The phone rang.... "Hello!!... have you started? I am on the way... will be reaching in next Ten minutes!" said Siri. Yes, I am on the way too... will be there on time! - I said.
Yes..!! an another trip on the cards.. A weekend trek planned to conquer the Everest of Maharashtra/Highest peak of Maharashtra... whatever you say , its - Mt. Kalsubai this time!! It was all well planned... the route, meeting point and the group was finalized and all set to GO!!
Kalsubai is the highest peak of Sahyadri and heaven for nature lovers.
The group assembled at the meeting point and boarded the train and all were waiting for the Journey to be started. The first phase of the journey started from Hyderabad - Manmad. Everyone got settled and had a quick round of Intro. Rajesh was the only one 'college student' in the group... the youngest of all!! rest all were working professionals :) and in the midst of the trek we came to know that 'there is a hidden Poet in him' (You'll come to know about this later) while Aravind was a good company, earlier we have done Dudhsagar Trek together. Its good to have Avijeeth in the group and its fun to be around him. I've met him in Lonavalla trek. So only Abhishek, Karthik, Chakri and Uma were new to the group. And let me tell you Rajesh is also a professional photographer... and our official photographer of the trip and Laxmi was the regular one in the group, we have done couple of treks earlier... mentioned her in my previous posts as well. To kill some time and to get mingled we played some fun games, taught card games to few and moved on for a quick power nap.
Next day on Saturday around Seven in the morning we reached Manmad. The second phase of journey is from Manmad - Igatpuri. We have plenty of time left to board the train to Igatpuri, so decided to have some Vada-pav and Poha for breakfast! Its a Two hours journey from Manmad to Igatpuri. The third phase starts from Igatpuri - Goti, the fourth and final phase is from Goti - Bari village in a private hired vehicle. See... there are many phases of travel in this journey!! Excitement increased.
Bari is the base village, from where we need to start the trek.
 |
| Bari Village |
The plan was to camp at the peak in night. So before starting off with the trek we have ordered the dinner at the locals there and asked them to deliver it at the peak. The week being a Navaratri season many of the devotees from surrounding villages are geared-up to climb the hill and offer prayers at the Kalsubai temple located at the peak. To reach the summit there are various routes, but we prefered the route that starts from the village Bari. We started the trek from the base village, soon after leaving the village there is a water stream, which we need to cross... though the water level is low compared to the last time when i visited this place.
 |
| Water steam |
Just after a little up-hill walk there is a Temple. The actual trek starts from here... the route from behind this temple takes you to the peak. Laxmi being a 'Flora lady', she noticed Berries plant just before the temple... and plucked some berries and few of them also tried their hands in plucking the berries. And the trek continued... We stopped at many places just to keep ourselves away from tiredness and to enjoy the picturesque of the place and also spent some time to pose in front of the camera! After an another hour of up-hill trek we saw many local people setting up the food stalls (Its business time for them during Navaratri). and from there you can see the ladder way. Yes... there are three ladders along this route, you have to climb-up to reach the peak. And in between these ladders there are rocky kinda steps. Its an easy hike but at few places its quite steep and the path is little slippery due to the rainfall last night. Its safe to climb the ladders, though these are Iron ladders, most of it's railings are standing with support of the bamboo and tied with binding wire. The first two ladders are easy to climb but the third one was the most Inclined ones. Just before the Third ladder there are couple of tea shops... and we thought one of these will be our camping place for the night. The first one was good enough and has enough space for Ten people to accommodate. The person running this shop allowed us to use this place for camping. We decided to drop our back-packs there and move ahead. And finally... it started drizzling!! Actually we were expecting for it rite from the start of the trek.
 |
| Berries |
It took almost One hour from the third ladder to reach the peak.. and here we are at the Highest peak of Sahyadri... Kalsubai!! As we climbed up it became cooler and cooler. The view from the peak was simply awesome... surrounded with beautiful valleys and clouds passing through our feet. We spent most of the time at the peak, in the natures lap! Few were busy capturing the nature at its best and few posing for the pictures and others deep-extremely rejoicing the nature. Cool wind was blowing fast... its good that we took much time to climb up to the peak, coz now its the time for Sunset!! The hues of the reddish sun was mesmerizing! You can't take your eyes off it. It was a heaven on the top. Soon the curtain of the clouds covered the sun and we couldn't view the complete sunset. A guy came up and said "aapka Khana ready hai" (Dinner is ready) and is at your camping place. We came down to the camping place... just in front of the camping place there is a well. So, freshened up ourselves and had a not-so-tasty dinner. Post dinner we had some fun time, few narrated haunted stories and self experienced haunted stories :) and its time for a tight nap.
 |
| Ladder way |
Next day Sunday, we decided to start descending at Five in the morning.. so that we get some time to visit the near-by waterfall. As it was raining last night, the path was slippery and muddy. Coming down-hill was little difficult.
 |
| Descending |
While few of them had crossed the second ladder, Aravind and Rajesh were coming together chitchatting. Pointing towards a tree on top corner of the hill, Rajesh (R) asked Aravind (A)... whats your feeling about that tree? 'A' gave some random answers... but our poetic mind 'R' said that "The tree is challenging the people and says - if it was in the city, you would have killed me. If you are dare enough, come here and kill me". Seriously this silent guy 'R' is something special! and here's one more by 'R'... "Andham aadapilla ke kaadu adavi ki kuda untundi!". (Translated: "Not only women are beautiful... but forests are too!")
 |
| View on the way |
It was almost Eleven'O clock when we reached the base and the vehicle that we have booked was there on time. There was no time to visit the waterfalls. So, we decided to skip it and go directly to Kalyan and catch the train to Hyderabad.
Next day Monday, back to the land of Bifurcation! Apna Hyderabad!!
