Dhak to Bhimashaknar : Walking through the mist

Finally summer heat has receded and the monsoons are here , the clouds have taken over the harsh sunny skies and now its all murky , raring to descend upon from the heavens.

Chirag Muley , our trekking friend was coming out from his trek sabbatical after his long CFA exams , Nitin Tidke was to plan a 2 days trek which is long enough but enjoyable , and he came out with a perfect suggestion of doing Kamshet - Bhimashankar.

Lonavla to Bhimashankar is an ancient tread route / pilgrimage route , we were just boarding from Jambhivali near kamshet. There are many starting points for this trek Lonavla , Siddhagad , Ahupe Ghat ,Khandas and many more known and unknown . We choose the one nearest to Pune i.e kamshet.

7 of us started for kamshet by 4:50 am train , even at the oddly hour the train was fairly crowded , after an hour of catching up with each other , we reached kamshet , after gorging on the staple food of Vada-pav we hopped  into the State Transport (ST) bus towards Jambhivali which is at about 25kms from kamshet and is the base village of the famous Dhak fort also called Dhak cha Bahiri ( or Dhak cha Bhairo ).

Here comes the thug...

At jambhivali we were just getting started off when the old man approached us , after usual questions like "where are you going ? where are you from ?" and introducing him self as Bharat Kadam he offered to show us the route till Kusur Plateau , he said he is going to Dhak anyways for daily pooja and would just come a till Dhankgarpada and show us the way to Kusur , "Its very easy to get lost in the fog , the jungle route cannot be trusted , just pay me 300rs" he said , even though Muley and Tikde had done this trek before , some 1 year back we decided to take him along , 300 wasn't overpriced. We also had the GPS map given by our trek friend Prasad Tandale , a solo trekker of some repute who has ventured into this region numerous times.

So we started towards dhak , the old man ( we will call him the thug affectionately ) made a stop at the Kondeshwar temple had an argument with another old man over who has the right to do the pooja at the temple , nothing serious ,oldies just had few abuses to exchange and we were on our way.

The thug and the dhak fort in background

The weather though was excellent , it wasnt raining but was cloudy and pleasant within an hour or so  we reached the fork which separates dhak and bhimshanakar route , "take a right for bhimashankar , i will go to dhak for the pooja , see you , pay me 300 now" the thug . "What ?? you were supposed to drop us a dhangarpada , why would we hire you till here ? we know this route till dhak " Tidke , "I told you i will drop you at dhak" the thug , "You said dhangarpada" muley joined in and we all agreed ,"no i have the god to attend to " the thug , "pooja can wait , you cant thug us like this we trusted you" Tidke . After some time or arguments and disagreements from thug , we were loosing our temper.

"Do your pooja after some time , drop us till dhangarpada else we wont pay you" Bartakke . This one worked , the thug was reluctant but had no choice , and we started our ascend again , thug was constantly chatting about how we did not let him to his pooja and how this is not economical for him to drop us till dhangarpada , but we cared damn . after some 20 mins of ascend we reached a plateau which the thug claimed is the start of dhangarpada , Tidke has lost his cool already "when you go to your god today , tell him that you earned this money by fooling people , and remember my face because next time if i see you , you will have it !!" , well built , furious tidke is as dangerous as he normally is :)  "Do you read news paper , then the read one on wednesday your name will be in it , whats your name again ?" chirag , "Satish Kadam" the thug , the name has changed by now.

We dragged the angry young men away and continued , "what was that about wednesday's news paper chirag ?" we asked , "Nothing i just asked him to read it " Chirag and the laughter broke out.

Bottom line is be careful of these thugs , over the years picnic groups and drunkards have spoiled them and now they are hungry for easy money.

Where the leopards prawl  

Bhimashankar is a wild life sactuary known for its leopards and giant squirrels , few minutes into the woods and we felt the first presence of the wild life , a fresh leopard pugmark on a cattle dung , looking for the breakfast probably.

we were now approaching the thicket , and due to grazing cattle there were many routes formed and it was confusing to decide which one leads to kusur , but now for our GPS expert ninad bartakke and his xperia Z , after some searching we managed to hang on to one route which we thought is the right one , and it was.

After another 2 hours walk we were on kusur plateau and the view was outstanding , we debated that the mount in front of us is bhimgad , tidke maintained that its dhak we just crossed , "After 3 hours and 8 kms later we have just reached the back of dhak ?" Niranjan barve , "Yes" GPS expert bartakke confirmed ... and we continued to admire the view .

Dhak from kusur plateau

Onlooking kusur village

Kusur village was a swift 20 mins descend , the next ascend for wandre pass was from Savla village at 11kms from kusur , flat tar road , walking on it is what we wanted to avoid so we booked a cab at 115 rs per head.

