The best advantage (and probably the only advantage…nah just kidding!) of being totally jobless is the 11th hour trek plans! Got a call by 3 p.m. and I am leaving for the trek by 11 p.m.
This time, the place is Ratangad, (4255 ft above sea level, Medium difficulty) , Bhandardara region, Maharashtra. It was sort of a dream as I used to see that whole region of Ratangad, Katrabai, Alang-Madan-Kulang-Kalsubai from Dehne (Kokan base) during my stargazing events and think “Damn I gotta go there!”
We left for Ratanwadi village (base village) on Saturday night by 11 p.m. by private bus. As usual there were many hurdles all the way through.
As the monsoon was getting at its best, this whole region has had heavy rainfall. (My naneghat trek got cancelled because of same reason). The Ghoti-Sinnar route was closed because of the broken bridge on the way and we took Lord knows what road to reach Ratanwadi. We were supposed to reach the base by 3-4 a.m. in the morning but we reached by 7!
Nevertheless, the last 15-20 km of the road was too nice! (Seriously…Hell with Manali!)
So with no sleep and almost 7 hours of bus travelling, we are at the base. Had breakfast, hired a guide and off to climb by 8 a.m.
We first visited the Amruteshwar temple at the base which is around 1200 years old. The place is okayishly developed (nicely developed for a trekking spot, frankly speaking!).
As this place itself is at the height of around 1500-2000 ft above sea level (I don’t know exactly, just a guess!), at Ghatmatha (more on that in later posts), it’s usually covered in fog throughout the rainy season. We had heavy rains and fog throughout the whole trek. So there was no view, no guess about where and how we are going, no photos and water flowing through the whole route. Exactly like a proper monsoon trek!
So we left the temple, followed the tar road for few min, crossed few fields before starting on the trail. As long as I could spot ( fog for whole trek so can’t help) , we went parallel to a small lake (bandhara, small dam as we call it), went parallel to few hills before starting to climb the main mountain. Crossed literally n number of streams to the point that I stopped counting them. We came to a clearing halfway through the trek and the clouds also were gone for 5 min and that’s all we had!
(Small lake in the photo, lake at the distant is Bhandaradara dam backwater)
The whole route till the top was properly marked by arrows on the stones.
So after that clearing, 10-15 min to trek and we come to a junction, which was one of the best part of the trek(For me). One way goes to Ratangad top, one goes to Amruteshwar temple (one that we had taken), one goes to Samrad (sandhan valley) and one goes to Harishchandragad. (Control the temptation!)
(Harishchandra-ratangad trek is quite famous. It’s kind of difficult during rains and it takes around 3 days to complete the trek.)
So after the junction, continuing the Ratangad route, an hour long trek or so and we are almost at the top. There are few ladders attached as the steps are broken. (Although, one of the ladeer was kind of useless because the steps were okay!) Few more steps to cross and we reach the entrance of the fort. This time, because of heavy rains, we only visited the cave and broken fortification at the top.
Time to go back! Since there were very few people over here , no traffic jam like Peb or Harihar. We started climbing down fast and we realized that not spending time at the top was a good decision. The place was having a really heavy rainfall so there were few trees fallen and blocking the route. (A tree falls in the forest and yes we do care!) Back to the clearing and thankfully clouds gave a little way to see around.
Because of the heavy rains, the n number of streams that we had crossed near the base were flooded (some new came as well!) And we had to attach a rope to cross one of the flooded stream. Real adventurous trek! Took total 6 hours to finish the whole trek.
You can’t expect a whole detailed blog post when for the whole time we have had this type of view!
P.S. and I am also not one of those people who say stuff like “the mighty mountains whispered wisdom to my ears” , “Oh the clouds came in to clear my mind” , “dark forest and clouds ensure a heavenly walk to heal the soul.” Too much of pretentiousness and spoils everything! (These are also the same people who will use sunscreen lotion for trek because oh sophistication!)
Glad to be an idiot who uses a handkerchief as hoodie!!!
Happy Trekking!!!
The Idiotic Trekker 