Re: One of the best trek of Maharashtra - A trek to remember - Harishchandragad & Kon

The day before:

A temporary Whatapp group was created late in the evening to ensure the details of next day's plan are shared.

I shared with the group that the plan is to trek to Harishchandragad, the overnight stay will be in caves so carry atleast a sheet to spread and another one to cover but somehow 2 of the group of 4 still thought I was joking as they could not imagine anything like that, neither a trek that takes around 4 to 5 hours one way so they ignored the messages as a joke. Also with the change of plan, instead of meeting around noon, the time decided was meeting at 7:30 a.m.

Day 1: 5th July

We got together in a friend's car and started towards Malshej Ghat, again the same route is for Shivneri fort so the 2 guys were still in denial that we are trekking to Harishchandragad instead. We started towards Malshej Ghat, its around 150 kms odd from Mumbai and the last 40 kms is a bliss to drive/ride as the roads becomes smooth, you start to see mountains around and the thing people love the most, curves..




Viewpoint enroute:










After around a kilometer of Malshej MTDC resort, you get the view of the Pimpalgaon Joga Dam and just adjacent to the dam, there is 6 kms offroad track that takes you to Khireshwar Village, the start point of the trek (this is one of the 7 options to go to Harishchandragad, 2 of them are quite simple, 2 extremely tough requiring ropes and rock climbing)
This is one of the longer route but extremely scenic, difficulty level is Moderate (we made is slightly more difficult by missing the small painted arrow marks).
We parked our car at one of the house cum restaurant of the village, took blessing of Muktai Mata at the Khireshwar Temple, the start point of the trek.


Dam and lake in the background:





The offroad patch:




The start point of the trek: Khireshwar Temple (Muktai Mata Temple)




And the trek begins...

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Day 1 continued:

After parking the car, there was 2 more kilometers of road (if you want to call it that) to reach the start point of the base of the mountain, few pics of the village enroute;





Farmer and his bull doing their bit, remaining left to the Rain Gods:




The trek is marked by small white painted arrows on the rocks to guide the trekkers, don't know where we missed the marker and started on a difficult climb through rocks and dried waterfalls, one of the example below:




We caught the arrow marks ahead, but somewhere the markers were like this, it leaves for us to decide which route to take with no idea of difficulty levels on the either of the options:





With the difficulty of the initial stretch itself, this was the reaction I got to choose this trek at the first proper resting point (ignoring the small breaks to get the breathing back to normal):




Views from the resting point:








We trek ahead and missed the arrow marks again atleast twice which forced us to climb dried waterfalls making a comparatively easier stretches into proper unassisted rock climbing sessions. The nearby villagers occupy few key points to help the trekkers with Nimbu Paani.

Till Tolar Khind, which is a point between the two major hills and also the meeting point of treks starting from Khireshwar village and Lavali village, the trek is walking amidst a jungle with trees all around you. After this point the hills change into rock faces. There are railings at few places to avoid anybody slipping down in to the valley but the pipes are missing or the and iron ropes and poles broken at many places.










After completing this stretch, we were encountered with another steep rock face and at the base of the patch, we were greeted by this friend:








He ensured that we could not take the easier patch and again go through a rock climbing routine.

Once we were through this rock patches, we saw a temporary structure with villagers sitting and the guy there quenched our thirst with Kokam Sarbat. This is at the base of another key point of the trek called Balekilla.





Another resting point and it called for a photo session of the group and vistas around:

Ankush - the fittest and quickest of the four of us





Me -




The four of us: Devang, Paresh, Ankush and me..





The lake and Khireshwar village (Pune District) on one side:





Ahmednagar district and another village on the other side:





Interesting fact: The fort is located in Ahmednagar district but while trekking, you start from Pune district, go over to Ahmednagar district and then at the top, some part is in Thane district.

Trek story to be continued..

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Day 1: Continued

After the resting point and few Kokam Sarbat and Nimbu Pani, we start again and reach the actual Balekilla point. Here interestingly the arrow points towards right and another trail goes towards left. We had experienced the issue with missing the arrows so decided to stick to the direction of the arrow. This route takes you through 4 to 5 hills (you tend to miss the count), that means you go up a hill and descend and then climb up another hill and another descend. The four of us were joined by two more guys from another group who had lost their way too and they added to the confusion and we missed the trail again and started going towards the valley. One suggestion is if you are not seeing the arrow marks for some time, you are lost so follow the arrow marks cautiously.

The point to add here is that if we would have taken the trail going towards left from Balekilla, it takes you directly to the seventh hill with only one climb and one descend so please take the left from Balekilla, you will find the arrow marks ahead.

Coming back to the lost part, being 6 of us, we headed in different direction in the search of the heavenly arrow mark and the right route and eventually I could track it and then regrouping and following took us to the main area with temples and caves. We took a major part of 5 hours to reach and were extremely hungry..

Now let the pictures speak for themselves:





Another friend, you will find them in plenty..














A local villager and very helpful fellow, Bhaskar was suppose to help with setting up the tent at Konkankada but as the fate decided, the heavens opened up and there went the idea of tenting as the water to start seeping in from below so Caves were where we would spend the night. Another famous fellow there, Trimbak kaka served up hot and tasty Pithla Bhakar to satiate our hunger after a long trek, and it was heavenly..

