Sagargad

Fort: Sagargad
Height: 1357 feet (above MSL)
Grade : Easy
Base village: Khandale
Region: Raigad

Missed posting this one from a long time. This was done on June 8th 2008. Myself, Vindya, Addy and Anup did this trek. Pune was as usual climate with the rains just set in with an occasional drizzle or two or drizzling throughout the day.

The monsoons just started so we thought we should do some trek and zeroed in on Sagargad a fort near Alibag. We were expecting heavy showers to hit us there so that we would enjoy the trek thoroughly and we got lucky later!

We started in the morning at 7am in a hired Sumo with Vindy, Anup and Addy picking me up at Chinchwad and we sped towards Khopoli. We took the e-way and stopped at a food mall enroute to have breakfast. Done that we started again. The climate was humid with occasional rains here and there but not much.

We turned off at Khopoli towards Pen and Alibag and went ahead. The roads were quite good all the way. Finally we crossed Pen and got onto the road connecting to Alibag and crossed the NH-17 turn at Vadkhal and went ahead.

There is a toll road ahead here and the road is OK-OK. There was no sign of rain here too but the clouds seemed looming , a sign of rain but when!

We finally reached near Khandale village near Alibag from where to the turn to the fort goes in. We went into the village and went ahead via a kutcha road and ahead. We could see a big waterfall there at a distance. This place also houses the Siddheshwar Math.

We finally got off our vehicle and went ahead on the path to find the steps that lead to the Siddeshwar Math and Sagargad Machi (village) and finally Sagargad ahead. The climb was uneventful but the humidity was at its peak and we were profusely sweating and due to that it made the climb tiring. Anup as usual was the ben johnson and sprinted ahead.

We stopped in between to view the nature around and after having some water to drink we went ahead. Some distance ahead we could see Sagargad Machi a small village at the base of the fort.
We could see Anup also waiting for us. We went ahead from here asking the path to a villager and came across a path via slush and mud. It started raining here.

The rain came down in torrents and went away as soon as it had come. We took the steep path ahead and reached some point where there were some stones indicating the fort entrance or something. Stopping here we took photos and followed the path ahead which got us onto some section of the fort maybe the initial part, we followed another path ahead and went ahead via a narrow ledge like path with a steep fall on the right side. Going ahead we came across a plateau and heard sounds of toads and frogs on top. We could see a huge pool of water formed there and toads were creating a racket there!

We could see the walls of the fort clearly from here and one of the doors of the fort. We could also find karwandache jhaad here and took fancy to it as we all liked it , Anup was collecting them for taking them home and we were eating the fruit like they were peanuts. Going some more distance ahead we went into the fort via a beaten down path and got onto the top. We could see a small temple on top and some remnants of the wada on the fort. There was heavy cloud cover on top of the fort with the rain falling in torrents in between. We went to (or rather thought) to most of the parts of the fort and came to a place which had tree cover and had a great lunch brought by us - discussing stuff of interest while having lunch. Finally winding up we started back down , missing one path while coming down but finally coming back to the plateau and then the path down.

We missed one path and went ahead and Anup took another route, realizing something amiss we called out to Anup who said he was on the right path so we went there and followed him down and we finally reached Sagargad machi and washed ourselves in the stream which had formed there and started to go down there. At a distance we could see the sea as the clouds had parted for sometime.

We came down without incident in about 30mins came to our vehicle and after a change of clothes started back home. We stopped at Vadkhal for some snacks and came home by 8pm.

Nice monsoon trek drenched to the skin!