Mangad Pictures

No weekend breaks - A farmer slogging out early morning in Mulshi.

Where the road goes round Plus valley - The Bhira Hydroelectric pipes in Tamhini.

Main range of Sahyadris to the East of Mangad.

A lush Paddy field near Borwadi.

Waterfalls in Tamhini. These thundered the way back.

Water tanks and the farms below - Mangad.

The ruins of fortification

Parsha - [ Parshuram ] the guide at Entrance. Parsha is a good man.

The climb

The Dargah atop Mangad.

Mangad

It started raining heavily from Wednesday, which kind of made me a bit happier. Not that I wasnt going to venture out this weekend. But then a prospect of good outing is always pleasing. If not then there is a weird fun in pushing yourselves to limits. Either case, headcount wise there was addition in form of M and one new found fan on the Peth trek last weekend.

To start with the proposal was to go to infamous Mangad. Last year some ill informed locals around had completely denied that this place existed and we had to hike Kurdugad. It was agreed upon that we all meet at Chandni Chouk at 7.00 with our respective bikes, though on Saturday morning we set off in M's Sail towards Borwadi at 8.00 AM [ again ].

To reach Mangad one has to :
Travel to Tamhini via Paud from Chandni Chouk. Get down the Tamhini Ghats.
Take the left to Mangaon/Nizampur from Vile. From here Nizampur is 15Km.
Take a left in Nizampur towards Pachad - Raigad Ropeway and keep asking for Borwadi.
Borwadi is about 4kms from Nizampur. Park your vehicles in Borwadi, walk to Masadwadi-Mashidwadi. This is the starting point for the climb.

We parked the car at Borwadi, asked the locals about the best route to climb etc and moved towards Masadwadi-Mashidwadi. Yes you are right, the name is derived from Mashid in Marathi meaning Mosque. The fort was apparently constructed by Muslim rulers and there is a fair amount of population around here to prove that too. There is a ancient Shiva temple here which was turned into ruins by the Muslims. Watch out while climbing the rock cut steps. If you are weak"er" at heart this is not for you.

The Maharashtra State Gazetteer says that this is the smallest of the three in the region and is true. We got up on top non-stop within 20 odd minutes. There is a temple midway. There are traces of fortification. Some water tanks, an empty cave and a Dargah. From the top one can spot the main range of Sahyadris which stands much taller than the fort, Kumbha pass and the villages below. We got down at about 4.00 PM amongst heavy rains and decided to hit Tamhini.

The waterfall at the base of Tamhini had soured in size by the time we reached there. We decided to climb up for some raw fun/thrill. After spending an hour and realizing that it had worsened even more, even for making us difficult to get down to the car, we headed back. Enjoying our drive back amongst a series of beautiful waterfalls.

Find the complete imagestation album here.

Kurdugad A.K.A Vishramgad Pictures

The ever beautiful Mulshi lake ..

Tamhini Ghats while climbing Kurdugad ..

Fort Kurdugad from Kurdu Peth ..

Sahyadris south of Tamhini from Kurdu Peth ..

Narrow path round the pinnacle ...Getting down to Kurdu Peth.. Fort Entrance ...
Fort Kurdugad from Umbardi ..Bridge near Umbardi ..background Tamhini range...Sunset at Jite ...

Kurdugad A.K.A Vishramgad

No planning has by now become a regular feature. Although, some groundwork was done beforehand about the possible options. We headed towards Tamhini targetting Mangad/Kurdugad near Nizampur. The team was me, balls and bunch of gultis. After couple of waterfall/lakeside patel photos we got down from Tamhini and hit a sign which showed "Jita" [ Jite ] as 11Kms to left. After asking for Mangad near Borwadi, the local fellas had whats-wrong-with-me expressions on their faces. Although they said there is Kurdugad around, so we decided not to spend much time in R&D as lot of time was already spent in Patel photography and gults were showing signs of uneasiness.

In essence, to reach here -
1] Get down from Tamhini, on the way to Mangaon - 4km before Nizampur [ the one before you hit NH-17, There is hell lot of confusion Kapadia has caused about this place in his book ] you see a sign which shows a diversion to Jite. Reach Jite which is 11km s from the diversion, and walk to Kurdu Peth. There is some landslide there enroute, so you could also proceed to Umbardi [ Ooo-mb-ar-dee] and climb to Kurdu Peth.
2] Reach Dhamanohol/Dhamanvahal via Dasve [ Lavasa lake city ] there is some temple and a high tension electricity tower get down from there to Kurdugad.

Though it had rained cats and dogs in Pune the previous night, these areas showed no trace of rainfall. It was very humid and hot. We sought help of a guide who chose to run away after 5/10 minutes for unknown reasons. After lot of turmoil we reached 50 mtrs from Kurdu Peth. By then except for me and a first timer determined gult, rest of the junta was so tired that they decided to call it quits at the same point. Had it not been for a particularly nice snake to show up. So after Mr Nice snake showed up everyone covered the distance fast and some of gultis and balls decided to rest in the shades of the trees at Kurdu Peth while me, the determined-first-timer-gult and one more individual sought help of a local to show us around the fort.

The fort is not a big affair once you reach Kurdu Peth. Its a massive pinnacle at a lower height from the main range of Sahyadris. Is more of a outpost than a conventional fort. The final pinnacle requires rock climbing. There is walk involved going about the pinnacle which takes about half and hour and thats all that is there. There is a "fashi" point. Where apparently they used to hang the criminals. This point is where the pinnacle joins the main range. There is a big cave dug under the pinnacle, the guide Datta said it was an attempt to have the pinnacle removed from the mountain. Which kind of felt stupid to me. Because looking at the way it was dug the guys digging,would crush and die beneath it.

Per locals there was a landslide two years ago which got rid of most of the stone-soil around the pinnacle. Going around the pinnacle is a really tricky affair. Be "extremely" careful here. Locals told me that apparently long time ago there was a huge landslide which seperated one part of pinnacle [ you can see it resting on the main pinnacle ] under which all the men on fort died. Also there was fortification which collapsed into valley due to which the populace living there left. At the base of fort near Umbardi as well there are traces of stone wall. Similar to the Golkonda fortification inside which it has a whole big population as such.

When we got down, we got to hear couple of interesting stories about ghosts/an ancient temple [ To visit we had no time ] which apparently has some gold inside it/Some King's palace which again has gold etc. Ghosts interest me, I dont know why people in Konkan get abducted by ghosts more than others. Something like the way aliens prefer americans more than people of other nationality.

Check out the complete Imagestation album here