Trek to Rajgad - Ek Thararatmak Bhatkanti ⛕⛽🚩🚦🚌⛗
It was September of 2012 and I was busy with my submission of RFP responses. Then came a the customary mailer of trek and off I was from the desk and reaching the SPOC to book my participation. Before this Rajgad trek there was Trek to Peb or you can say Trek to Vikatgad. I will write about that trek after this one. Call me lazy but yeah I need to find time to write out this as I don't have a laptop and I am writing all my blogs from internet cafe.
With me doing back to back treks I had made a following for myself in the trekking group and the organizers would always ask me before the mailer went out whether I would be joining or not and I would always join. Being a bachelor it was fun to enjoy such treks with teams you are happy with and become a part off.
Instructions in the beginning of the trek A scale model of Raigad Fort Start of the trek
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| Welcome to the jungle |
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| Cloud Cover over the fort |
The climb was very sunny as it had not rained in a while and the climb was very humid.
Due to heat extra breaks
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| Cloud carrying rain and humidity |
This was my 3rd visit to Rajgad. 1st I had visited during my school days when me and 3 friends had visited. We had travelled by State Transport bus then and had stayed on top of the bus overnight. The next time I had visited was in 2008 with a friend of mine when we were in our UPSC prep days and this was the 3rd visit with the org and its participants.
We started climbing from the Gunjavane village which also is known as the Chor Darwaza route after having breakfast. When you are almost at the summit you will have to traverse through a patch which needs to be climbed properly.
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| Team climbing the patch |
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| Patch in detail |
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| Climbing Traffic at the patch |
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| We had to let go of the VIP here |
At the summit and around the fort
As soon as you come through the Chor Darwaza route, you directly come upon the Padmavati Mandir.
From the Padmavati Mandir, we mad our way to the highest point on the fort which is known as the Balle Killa, inner most fort.
We started climbing towards the Balle Killa and there was a traffic while climbing here as well.
Climbing the Balle Killa was not a easy task, we had some participants who were afraid of heights and hence the progress to climb was very slow.
With this climb, we were all hungry and we quickly had our lunch packets which were distributed to everyone during the travel in bus.
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| Team climbing the Nehdha - Hole in the Wall |
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| Suvela Machi |
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| Pali Darwaza |
Rajgad is one such fort that you cant see in 1 day and requires a night stay to see the remaining fort. We were able to cover Padmavati Machi, Balle Killa, Suvela Machi, Nehdha and we decided to descent through the Pali Darwaza which is also known as the Main Route. This is the last photo I took as later it started raining very heavily. Overall at the end of trek the team spent some time at the stream near Pali Darwaza. Overall a very thrilling and hectic trek but I enjoyed it to the bits with lot of history behind this fort.