Cab driver was confused as to why we would take a longer route when the direct bus from pune to bhimashankar is available , "have you been to caves in malavli ?" cab driver , "Yes" kedar barve , "lohgad visapur" cabbie , "yes" Muley , "bedse caves ?" cabbie , "yes" someone ,"have you been up there ?" cabbie pointing to the nearby mount "whats there ?" kedar barve , "Tata power station" cabbie , "No we havent" kedar B , "Yes I win " cab driver.

We finally reached the saval village and started our walk again , inquired about the route , got few pointers , cross checked with GPS map and we marched on.

"Snake" I exclaimed ,"but its dead" at a lower pitch this time. A farmer has just killed the keelback which he found during ploughing , a hard hit on his head ,poor non-venomous snake had no defense.

Despite of all the cries "snake is farmers friend" they still kill it here and whats astonishing is they don't kill cobra , they fear killing god shankar's pet will mean badluck but they dont spare anything else.

Dead keelpack , Photo by Ninad Bartakke

End of the day ...finally

Wandre Khind ( pass) was some 5-6 kms from saval village , a gradual hike which descends to the pandharwadi , our location for halt today.

The hike was as through the jungle , we crossed a small stream few fields and then into the jungle again. We gorged on jungle berries on they way , "watch your hands , you could be putting one right in bamboo pit vipers mouth" Niranjan warned and quite rightly , bamboo pit vipers are almost invisible in thick berries plant and are ambush predators skilled at camouflage.

Another 3 hours later we were at the wandre pass onlooking the padharwadi village below , a quick descend and we were welcomed in the village , manage to find the refuge in the school hall and crack the deal for the food with a village local.

Wandre pass

Padhawadi entrance

A day in monsoon trek ended without much rains but breathtaking scenery as always.

Padharwadi to bhimashankar

The rains did not disappoint us today , it was raining since the last night and hasn't stopped , in climate like this it requires a brave heart to getup from bed and start the hike we somehow managed to muster that courage.

Milk collection

After a small ascend and a long walk for about 2 hours later we reached "Bhutacha Maal" , the name probably was given by prasad tandale because as per locals no such place exists , view however was great , we could see the clouds rushing , peth fort and was a perfect place to have our luch as we finished plum cakes , spinach parathas and refreshing lemon-barley water.

2 hours more , walk through thicket we reached the 2nd plateau , 1 hour more for the Kamaljai plateau which has the temple and marks the detour towards bhimashankar.

Before the final plateau we decided to take a rest , stretch our legs and take out the shoes , action trekkers even though best suited for sahyadris are not the most comfortable ones and after long walk they had started to bite our legs. We did make use of the industrial tape to provide some extra cushion to our feet and had some snacks , the rain has stopped for now. Within few minutes though we could see the clouds descending from everywhere and the plateau was full of mist in no time and then it started raining cats and dogs aided by strong winds , we had to rush for cover. After futile attempt to do so we decided its best to keep walking and enjoy the natures fury.

The rains however had the marshy land flooded somewhat and the route was now not visible , after some searching and rechecks on GPS we somehow managed to find the route to temple . well the thug was right about one thing for sure you can easily get lost in the mist , not when you have GPS maps and waterproof xperia Z with you , i kind of missed mine xperia ZR , while my useless windows phone was sitting quietly in my bag wrapped in two sheets of polythene.

Kamaljai temple ,Photo by Ninad Bartakke

the gang by Ninad Bartakke

Jungle by Ninad Bartakke

Rain just refused to stop and accompanied us right till bhimashankar , 2 hours since kamaljai temple , we had crossed two streams and nice walk through jungle , amazing view of waterfalls filling up the bhama river and ended in long queues at the temple of bhimashankar.

Thankfully none of us is religious so we skipped the temple part and rushed to catch the bus back home.


Chaos ....

Coming back to the humanity was painfull , garbage everywhere and a huge traffic jam in front of us , caused by some senseless parking and idiotic driving.

Chaos ,Photo by Ninad Bartakke

We were told to take a walk of about 2kms as the ST buses wont come in this traffic , a painfull walk on the Tar road we reached a point which looked like a parking spot , full of half naked drunkards dancing to hideous tunes , right outside the temple , we are better off non believers than hypocrites.

We manged to convince a cab driver to drop us off till manchar , he was toeing a alto though. Alto driver was inexperienced , probably his car was never toed before hence he was applying breaks every now and then , after breaking 2 aluminium wire and 1 rope later our cab driver gave up and asked the alto driver to find another toeing van and offered to drop him till ghodegaon.

While on road we though we punctured our cab and stopped , all the nut-bolts holding the wheel had lost , we were holding on a single bolt , thankfully due to toed alto our speed was less else we would have slipped right into the gorge.

Driver told us , one of his rivals could have intentionally loosened up the bolts , few days back they had punctured his tyres. How can be someone so blind and senseless something like this could have easily resulted in serious accident.

We were better off in the jungle.

Finally we reached manchar and managed to get the bus back to pune and a great trek ended with delicious paya soup , bombil fry and biryani at SP's.