Trek up the Iron Fort - Lohagad

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Note : Again scribbled by Dharam in record time (who now has a lot of free time at work!). So all the "I"'s refer to "him" and i'm just Nilesh. ;-)
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I was intending to make the most of this year’s monsoons and visit as many place around Pune as possible. Last Saturday was one weekend which I got free and decided that I should go out. Asked Nilesh if he was interested. He seemed to have some genuine work in paying his “already late” LIC premium that day itself ! Don’t know how a internet savvy guy like him didn’t know about paying premiums online. Advised him to do that and he agreed. (eventually he found out it to be actually damn easy and convenient ;-) )

P.S. --> Who the heck expects a govt org to have a website. Even if you do expect, would you expect it to be any less a pain that standing in a queue in front of a window???? What has being or not being internet savvy got to do with it? I completely refute such irresponsible comments aimed at tarnishing my fix-it-all guy image!

P.S.2 --> Its cool to be the owner of the blog. You refute/chop/hit back right then and there! ;-)
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We took a sudden decision to do the Lohagad Fort trek but didn’t have time to prepare for the trip as such. It was already 10 and we could only start at 11. We had some sense to take some food and rain wear (including umbrellas) with us but we were wearing floaters !

Getting out of the city was a pain as usual. We took the old Pune-Bombay route and 8 kms before Lonavla, took a left turn towards Karla. It has started raining and we were delighted that we would be trekking in the rain. After having tea at a tapri in the rain, we reached Malawli station. 3 kms from there is the Bhaja village and this is where the trek starts.
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Before starting the trek we both had a couple of teplas (Dharam and his spellings for Gujrati cuisine, sigh! Thats Theplas!!) and that essentially was our lunch for the day ! I had missed b’fast that morning and eventually found out that I could actually stave and still complete a trek

We only took bare minimum stuff (some biscuits, water bottle, mixture packet, jackets and umbrella) on us for the trek. The road (if I may call so) for this trek for most part is basically made up of “not so loose” stones on which you walk. For the remaining part it is a mud road and made much slippery due to the rain.
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Soon we were greeted with the first of the numerous waterfalls. People who probably had not taken a bath that morning were under the falls and there were many such souls. Nilesh took the photographs of the falls and pledged to eliminate the people from the photos. Anyways from here on, he was hell bent on clicking all the water falls, even if some of them were as thin as tap water.

It was around 1pm and while we were going up, there were many who were coming down. Most of those coming down were school kids and boy, were they were a noisy bunch !
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Our trek was littered mostly with intermittent showers and winds. The trek was not so steep but neither was it easy for people like us, who don’t do this that often. The farms down below on the plains looked flood hit villages from a helicopter aerial view.

We were almost at the base of the fort in an hour’s time. (An hours time??? Thought it was more like an 1.5hrs! Maybe i'm wrong cause at times it felt like forever!) This place is called Lohagadwadi and from here you can see both Lohagad and Visapur forts. You can easily make out the “hole” in the Lohagad fort (Pluheeez! The hole was in the cliff that the fort was built on!) Ek to fort sahi salamat hai yaar.) This village has many homes, which provide food. We thought we have a quick grub and went into one of them. Though it was damn crowded, we didn’t expect that we had to wait forever. We decided to leave and proceeded towards climbing the Lohagad fort. We did have advise for them to start taking food orders on the phone !
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We had to climb the fort using the stairs and with water gushing over them. The fort is in decent (Great condition compared to others. Thats what you said!! Why hold back on tareef now? And yeh, it is truly one of the cleanest tourist spots in the country!) condition and at the gates, you can still see the carvings. From here, the pawna dam looks neat along with the farms next to it. In fact one farm was shaped like a shoe with women working in the farms. ( I=Me=Nilesh spotted it!!! Wokay???? Shame, not even a mention of such evolved imagination!) And all of this view covered in dense fog. This is an experience to relish firsthand !

Finally when we reached the top of the fort, it was already 3 pm. We spent a lot of time exploring the fort and taking photos from all possible angles. At the top, the weather had turned nastier with more rains, dense fog and heavy winds but we loved it and were enjoying it to the hilt. There’s a dargah at the top as well as many ponds. Visibility was hardly there for 20 meters.
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My brand new umbrella was tested to it’s limit and it has survived. Wonder of wonders, at the top there is mobile signal too. Nilesh received a very important phone call - from his pest control guy asking for an appointment!

We were exploring the top and were walking on & on with hardly anything visible. Only intermittently when the strong winds came, the fog reduced and we were able to see better. Finally after much walking we hit Vinchukata (shaped like scorpion’s tail), which is almost the end of the fort. We saw a few people coming back from there. We went further after taking to them and were thinking what is something goes wrong. We two were probably the last people on top of the fort for that day.
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Anyways this was exciting as well as it walking on a narrow path and you could feel 3400 ft below almost vertically. All of this in rain, fog and wind. Made the experience much richer. Took the mandatory photos including a timer based one for posterity !

Came back to the top of the fort and explored further. We probably spent altogether 1-2 hours up there and were definitely the last people to go down. Saw more ponds and there’s also a 18 sided tank. The phrase ‘loose cannons’ had an altogether different meaning here with some real cannons lying around !
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Given a chance, we would probably would have wanted to linger longer there. But unwillingly, we started our return. Came to know later that there are caves further at the top on which you could do camping. We saw a few people going up with camping gear in hand. That is for next time for us !

We back at the base of the fort in no time. Were hungry for food and at the first place, went in. Luckly there was no body else and there was zunka-bhakri and kanda-phone for us. We ate as if we had nothing to eat from days altogether. After this food, we started down the mud and gravel path to the Bhaja village. There was no rain now but the muddy road had taken it’s toll on Nilesh’s floaters and it was reaching the end of it’s life.
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Reached Bhaja village, took the car out, had pathetic tea at Karla junction and reached Pune non-stop around 8.45 pm. We had a fantastic experience. Much more than what we had expected.
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P.S.3 --> Carry your own food cause the shacks run out of supplies in case there are more visitors. We didn't get tea at a shack cause they had run out of sugar. Also, water is suspect so carry your own bottles. Enough of them, mind you. And food. If you don't dig jhunka bhakar or poha and you are a veggie, you don't have any choice! And pluheez wear good shoes else bear all the pain in your feet later.

P.S.4 --> Batteries don't last that long in rains/cold up there. Carry spare ones cause you will want to click away!!!!

P.S.5 --> Please do this trek once in monsoons! Its worth every tired step you take. A day spent well. There is also a road from Lonavala Market that directly gets you to the base of the fort in Lohagaon but thats for sissies. ;-)

P.S.6 --> If you don't have a set of wheels, no worries. Take the Pune-Lonavala local train and get off at Malavali station. It's a couple of kms of extra walk till the Bhaja village from where you start your treak up.