Chanderi

Fort: Chanderi
Region: Karjat
Height: 2592 ft (above MSL)
Base Village: Chincholi
Grade:Medium upto Fort , Pinnacle:Tough

How to reach: get to Karjat (by road/train) – go to Chincholi village via Vangani -> Goregaon (turn left at Chanderi Dhaba) -> Chincholi -> walk from here.

Total time taken: 3-4 hours from base village depending on nature conditions.

We started from Pune by the Sinhagad Express on Saturday morning and got down at Karjat station. Then we took a local to Vangani from Karjat. Alighting at Vangani we waited for a friend who was to come from Dombivili. Once he came we started off towards the road. We were 6 people so we took 2 rickshaws to the phata near Chanderi Dhaba. In 10 mins we reached Chanderi Dhaba. We went inside Chanderi Dhaba and ordered breakfast and waited for the order to come in the meanwhile doing timepass. After having a heavy breakfast we started towards the base village. It was 11.00am and the sun was beating down on us heavily. That was the first fault of ours to start at this time. We reached the base village Chincholi at around 12.00pm after a long walk via tar road. (We made a mistake of not taking bikes this time upto the end of the road which would have saved us more time and energy).

Once we reached the base village we started on the path. The path is via jungle trail with huge bushes around. Some parts are in shade so it was cool but most of the climb was via open and with the sun bearing down on us we got too slow adding to it the weight in our bags made us even slower. In some time we reached an odha where we refreshed ourselves and sat for some time and continued walking. We found out that we had lost our way here and were trying to find a route out. Suddenly 1 villager appeared from far away and we asked him so he gave us the correct directions – we had started to the right side of the odha but we had to take the left side of the odha and continue. We found the correct path and continued via the odha. The odha walk is a nightmare via huge rocks. We were resting every half and hour. The sun was mercilessly beating on us. In sometime we had a small lunch and continued. In all the wrong right path choosing and others it was 4pm now and the col between Chanderi and Mhaismal was still far away till where we had to reach and turn left for Chanderi.

Suddenly, dark clouds gathered around and it started raining heavily. First the sun and now the rain, we were completely wet because we didn’t bring any rain wear thinking it would not rain. The rain continued for another 45 minutes during which we could not even walk as it was very heavy and then stopped. Now the sun was also going down and we were nowhere. The rocks of the odha became too slippery to walk on and we walked on cautiously ahead slipping here and there. We were very tired and now thought we should stop at the odha for the day because it was too far, there was no light – the sun had gone down – we had torches but we didn’t know how far we had to go. But some enthusiastic folks said we would continue. Now at this point we could see white arrow marking to show the directions. We followed the white markings in torchlight and went ahead slipping and falling. Then we made the biggest mistake. We could not find an arrow further (actually there was an arrow on the rock but it was covered with moss and there was a shoe hanging there to show the direction to the right but we missed it and continued straight. We went very far off on the wrong path and then realized that we were nowhere. We had torches but didn’t know when they would go off – we decided we would stop in the middle of the jungle and continue at dawn.

We found a small clearing in the jungle and put our bags down, opened our carry mats and had our dinner. We decided to take turns patrolling while others slept as being in the midst of the jungle we didn’t want to take a risk. In the jungle there are weird sounds coming at night which kept us on the edge and every 5-10 minutes I would shine the torch nearby to see if everything was alright. The night was ok and we all had some sleep.

At dawn we decided to go down and see if we could find the arrow marks and then the right direction. We finally found the shoe and the arrow marks covered in moss which we had missed in the dark and continued towards the col. The route was slippery due to the rain and we walked up. At one point we had to climb a mixture of rock and loose mud where I slipped and hurt my hand. But anyways we continued ahead and reached the col where we turned left towards Chanderi. We could see the pinnacle ahead. We had to climb more 45 minutes from the col over rock and scree slowly and finally reach the top at around 8.25am (we started at 7 from the jungle). Once we reached the top we could see great views of surrounding regions – forts like prabalgad, malang-gad, irshaalgad, peth were visible from here and the view was breath-taking. Once we reach the main pinnacle base we need to take a right over a grassy path to reach the caves of Chanderi. The cave is big enough for 15-20 people and had a Shankar mandir inside with a water tank whose water is not good as people have made it very dirty with plastic bags etc.

We reached the cave and put our bags there and refreshed ourselves with water from another tank nearby which had good, clear and cool water. We had some breakfast of hot Maggie which we made there and had some rest at the cave. We had decided against climbing the pinnacle as we were tired. Just as we were talking we heard some more trekkers come in with a local guide. We asked the guide about the pinnacle route. He said we could go up and its not that hard. Purvesh, Deepak and Saurabh decided to go along with the guide up the pinnacle and the others and me opted to rest out in the cave as we were battered the day before . We had ropes and stuff but the guide said we don’t need it. The route to the pinnacle is via grassy path from the caves upto the rightmost end. Once you reach there we have to climb thru a gully of rock and go up. The pinnacle route is not that tough but it is exposed. There is scree around and there was a very small ledge to walk and go up. The top is not much just 2 m wide and narrow with grass all around. There is a flag and a statue of shivaji maharaj there. Climbing down is also tricky here. Purvesh and the others came back had lunch and some rest and started climbing down after filling our bottles with water. Coming down took 4 hours due to the rocks in the odha, now they were dry but walking over them was a pain esp. because we were so tired. At one point we were confused about the path to the village, again God helped us this time by bringing another villager who was going home. We followed him till the village and drank water there. We were all very tired but we had to get home so we hired a rickshaw till badlapur and then we parted ways with Mumbai friends , we reached Karjat by local and got an express till lonavala and reached home at 12am on Sunday night – Monday morning.

This was the my second trek where we had lost our way (the first being siddhagad – where we climbed through odhyachi vaat ) but it was an adventure spending the night in the jungle and then making the trek successful by climbing the fort and pinnacle (for those who climbed). The most important thing we learnt is do not start late(the sun can kill), don’t carry unnecessary weight and most importantly we cannot do anything against the forces of nature.