’ and ‘ADVENTUROUS’ pictures from our Sahyadri treks for over a year, known that most of my weekends are planned, heard my trekking experiences first hand during café breaks and asked me to organize an easy grade monsoon trek which even the new ones can successfully attempt. Hence, the choice: Mahuli fort. Devesh, Vaibhav and Mayuresh who had already been to Mahuli readily decided to help along with their set of additional first-timers, raising the total count to 25 trekkers.
The trek began with train to Asangaon from Mumbai, chosen in a way that we would reach Asangaon by 7:45 am. Getting down to the right of the station, we found chai and vada-pav to break our fast and also found a tempo-driver to take us all to Mahuli fort base from the other end. It’s a good long way towards the fort, easily tracked with wiki information, but with such a number, we thought it best to skip the walk and got down directly at the temple to our right, marking the start of the trail by 9:00 am. As soon as we reached the temple, it started raining! It is said that raining at the start of something is a good omen, but superstition aside it made us feel our enthusiasm and rhymed with our “Ganpati Bappa Moraya!”
Continuing on the right side trail, we reach the Mahuli Trek and Tourism Centre board in no time. That’s the main entrance to Mahuli’s jungle area. Ahead lies the route which will be covered with trees most of the time, thus offering an advice to beware of mosquitoes (Seriously, every person I talked to for collecting information said the first thing, “wear full T-shirts, no shorts, carry mosquito repellent!”) A few steps ahead we got a warm welcome from villagers, asking for tea/food/guides. Since we didn’t require any, we chose to move ahead towards the small river crossing patch. During monsoons it is difficult to predict the force of the flow, so we carefully crossed the river, all 25 pairs of hands helping each other.
After the river, the trekkers started to gain height as the zig-zag routes began on the small hill towards Mahuli. We reached the end of this path to take our first halt just within 45 minutes from the start. When we organize treks with so many people, everyone has different levels of stamina and everyone takes time to pick up the slow and steady breathing rhythm. Hence, it becomes inevitable to take multiple halts. This hill top gave us some break from the ascent and walking on the flat plane let the new ones gain speed too. Once everyone was charged up, we began to trek ahead on the next slope. Mostly the pattern goes like, trees covering the steep climbs upwards and parting to give a look at the mountains and clouds surrounding us from time to time as we reach some flat walking part. This continued as we reached the second halt by approximately 10:30 for the group, where restless hungry folks began opening their respective treats.
Spending 10-15 minutes there, we started moving ahead. Here onwards, the trek gets steeper and a few slippery patches need to be crossed to get the view of Mahuli’s well-known pinnacles to our left side. Mahuli has an historical significance as it traces the various eras of rulers. Starting from Moghuls who created the fort, it came under rule of Nijamshahi dynasty in 1485, later on won and sacrificed by Shivaji Raje twice, passing it back to Moghuls in the ‘treaty of Purandar’. In 1670, when Gaud was in charge of the fort, Marathas attacked the fort again, but ended up losing a gem, Sardar Kadam, later named ‘Sonare’ (Gold of Swarajya) by Chatrapati Shivaji Raje. By mid-1670, the fort was conquered by Moropant Pingle and added to Swarajya. Around 1700 different climbing pinnacles surround this fort, making it a fort worth fighting so much for. It also is the highest fort in Thane district, and since a lot of the fortification still remains, it is quite an attraction for history lovers.
The final patch of this fort arrives after a small clearing, which takes about half an hour to climb. The top has a beautiful Gate-like structure of the fort’s wall. We all gathered there and had our lunch on the top of the fort, and then began exploring towards the left end. Here, we found a Shiva temple, below a giant tree (possibly created by the villagers of Mahuli). Going further ahead we saw another side of the fort’s wall still remaining. To the right, we also saw a few caves which unfortunately aren’t clean anymore. It confuses me how this ability of being easy to reach is becoming a threat to the well-kept surroundings in stead of creating awareness about such beautiful historical places’ importance.
By 1:30 or 2:00, we were all finally done checking out the place and clicking innumerable ‘DPs’ for our respective albums! The way downwards is same path and we had surprisingly moderate amount of rain, just drizzling enough to refresh us without making the soil too slippery. It took a very less time getting down to the base village, at the house where we got our much needed tea and changing break.
We had our morning’s tempo-waala’s number and called him to pick us up from the base to Asangaon station in just 20 minutes! As we reached the station and boarded the train, I calculated the day’s expenses and voila! The share was only Rs. 70 each, including the food, tempo and tea!
To sum it all up, Mahuli Fort is an easy monsoon trek. The trail is well defined, no tough patches on the route and basically it can be enjoyed even by the regular trekkers as one gets to spend time in relaxation along with friends.
Originally published on Indiahikes at: http://indiahikes.in/mahuli-trek/)
