Shidobadaar - Bhairaonathdaar

Summer has been particularly hot this year with temperature clicking 40s continuously, that kept us away (thankfully!! )from doing ghat routes or our beloved high endurance treks (injection treks) . I am not particularly fan of these treks however some routes demand high endurance and cannot be done in leisure, Ninand Bartakke came up with one such route in Ahupe Region and as temperature has been on decline in last few days due to pre-monsson showers we agreed to do it.

Shidobadaar – Bhairaonathdaar , we had visited pimplegare , village nearest to shidobadaar opening two years back to check the possibility of doing this route , even then none of the villagers believed that this route can be done , they were worried about a huge overhanging boulder and loose rocks which make it extremely risky to do this route but we still wanted to try our luck and promised ourselves that we will be back for it , more than the route , Deorai ( temple garden ) at ahupe was more tantalizing , we had spotted two serpent eagles here. The region around ahupe has excellent green covering owing to availability of water throughout the year. We decided to descend via Shidobadaar and ascend via another unknown naal(col) , Bhairaonathdaar , it was going to be a one day trek and follow it up by spending night in ahupe deorai.

We started at around 4 am from pune, we wanted to reach the village before 7am so that we can catch hold of someone from village to be our guide for the day. Usually after 7 am people in village leave for their daily work, to their farms or for cattle gazing and then it becomes difficult to find a guide.

Reached pimplegare at about 7:30 , village was wide awake and people had already started leaving for their work, curious village enquired about our purpose and replied with dissenting nods, “We had a landslide in shidoba few days back , its not safe to go there now” said one , we requested them to take us till the opening and then if its safe we will venture further , finally an old man said he will find someone from us and after 10 minutes came up with another old man , older than himself , “He will take you” , surprisingly oldest man in the village was the only one convinced that shidoba can be done and agreed to come with us , we were bit reluctant to take him for such arduous trek , he was for sure 70+ , his son came for our rescue and agreed to come with us.

innovative way to protect from dust and insects

searching for guide

Bhairaonathdaar, which we were going to ascend after shidoba ,ends in ahupe hence we kept our one vehicle in ahupe and came back to pimplegare , started at about 8:30 , the route starts near the village on a plateau overlooking Konkan , the route descends gently to the opening via thicket , the overhanging rocks we had seen two years back had now fallen and there was rubble everywhere ,no wonder villagers did not want to risk it , it looked doable , our guide babaji mama looked convinced as well , first 100 ft were like skiing on a rubble , loads of soil shifting with every feet we placed , difficult to take a grip , Babaji mama however had no such issues , with simple chappals in his feet he looked amazingly at ease and did not slip even once , he was literally running on that rubble.

Thankfully we had cloud covering to help us , lowering the intensity of the sun , early morning breeze helped us push , after some time rubble turned into rocks and rocks turned into huge boulders , reminded us of spiti region , we were now loosing height quickly as descend was steep , after an hour we halted for a drink break , looked back and the grandness of shidoba left us in owe.

Shidobadaar , like many other routes is named after a local deity Shidoba , usually all such routes have small temple for the deity either at start or at end , Shidoba temple was in Konkan , our guide hadn’t visited it but had rough idea of where it is. Two hours of hopping over boulders had passed and the base still looked far far away.Shidoba wasn’t only about huge boulders though , at times due to difficult rock hangings we had to take detour to adjecant brae and jungles and make our way back to col. 

Shidobadaar opening

grand col

view from top

waterhole ...there was no water here though

taking detour

Clock had ticked 11AM , we still had Bhairaonathdaar to conquer , there is a route which turns left from midway  for siddheshwar vadi village and through jungle its possible to reach Bhairaonathdaar base and thus save valuable time and energy rather than descending to Konkan completely , after 3 hours we had reached the diversion point , shidoba temple was atleast 1 hr distance from here and we would have to descend few hundred feets more , we took a sensible call of not descending to Konkan and take left for siddhehwar vadi instead.

Siddhewar vadi looked close but it took 1:30 hrs to reach there , by now sun was shining bright and hot , Konkan humidity was adding to the heat , we had not much time for lunch , bharaodaar was still far far away and we did not wanted to risk doing a unknown route in dark , one of our trek friends had done Bhairaonathdaar few month back and he had told us that there is one rock patch , our guide had also asserted that there is a rock patch and if you overcome that rest is easy. After a quick lunch and rest of 10-15 minutes we were back on route again. All of us were sleep deprived, heat was unbearable, factors were working against us and slowing us down, ahupe ghat was a plan B but it was farther away from Bharaodaar and would have taken same time.

We kept consuming water regularly but in that heat nothing seemed to work , frequent breaks in shade were inevitable to cool us down , from siddehwar vadi we were now walking in jungle trying to reach Bhairaonathdaar , what seemed small distance took us almost 3 hours , we made our way through thorny bushes , loose soil , rocks and what not , this walk in the Konkan has drenched us completely and we were yet to ascend about 1600ft Bhairaonathdaar , we were racing against time now , even though tired we marched on. 

on the way to siddheshwar vadi , for bhairaonath daar we had to reach end of the view

After testing 3 hours we reached the base, we could see ahupe deorai welcoming us at top , top though looked immensely away. It was 5PM , usually a bad time to start a new route but we had no option, we had atleast made our way out of the jungle which was good , slowly but steadily we started the ascend , unlike shidoba , bhariaodaar has hard rocks , it’s a river bed only and hard rock does help you in a way while ascending.It was a testing time , having a close knit group like us is a big boost , frequent laughters were never far away , we have been trekking together since quite some time now and on such high endurance treks having a group you can trust is a big positive.

Slowly but without much break we were now gaining height , conquering rock patches one by one , after an hour we had almost gained more than 50% of the height , light was falling now and difficult rock patch was yet to come , reduced heat has however helped us increase our pace.

After another 15 minutes we reached the rock patch , it wasn’t much difficult , recent landslide has created a natural tunnel full of loose rock but it was safe and didn’t take us much time to overcome it. Before the last ray of light all of us had completed the rock patch and now we were just an hour away from leisure of ahupe deorai.

Torches were out now , it was dark now dead dark , negotiating jungle in dark was difficult , torches attracted insects and they kept coming at us , in addition we started hearing falling rocks , “Monkey’s” mama exclaimed , “as soon as they hear humans they start dropping rocks , be quiet !!” , caught in the ravine between falling rocks and dark of the night , nightmare , scary enough to increase our pace and keep quiet. In dark it was impossible to gauge the height and it seemed as if its taking forever to reach the top.

Finally after an hour and half we saw a light from the village, the route opens directly in the deorai where we were welcomed by thousands of crickets shining on the huge deorai trees. Finally after 13 hours we had completed yet another amazing trek and were looking forward to some delicious village food.

bharaonathdaar start

almost done