Range Trek - Chavand - Hadsar- Shivneri - Jivdhan - Naneghat💥💥🚍🚩🚩
It was early October and the trekking community in office were planning for a Range Trek this time around. Through the trek organizers, I came to know that this time we were planning the "Famous Five" Range Trek. This involved doing 5 forts is 2 days of our weekend holidays from office. The mail came through the official channels and off I went to confirm my participation.
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| Face of Mountain opposite Hadsar fort south face |
About Fort Chavand: Fort is a hill fortress situated 30 km from the modern-day town of Naryangoan in Junnar Taluka of Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The fort, which rises 1,036 meters (3,399 feet) above sea level, is located in the Sahyadri mountain range. The fort was looted and destroyed by the British upon siege. This is one of the forts known as the 'Famous 5'. Chavaand, Hadsar, Shivneri, Jivdhan and Naneghat form the Famous 5 trek. The fort has remnants of construction that are more than 800 years old. Village of Chavand lies at the base of the fort. Under the rule of Shivaji I, this was known as Prasannagad. The fort is located in LatLong 19°14′12.7″N 73°44′53.6″E.
About Fort Hadsar: Fort is among the many forts in Junnar region of Pune district which were meant for protection of the ancient commercial trade route from Maval region to Kalyan via Naneghat. There is a marvelous sculpture design of the bastion and the fort entrance, which is not seen elsewhere. They are all carved from a single rock. The fort is located in LatLong - 19°16′13.1″N 73°48′09.3″.
About Fort Jivdhan: Fort is a hill fortress situated 1 km from modern town of Ghatghar in Junnar Taluka of Pune district in Maharashtra, India. The fort, which rises 1,145 meters (3,757 feet) above sea level, is located in the Sahyadri mountain range. The fort was looted and destroyed by the British upon siege between 1815 and 1818. The fort is located in LatLong - 19°16′39″N 73°41′12″E.
About Naneghat: Also referred to as Nanaghat or Nana Ghat (IAST: Nānāghaṭ), is a mountain pass in the Western Ghats range between the Konkan coast and the ancient town of Junnar in the Deccan plateau. The pass is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) north of Pune and about 165 kilometres (103 mi) east from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.[1] It was a part of an ancient trading route, and is famous for a major cave with Sanskrit inscriptions in Brahmi script and Middle Indo-Aryan dialect.[2] These inscriptions have been dated between the 2nd and the 1st century BCE, and attributed to the Satavahana dynasty era.[3][4][5] The inscriptions are notable for linking the Vedic and Hinduism deities, mentioning some Vedic srauta rituals and of names that provide historical information about the ancient Satavahanas.[4][6] The inscriptions present the world's oldest numeration symbols for "2, 4, 6, 7, and 9" that resemble modern era numerals, more closely those found in modern Nagari and Hindu-Arabic script. The pass is located in LatLong - 19°17′31.0″N 73°40′33.5″E
About Fort Shivneri: is an ancient military fortification located near Junnar in Pune district in Maharashtra, India. It is the birthplace of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, the founder of Maratha Kingdom. Shivaji Maharaj was born at the fort on 19 February 1630, and spent his childhood there.
Pre-Trek Meeting
Since this was a overnight stay event and we needed to have some fit people doing the trek, the organizers scheduled for a Pre-Trek meeting. The members explained the trek route and how it would be conducted and how we will complete the trek in stipulated time. We were given a list of materials that we needed to pack for these treks.
Day 1 of Trek
We started early morning and I travelled to Nashik Phata where my pick-up was scheduled. I boarded the bus at 6.30am IST and off we were towards the Famous Five Trek. We were to have breakfast after Narayangaon and with the shoe string budget, we had managed to have a tie-up with college canteen on the way towards Chavand. We had pre-ordered the same breakfast of Poha and Tea for everyone.
Post the breakfast we then moved to the first fort which was Hadsar. We were to climb from the north face and then climb down via south face towards Chavand.
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| Team sweating after climbing only a few meters |
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| South Face of Hadsar |
Climbing Hadsar
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| Awaiting my turn |
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| Still waiting |
It took all of us a good 2 hours to just clear this patch as it needed caution and some of the participants needed more time to clear the route.
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| View of the adjacent mountain |
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| Minor Injuries being attended |
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| Entire team Atop Hadsar |
We started exploring the fort where we saw the Mahadev temple, water cistern on the fort, Hadsar fort Hanuman and Monolithic Stone carved gates.
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| Descending from Hadsar |
Lunch break and climbing Chavand Fort
Post having lunch and belly full, we had to then climb Chavand. Post completing the Chavand climb we had to travel to another colleagues village nearby for the stay overnight. Hence we had to travel to his village too which was outside the city.
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| Make Shift Ladders leading to Chavand Fort |
We had to walk through very tight space to reach the top of Chavand. I was trying to manage capturing pics and also trying to climb with calm and safety.
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| View of Angtha Mountain |
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| Some views opposite Chavand |
After descending from Chavand, it was already around 4.30pm IST and we had a mad dash towards Shivneri fort. By the time we reached Shivneri, the fort had closed for the day. We had Naneghat and Jivdhan to do for Day 2. For overnight we had to stay in one of our colleagues village called Pangari where we travelled and reached around 7.30pm IST and post that we had our dinner and slept in a under construction home of the colleague. We had Besan (Pithla) and Bhakri along with Rice. We had brought along our sleeping bags and after choosing the girls and boys sections, we were fast asleep. The village was a slow moving village and us making noise and mess had created curiosity amongst villagers
Day 2 - Morning at Pangari
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| Morning at Pangari |
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| Walking towards the village river |
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| Group Picture with members of the village |
Post breakfast at the colleagues village, we were off to Naneghat and Jivdhan Fort. We got a lot of stick from organizers for wasting time at the village in morning activities as it would impact our climbing and descent at Jivdhan as well as visit to Naneghat. The base of Jivdhan and Naneghat were about 90mins away from the village.
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| Jivdhan and Vanarlingi Pinnacle |
From the base of Jivdhan, one can also see the Vanarlingi Pinnacle which is also a famous technical climbing. We had to take a left from this point and head into a small jungle section at the base of Jivdhan. We also had to be careful of any wild animals and the Junnar Taluka and especially the place we were in was very well known for being leopard infested.
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| Walking through some dense forest providing respite for us |
After making our way through the forest, we were almost at the base of Jivdhan steps and the Vanarlingi climb. We took a left and started climbing from the stairs. The Jivdhan entrance was very tricky and we needed some rope to help the participants climb to the entrance of the fort. The fort entrance was destroyed during the last few years of rule so that the area remains inaccessible.
Post climbing and making our way towards the entrance, we then explored the fort for a while and within no time we had to start our descend for the reason that we had to visit Naneghat, post that we had to travel for around 3 hrs back to Pune and drop everyone.
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| Ancient Symbol of Sun & Moon and Kalash |
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| View from top of Jivdhan |
We also had some local school children on the fort, who were making their way down the fort.
Since it was October, the entire fort was covered with flowers. We had to be very careful that we do not disturb any bees on the fort.
We had a major scare while descending the fort as the north side was way too risky and we had to get everyone down safely. Hence it took us lot of time to get all participants down to the base. This route needed some technical skills to get down and we had to help 1 person per section, hence it was not easy.
That was it, as soon as we got to the base, we had to do a mad rush to Naneghat and it was already dark and we could not take much of the pics.
