We were planning a trek somewhere for a long time. We zeroed on this place since KK wanted to go to some place thats closer to Mumbai with lots of greenary and waterfall. Not much is written on this place on the internet except that it is a forgotten cousin of Matheran and ignore by Britishers, a fort is built here by some Umaji Naik and all. But frankly speaking most of them are written by some extra smart bastards who think that trekking is a childs play. Yes, u read it right. Most of them will surely misguide u. And we were.
We were a group pf 4.. feroze(Bawa), KK, Sallu bhai(not he aint Salman Khan) and myself.
The day was Sunday and time early morning.. in fact very early. I set my alarm to blast at 3:45 am. A few minutes before it rang.. there comes a message.. from feroze that said, "Wake up, rise and shine". And I rose up. I quickly removed stuff from my fridge.. Al-Kabeer Aloo Parathas, Amul Curd and started getting ready. At 4:30 am, I was ready. KK, Sallu and myself initially planned to meet at Santacruz at 5:00 am so that we can catch a fajr jamaat somewhere at Kurla before we head towards our destiny. As I took off, i thought of calling up Salman. "Salman, u ready"?? And guess what he said, "Are yaar mein abhi utha.". "Bastard", I said. Then I called up feroze and I told him that Sallu aint ready. "Bastard", said feroze too. After exchanging many phone calls we all finally met at a Kurla mosque offered Salah together in a jamaat and all set to conquer the conquered. ha ha..
Prabalgad.. here we come.
We caught a 6:14 local to Panvel from Kurla terminus and reached Panvel in an hour. From here, we took a ST bus to Shendug fata(marathi for intersection). This place is located on the Old Mumbai-Pune national highway before Karjat. Karjat is 11kms from here. We decided to take a rick to Vardoli-Thakurwadi, a tiny hamlet located on the foothills of Prabalgad. Its here that we found out a hidden talent in Sallu Bhai.. hes Marathi speaking abilities. Sallu started negotiating with rickshaw drivers in an unheard of dialect. It was more like a bhaiyya speaking in Marathi. Luckily there were no MNS guys around. We warned Sallu to not to speak in Marathi ever. The rickshaw dropped us at the foothills. And we started our trek towards Prabalgad. You can see this mountain from Shendug.
Prabalgad is plateau that again has another plateau half way down hill and Kalavantin pinnacle as a neighbour. Kalavantin is a match stick like thin peak rising from this plateau. It is difficult to do both in a day... possible for pro's which we arent. Anyways, as we headed towards our second base, the lower plateau.. i mean.. we saw tiny pug marks all on the way. We were scared as some writers on the internet had mentioned that this place is surrounded by wild animals and all. (First reason for calling them "Bastards"). Feroze actually removed out a Khukri and me a swiss army knife. After a while we met a local, walking barefeet on a stony muddy track and asked him if this true. Guess what.. he laughed at us. We shook our heads and started walking little faster. Feroze started the pace-making. The climb towards the second base was good. We began seeing more and more locals wondering if there is a temple ahead or something or a reservoir. We reached this place in just over an hour and almost exhausted. The weather was not good at all.. very humid but the lush green surroundings compensated for that. We halted at a stream on the way and washed ourselves off sweat and dirt and quenched our thirst. Bawa made a nice filling
Chesse Sandwich. There is tiled balcony in pink half way which can serve as a good halting point for all.
Re-juvinated we started our mission only to bump into a village with brick houses, wondering how on earth did they get stuff all the way here to build pucca houses and at 1400ft with no motorable road. For the second time, we shook our heads. Not because we were jealous of the villagers lifestyle but the fact that the stream passed through the village. And Im still praying that they dont let out their toilet pipes in it.. Shits man..
We traversed thru the village whose paths were lined with human faeces and dung everywhere. It was already 10:00 amd and we decided to speed up a little and we did as it was a plateau and easy with me doing the pace making this time. After a while, we asked the locals for directions and trust me they are very helpful. We looked the peak covered with dark clouds, we knew that this will be one heck of a trek. The slopes on Prabalgad are near vertical and for a moment we thought that reaching the top would be impossible and it nearly was. The climb was breathtaking and dangerous and almost vertical surrounded by dense forests. And if you ar watchful, there are signs (while arrows on rocks and trees) to guide you towards the summit. "Bastard" bloggers(2nd reason). We decided to skip the Kalavantin pinnacle for Prabalgad fort expecting to catch a glimpse of the forgotten fort. Futher ahead, we filled our water bottles hoping and praying that there were no more human settlements ahead. And our prayers were answered. The water in the small waterfalls is quite pure and
drinkable.
Now starts the second part of the climb and the toughest and the third reason for "Bastard"....
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