Vairatgad Pictures

Lady working in the groundnut field...

Fort Pandavgad ..the distant square'ish peak ..

The guide ...

Fort Vairatgad..taken during climb ..

Looks like some variety of Dahlia..

Pachgani Tableland to left ..Thin white line is Dhom Dam...

Fortification..Fort Vairatgad ...

Temple atop the fort...One of the water tanks atop ..Fortification ..Fort Vairatgad ..Another view..looking west..Fort Vairatgad..Sunset..at Tableland..

Vairatgad

Managed to hike Vairatgad this weekend. This fort was something which always figured in the plans although was dropped couple of times due to various reasons. The team was bunch of guys from Paxonet and yours truely.

Way to reach from Pune -
1] Travel by NH-4 towards Satara, take a right turn towards Wai-Mahabaleshwar on NH-4. Just before Wai, take the left turn to Satara. Reach this place called Wyajwadi/Vyajwadi at the base of the fort. Climb is easy, takes around 1 hour.
2] For the more enthusiastic ones, on NH-4 take a right turn towards Bhor. Reach Bhor. Take a left turn towards Wai [ 35Kms from Bhor ] via MandharDev Ghat and reach Wyajwadi/Vyajwadi. You pass by the base of Pandavgad and you can also cover Mandhardevi if interested.

There are couple of water tanks and temples on the top. From the top one can get a view of square'ish shaped Pandavgad across the plains, Dhom Dam, Wai town and Pachgani tableland. I couldnt gather much about the history, guess I need to catch hold of those references mentioned by Harish Kapadia. Pachgani is pretty close so sunset at tableland is something that can be tried. Bikes are allowed on the plateau.

The fort is pretty insignificant as such, not as mesmerizing, rather dull. But for a fort collector like me, especially ones which arent frequented by the mortal populace its another one in the kitty.

Check out the complete imagestation album here.

Rajgad Pictures

A Wild Stunner !!

"Nedh-a" ..In Clouds !!

On our way up !!

Gunjavane [ The village at Base] !!

Stairway to Heaven !!

Taken from Chor Darwaja

Find more details here.

Rajgad

Couldn't cook any plan till friday. AB was stuck in Mumbai due to heavy rains. Got a call late Friday night from PN. He said we were six, and we better decide someplace on Satara side. We thought about a trek to Vairatgad. We started late in the morning so a change of plans had us aiming for Rajgad.

We reached Gunjavane at about 11. If you want to take the Chor darwaja, you have to go to Gunjavane or else you can go to Vajeghar and climb by the Pali darwaja.
The water stream near Gunjavane had swollen and there was water flowing over the bridge. We manage to ride across on bikes. We started our climb with the company of two dogs. We trusted the dogs for the route and let them lead us. That turned out to be a mistake. After a walk of an hour or so we met the local Vijay Mallya who was transporting his brew to the base [ The Hatbhatti if you know this magic potion i.e. ]. He told us we were on the wrong road. So we headed back and Mr Mallya guided us to the correct road.

We made it to the top in another hour or so. It was raining heavily, we hadn't made food arrangements. To add to the problem we met an old chap who had lost
his cow on the fort and was searching for past two days. He needed something to eat. So whatever we had we gave 1/3rd of it to him. We went conservative.
We started getting down at about 4.30 from Chor darwaja. We had some Pohe and tea at the small joint at base and started our journey back. There was more water flowing now on the small bridge. Luckily we got some help from another group we met on the way back to get our bikes across.

But there was another surprise on the way back, another bridge on the way back was submerged. Wasnt worth risking lives in that roaring water barrier of about 150 mtr. To our luck we found an alternate road. Heavy rains meant not much of photography. Overall a nice cool one dayer. Came back to discover Ferrari was on pole.