[alpha1]

Super!
A trek of this sorts had been on my mind ever since I saw this area while traveling by airplane! The airborne view is even more awesome than the view from land - looks like a sheer cliff running for miles and miles and absolute plains extending from the base of those cliffs - quite a view.

Imagine people used to take this route for trade centuries ago (from Konkan area to Deccan area).
(And imagine the profits they would have made to make this a worthwhile trip ;-)

By the way which village did you use as "base". Perhaps you have mentioned, but I missed reading it.

[Dodge_Viper]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Super!
A trek of this sorts had been on my mind ever since I saw this area while traveling by airplane! The airborne view is even more awesome than the view from land - looks like a sheer cliff running for miles and miles and absolute plains extending from the base of those cliffs - quite a view.

Imagine people used to take this route for trade centuries ago (from Konkan area to Deccan area).
(And imagine the profits they would have made to make this a worthwhile trip ;-)

By the way which village did you use as "base". Perhaps you have mentioned, but I missed reading it.

Base village is Vaishakhare. But the trek start point is little further ahead of Vaishakhare, few kms.

[Dodge_Viper]

My 2 cents,

I love trekking, infact I consider mountains to be my second/weekend home. At the slightest opportunity I am eveready to sneak into wilderness. Just last weekend, I had been to Harishchandragad for the 4th time. Some camping photos sent on watsapp made sure, this trekking virus went into everyone's mind and heart. Jignesh promptly suggested to include the gang for any trek sometime in future. Future? Why wait for this thing called future, which never comes! So in came my reply, why future, lets hike this weekend. Thus a plan was finalized. I preferred trek on Saturday so that Sunday we can get a much needed rest. Unfortunately Jignesh had to back out because of injury.

As usual watsapp was buzzing with discussions on when to leave, what to carry, what to do blah blah! I made a list of things to carry, the regular stuffs water, food and all. "Food" was the most discussed thing. I knew we won't be finding any hotels/tapris that early hence it was better to carry enough eatables for breakfast and lunch both. Food shopping(?) was on full spree. Breads, theplas, cheese spreads, corn, biscuits this that! It was decided to take just one car since we were only 5. Hence SDP's Duma came to rescue. Getting hold of Duma meant, me and Aman had to reach Mulund by 5AM.

A spooky and chilly Vashi station welcomed me. Catching the first 4AM local was not a big deal. But getting up at 2.30AM was. One relief was that I need not fight at battlefield Kurla early morning for catching connecting train to Mulund. Even then, the first local from CST was crowded . Reached Mulund and called up Shenoy bros. By the time Aman was supposed to reach in 10 mins, so had a nice demo of Zuki's ICE till then. Once done, we reached SDP's place, packed stuff and started the journey.

Some facts about Naneghat:
Naneghat was an ancient trade route which traded things across konkan and deccan plateau. It has beautiful caves carved and a prominent pinnacle kind of thing called Nanacha Angtha.

Now the real part begins. adishenoy, cartman and aman were first timers. I was not worried about SDP and adishenoy since they were the fittest amongst us. Main concern was about aman who was going to exert himself for the first time in his life(!!). The initial part of the trail was easy and plain. Steepness increased later with the trail getting steeper. Frankly speaking I had completely forgotten how steep this was since the last I trekked was some 3-4 years back. This meant SDP and adishenoy would always be on front and aman, arun and me trailing behind huffing and puffing. With constant "chalo chalo", "bas thoda aur" we finally reached the top.

Without any delay, out came all food. Any 5* chef would have jumped off from mountain looking at the out of the world recipies created by us. They say, on a trek anything seems tasty. It is true trust me. Even a potato covered with thick mud paste, and roasted for hours in fire tastes brilliant. An example of such recipie:



Thepla, layered with sandwich spread, with cheese spread, topped with boiled corn and pickle!

Food gobbled up, we explored the pass and hiked up Nanacha Angtha. We had the highest teambhp meet in Maharashtra. Descend was no big deal, we came down pretty quickly. Everyone was dead tired, and happy that it was Saturday. Hats off to SDP who drove through the idiotic traffic around Kalyan after a hectic trek and a special note of thanks for dropping me at Thane station!

At the end, was glad that people enjoyed the trek. My boring 2 cents ends, not much pictures from my end, since photologue is already covered by SDP and Arun.

[SDP]

KD, thanks for rekindling the memories of the trek. Everyone brings their own flavour to the story and that makes it all the more interesting.

Special thanks for the "Thepla quesadilla" pic

During the treks, its so much reassuring to have someone experienced like you around. Thanks for taking the initiative and leading us there.

[fuel_addict]

This travelogue brought back some fond memories for me. I along with a bunch of friends had done the Naneghat trek on September 7, 2013. It was a wonderful experience with the entire palette of monsoon colours on full display. We started at 11.30 pm on a Friday night, camped inside the hired mini-bus and started the trek at 7 am the next morning. It was 4:30 pm by the time we returned to the base (bus). The one-way ascent took approx. 4 hours if I recall correctly. Had a sumptuous zunka-bhakar lunch at the summit and a short break to capture the vistas before we began our descent back to the base.

[Turbo_Torq]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Imagine people used to take this route for trade centuries ago (from Konkan area to Deccan area).
(And imagine the profits they would have made to make this a worthwhile trip

If it were me, I'd have murdered the toll collector for making me pay after traversing such a strenuous route.

Originally Posted by SDP

Special thanks for the "Thepla quesadilla" pic

Quesa-diya bhaiyya?!