Koregad - Korigad - Koraigad Pictures

Waterfalls enroute Ghusalkhamb from Mulshi.

View of the Mulshi Lake. The semi-circular wall is visible.

The tall cloud covered mountains enroute.

Numerous water sources like these empty in Mulshi Lake here

View of the Northern arm of Mulshi Lake.

The steps to Korigad.

One of the numerous wild flowers of Sahyadris.

Saffron

Fortification - Korigad

A mushroom - I caught it inside a hole in the fortification

Koregad A.K.A Korigad A.K.A Koraigad

This weekend since kuch log were too tired of "Sumo Chalana" we decided we headed somewhere nearby on bikes. We thought about Rajmachi, but then considering that we are bunch of old men we thought of something nice, which got us moving to Korigad.

This fort is past INS Shivaji near a village called Peth Shahapur enroute Ambavane where Sahara Amby Valley is located and belongs to Sahara India. Yes they own the fort believe it or not.

To get to this place from Pune essentially one needs to :
1] Travel on NH-4 to Lonavala / Expressway take Lonavala exit. Take the left to Bhushi Dam/INS Shivaji and continue to Amby Valley. Keep looking for Peth Shahapur.
2] Travel to Mulshi. Just before the dam wall, take a right to Ghusalkhamb [ 40Kms from here ]. The road is not so good, though if you need a taste of adventure scenery and greenery. This is the route. When you hit a T with a Chai shop at corner, take a left for Ambavane and look for Peth Shahapur.
3] Travel past Mulshi via Tamhini, past Dongarwadi, there is a bifurcation for Lonavala. This road is super scenic and Sumo worthy. This road would take you to Bhambarde, from here continue to Ambavane and then to Peth Shahapur.

The depressing thoughts of passing Lonavala traffic early morning and search for some adventure found us travelling towards Mulshi at 8.00 in the morning. We chose option 2 as I had not travelled on this route before. After a good amount of timepass, photography we reached the destination.

Since this is a Sahara property and due to the proximity to Lonavala, you always have some company for climb. Sahara chaps have now put a tarmac road right to the base. There are steps to get to the top as well. The fort is huge as such and has fortification in place to great extent. There is a lake, a temple, few canons and marshy land. One can spot the Amby valley right at the base of the fort.

We got down at about 4.00 discussed our options and decided to head back via NH-4. I had been here with B and PN long time ago, that time some stupid a**s sons of GW Bush had stolen the fuel from our bikes. This time I had some weird lady asking 60 bucks aggressively for no reasons to let us park our bikes. Not that 60 bucks was an issue, though the manner in which the bi**ch demanded it was quite shocking. We had run into a drunk man on the way in the morning, I did the honors of asking him for the directions. He was slurring about how the fort belongs to locals etc. etc. Overall the locals around don't quite have a very nice attitude towards visitors. As for these Amby valley morons, they are clearing up quite a piece of forest here for making roads to the very base of the fort. Soon they'll have red carpet laid up all the way up on the steps. Sahara has about 10K acres or more land in this beautiful valley, their golf courses by the huts of the locals and they are killing it for sure. Must visit before they kill this place completely.

Find the complete set of pictures here.

Lohgad A.K.A Lohagad Pictures

Lohagad ..!!

Visapur from Lohagad !!

One of the plenty of primates ..on Lohagad !!

Waterfall..!!

Macro ...!!

Some spooky tree ....!!

Vinchukata ...!!

Tung - Kathingad and Pawana Dam from Lohagad/Lohgad ...!!

Visapur..on the way back !!

Lohagad ...!!

Lohgad A.K.A Lohagad

Chose Lohagad this weekend. I had not been to Karla caves before so decided to cover that too. Honestly all buddhist caves appear the same to me. Well although I dont remember much about Bhaja caves now since I did not have an eye for the fine details etc. I thought the sculptures etc were pretty good here at Karla. Since we got done with it it soon, we decided to head to Lohagad.

A no-nonsense route to reach here, reach Malavali from Pune. If you are travelling by local etc. walk to the village from the station. If you are travelling by car etc, the paid parking business has boomed here. Prepare to shove 20 bucks down the throat of two old chaps fighting for your 10 bucks so that your car is safe etc and move on.

You can spot Pawana dam from the top, [ Only visible water body ]. I was told by some poor sods that its Mulshi dam. Man it was so amusing.
Right across Pawana dam you can spot Tung in Pawana Dam backwaters. You can spot Visapur right oppositte Lohagad/Lohgad. While getting to the place, you can also spot Tikona from this place.

The structures and entrances to the fort are pretty intact. The fort is under maintainance by ASI, although there is chai-bhajji shop there on the top. I had asked this chap 5 odd years ago how would they have his tapri there and he gave me an amused look. Poor guy, if Sahara can swallow an entire fort, why cant we have him have his humble tapri on this fort? Doesnt harm right?

Check out the complete set of pictures here.

Tung A.K.A. Kathingad Pictures

Pinnacle, there is a temple at the top !!

Road from Paud towards Tung

Tung from the Road !!