We dropped our bags in the cave we were spending the night and went to see the main temple:













This pic is from the Kedareshwar Caves:





Now quoting the details from Wikipedia for Kedareshwar Caves:

"Going rightwards of Harishchandreshwar temple, there is the huge cave of Kedareshwar, in which there is a big Shivlinga, which is totally surrounded by water. The total height from its base is five feet, and the water is waist-deep. It is quite difficult to reach the Shivlinga because the water is ice-cold. There are sculptures carved out here. In monsoon it is not possible to reach this cave, as a huge stream flows across the way.

As can be seen from the picture, there is a huge rock above the Shiva Linga. There were four pillars built around the Shiva Linga. No one really knows the history about these pillars, but it is said that the pillars were built to depict the four 'Yugas' of Life - 'Satya Yuga', 'Tretha Yuga', 'Dwapara Yuga' and 'Kali Yuga'. When a Yuga comes to the end of its time, one of the pillars apparently breaks down. Three of the pillars have already broken down. The general belief is that the current phase is the 'Kali Yuga' and the day the fourth pillar breaks down - it will be looked to as the last day of the current era.

Another interesting thing about this place is that water is said to seep into this temple from the four walls on an everyday basis. And owing to the water being very chilly, it's difficult to reach inside too. The water continues to seep in during all the seasons in the year, except during rainy season and surprisingly, it is also said that there is absolutely no water there during rainy seasons alone."

And a pic from there too (not clicked by me, pic courtesy Wikipedia) to bring out the story properly:




Local legend holds that when the fourth pillar breaks, the world will come to an end.


After this we went back to the cave and decided to end the day as it was raining very heavily.

End of Day 1.

Well the night itself was interesting as due to the fog and the rain the visibility was few meters, at absolutely no visibility in the night.

The night was spent in the cave behind Ankush in this pic:





We were supposed to spend the night on the rock beds, tough on your back, specially after a long trek. Rodents, dogs and weird sounds made everything extremely interesting (probably not the right word here) but yeah we caught shut eye, didn't even had dinner due to the late lunch and after an eventful night, woke up to a lovely morning around 6:00 a.m.

Day 2 story and descend in the next part..

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Day 2:

We woke up at around 6:00 a.m. and were greeted by a lot of fog, it was like staying in a cloud. Wind would sweep away a cloud cover and another cloud would come rolling in literally.

The idea was to go to Konkankada, which is another half an hour trek from the caves so we had a cup of tea and some Kanda Poha for breakfast and started towards Konkankada.

This was a simpler walk with a few slippery stretches and the view at the Konkankada was beautiful, visibility was again a few meters and zero beyond the edge of the cliff. Actually a slightly clear weather would have been ideal to visit this place. There is also a effect called 'Indra Vajra' happens just before the onset of monsoon, when the sun is behind you and there is a little cloud cover in the valley, you can see a circular rainbow, but due to the heavy cloud cover, we were not that lucky.

This cliff is not just vertical, it is an overhang, almost like a Cobra's hood and the wind and clouds play a wonderful game. A local showed a lovely phenomena, due to the shape of the cliff, if you throw a bunch of leaves in to the valley, it actually flies back above your head and lands again in your hands. We were excited like small kids and tried our hands at it multiple times.

Too much fog did not help any photography but sharing few of the cliff and enroute:










We came back to the caves for our bags, had another round of tea and Kanda Poha and started our return leg.

Well I and another friend had twisted our knees on the way somewhere and it was hurting with every step so we did a desi jugaad. The previous days paid of socks were cut from the toes area, and it was used as a temporary knee caps (one for my right knee and another one for his left knee) after a generous dose of Relispray, gave a decent relief till the effect of the spray lasted.

This time we wanted to avoid going up and down various hills so checked with the locals and were guided to take the alternate route that is one climb, lot of walking on a plateau and one descend that takes us directly to Balekilla.







This is the point from where you get the option of the two routes:








This route takes you through a proper jungle, so have to careful of the serrated leaves on both sides to avoid scratches on your hands and legs, also lots of insects that stick to you and gives a painful bite so advisable to wear full sleeves and full trekking pants instead of shorts.

Taramati peak visible through clouds:





Plateau enroute:





And the Kokam Sarbat, Nimbu Pani and Maggi too this time at the resting point:





After the rest, there is a moderately difficult rock patch to climb down:


Analyzing the route to take:





Keep the footing solid:





Descending cautiously:





Relief on the faces once down a difficult patch:








The view below:





Our car is parked somewhere in the red circle in the pic below so still a long way to go:





So we continued on the trek ensuring that we follow the arrow marks religiously as we were in no mood of getting lost or going down a waterfall any more.

This is not an animal:





Finally we reached the foot of the hill and the long walk to the village starts:





Thanked and took blessings of Muktai Mata again for an amazing trek:





We picked our car from the restaurant we parked and started back for our journey to home but as we were crossing the lake to our left, everybody wanted to take a dip and get off the sweat and grime of the 4 hour return trek and so we did...

The stomach started growling with hunger so it was decided to have our lunch at the Malshej MTDC resort, beautiful location, amazing property but nothing to write about the food..



And the trek ends...

Some parting pics from the ground of the MTDC resort: