Beautiful Harishchandra
Because of my visit to California, this season has definitely been very quiet in terms of trekking activitiy. So, even before returning back, I had planned to do some good trek to make me feel at home. Very few other treks could have made me feel like so and Harishchandra among them definitely is one of the top most. Also, I wanted to take my new car out for a long drive and this seemed good way to go for a trek, as it saves a lot of time in transportation and one can change the course at run time.
So, Anup, Harshad, me and Shekhar teammed up for the trek. Vikrant and his two colleagues were also supposed to join us, but then he got to know that his visiting american manager, who is also a good climber, wanted to do some outing over weekend. So they four decided to go there separately. Satish was also going to take his office group of about 18 people on the same day.
We started on Friday, 8th from Pune. I picked up Anup, Shekhar and Harshad on the way. The newly built Pune-Rajgurunagar toll road provided good and peaceful driving pleasure. But, even with such good infrastructure, I don't think we have the mentality to deserve it. People were blatantly breaking the rule by driving their vehicles on the highway in wrong direction. Height of that was few truck drivers, who would not only drive it on wrong side but that too in the fastest lane.
Anyway, as we had decided to start climbing early saturday morning, we had lot of time to reach Khireshwar. So, enjoyed rabadi at Narayan gaon and then dinner at some hotel near Alephata and finally reached khubi-phata around 9. The road from Alephata is pretty ok, but it gets worse in the last few kilometers before khubi. And then from khubi-phata to khireshwar is pathetic. We had to be very slow - not to damage the car as well as the tyres.
Once in khireshwar, we contacted a hotel owner, parked our car, had tea and slept in his house, which provided good protection against otherwise pretty cold night. Next morning, we got up around 6, had tea and started early, so that we could reach sufficient height to see the sunrise. I actually wanted to go up using the Junnar darawaja route, but decided otherwise since per villagers it was a bit confusing route. Walked at a good pace, took lots of snaps on the way and reached the mandir without any interesting event.
About same time, our other two groups (Vikrant and Satish's) have had their breakfast and were heading for Taramati. Later we realized, we made a good decision by not climbing in night with them, as they reached the temple around 3am and since many trekkers had already occupied the caves, they had to put up their tents and sleep outside. Even with these tents, in the chilly and windy nights, they had a tough time and could not sleep well that night.
Once they departed, we were looking for a cave, as we did not expect lot of people atop, so had decided not to carry my tent. Luckily, one group in the main cave was about to leave and we grabbed the opportunity and setup our camp. Then had lunch (maggie) and started hike to Taramati. Reached there quite quickly, enjoyed quiet time meditating atop then visited few other places and came back to the temple. Had some poha, tea to replenish and started our walk to Kokankada.
Even after visiting the kada and climbing once from its side, it still feels thrilling to be there. The huge kada makes me think of how tiny we as human are against the all powerful and beautiful nature. Took many snaps and watched the sunset and returned back to the camp site. Enjoyed tea, khichadi and lots of chatting and information sharing near the camp fire, came by in the cave and then played cards for about 2am.
Sunday morning, got up a bit late and after morning errands and 5/6 glasses of tea(!), started our descend. Earlier, we had planned to get down quickly and then visit Ozar/Lenyadri ganapati on our way back, but after starting late, we had to cancel all other plans. Till Tolar khinda, we 4 were together, but by that time - Harshad and me were a bit bored walking slowly and decided to get down quickly. We almost started running down and gained so much pace that we were back in the hotel, where we had parked car in just 27 minutes from Tolar khinda. There we had to wait for two others for almost half an hour, so till that time, we replenished ourselves with water and buttermilk. Once four of us were back and fresh, started return journey and came back home by 6 in the evening.
You can find snaps taken by Shekhar on this trek at - http://picasaweb.google.com/shekhar.divekar/Harishchandra
Now planning to do more hiking/tours and more importantly, blog about it !
Enjoy!
Milind