Another shot, the pinnacle in clouds !!

Waterfalls on the way to Morve !!

The entrance !!Machi below .. taken from rightmost point if facing Tikona !!

Tung A.K.A. Kathingad

I lost the 2006 monsoons till first week of Aug. The first weekend didnt work out that well, since I landed in Mumbai on Thursday and buddies kept telling me how busy they are working on weeknds meeting deadlines etc. Then things fell in place this weeekend and that saw the group of four from Ingot heading on two bikes to Tung.

First of all, all I had read and heard about this fort was its a tough one, which remains pretty much the reason why I did not experiment with this one for so many years though it was just couple of hours away from Pune. Things have changed drastically over a year now, I have lost some hair ;-) and there are more bloggers set to educate poor people like me about the forts and approach routes etc. I remember distinctly that few years ago all I had to refer even after googleing etc was just this one web hosted on tripod with whatever little information and more suited for people from Mumbai. So I did see some bloggers mentioning about their trek to this place etc, which was an ecouragement to poor soul like me who needed it badly.

Anyways, so we set out from Chandni Chowk, Paud Road at 7.00 in the morning. Precursor was some chai-sutta at a tapri opp. Banjara Hills.

Reasearch showed there are two ways to get to this place from Pune.
1] Reach Paud from Pune, take the turn right next to the ST bus stand and reach a place called Javan. About 10-15Km from Paud I guess, situated at the base of Tikona, another fort on the other bank of Pawana Dam. The road is great with no potholes at all. From here take a left to reach Morve-Tungwadi. This part of the road is not at all advised. Although its pretty scenic and although being warned we took our chances. If you find yourselves at this point, move straight ahead to Kamshet from Javan, reach Lonavala and follow option 2.
2] This is a no-nonsense route, - Reach Lonavala from Pune, take left turn to Bhushi dam, move ahead towards Ambavane-Sahara Valley without falling for the chicks frolicking in dam waters . Somewhere in between take a left at a place called Ghusalkhamb [About 20 mins drive from INS Shivaji] and reach the base of the fort. This road is in great condition though might sound time consuming and lengthy, effectively its not. Option 1 took us almost 5 hours, the road is that bad.

We started climb at 12.00 after our eventful journey which consisted getting bikes across flooded roads, pushing them uphill etc. There were 50% of ultra-noobies in our group of four, which called for lot of babysitting during this climb/getting down process. After leaving one of us behind we reached the top at about I guess 45 minutes. The climb is really tricky and requires one to watch his/her steps all the time. I had read somewhere there are two ways to get up this fort and one of them is a simple one. Although after talking to lot of locals I couldnt get my hands on any other route than the one we took.

There is not much to see on the top. A temple and a pinnacle which has a temple of godess Tungai. We did not attempt this pinnacle for reasons best not explained. You get a good view of Tikona on the other side of Pawana dam from the top. You can spot the wall of Pawana dam from here. Apparently you can also spot Lohagad and Visapur from here, but since it was too cloudy and my sense of direction etc failed me I missed the spectacle. The locals swear to god that from top of the pinnacle you can see both Mumbai and Pune but thats super unlikely.

While returning we took the Lonavala route. [ No way I was going to go back by that road ]. Overall, I would still say if you can avoid this trek in rainy season its better since the supports, paths/rocks here are all slippery and you hardly have a foot wide path for you. Haapy to be alive and the pictures will tell the story ;-) Check out the complete imagestation album here.

Dhangad Pictures

Dhangad to the right !!


Sudhagad and Sarasgad at a distance·


Start of climb·


Village at the Base·


Telbaila from top·


Mulshi Backwaters·


Wild Flower·


Balekilla·


Karvanda·

Find more details here.

Dhangad A.K.A Ghangad

We managed to gather around 11 heads for the first trek of 2005. KV and A reached Pune from Hyd at 4.30 and found themselves killing time at Comesum. They called me at 5.30 and reached my place at about 6.00. I had forgot to charge my digicam batteries and to add insult to injury the power went off in the morning, although paxonet office and GuruKrupa@lonavala helped me recharge !! Finally we got going at about 7.00 from pax, picked up couple of guys from my office at S mart.

The way to reach Dhangad is from Sahara valley - Ambavane. Moving further ahead is a village called Bhambarde. The way to fort goes from this village.
Other way is from Mulshi before Tamhini take a right towards lonavala and reach bhambarde, this is a bumpy ride and not recommended for the meek ones.

The climb is simple one, although make no mistake the final section is a rock patch and and is technical. Junta freaked out on some *kali maina(karwanda)* and mangoes in the wild. The last section unlike the most forts is dusty and brittle rocks. After a big discussion and AJ having demnostrated and smashed egoes, I took the initiative, the junta to made it to the top was A, P, C, AJ and myself.

The view from the top is great, you can see telbaila rising from the plateau, Sudhagad to the left of Telbaila and Sarasgad at a distance. On the other side you can see the backwaters of Mulshi lake. Pictures would follow soon. Check out the complete imagestation album here.