Swept off my feet, literally: 2 August 2008: Naneghat

Trek path: reach kalyan, catch a bus that passes via malshej ghat, alight at tokavade/vaishakhare/naneghat diversion, from naneghat diversion trek upto naneghat peak, sheltering cave, ranjan and duke's nose (nanacha angtha), return along same path

Time required:
from kalyan
 if bus agrees to stop at naneghat diversion, about 1:30 hours
 if bus agrees to stop at vaishakhare,
   upto vaishakhare - 1:20 hours
   walk from vaishakhare to naneghat diversion - 30 minutes
 if bus only agrees to stop at tokavade,
   upto tokavade - 1:10 hours
   rickshaw or another bus from tokavade to naneghat diversion - 15 minutes
naneghat diversion to duke's nose: 2:30 - 3 hours

Height: 840 metres (as seen on board at the peak) (i.e., 2800 feet)

Trekking experience required: none, this can be a first trek for a beginner.

Fitness required: moderate fitness

Fear factor: absolutely no sort of fear during dry seasons, not a single place where patch climbing is required. but in monsoon rains, there r thunder claps, lightning bolts, heavy rain and really really squally winds, strong enough to lift a human off his feet. in fact we experienced it.

trek story:
trek 3 brought us to the malshej region near nasik, where we were bound for naneghat pass. this was a trading route linking coastal and plain cities like kalyan to the deccan plateau cities like pune, junnar, sangamner, etc. there r tell tales signs of trade route here, including a stone pot-like container which was used for dropping sovereign coins by transports as a toll. the word used for such a container was 'ranjan'.

reached kalyan bus stop:
i reached kalyan station on my bike and parked there in kalyan railway station's huge parking complex. i was to take it back 14 hours later, for which it cost me 10 bucks as parking charges. then i waited for yogesh outside kalyan station. when he arrived we went to the bus terminal opposite the station. all we needed was the first bus that went through the national highway passing through malshej ghat. you can take a lot of buses that follow that route, buses bound for pune, ahmednagar, nasik, sangamner, junnar, tuljapur, etc. we got one that was bound for tuljapur. it was a slight mistake. tuljapur is a long distance trip and as a result, buses like to run as short as possible, keeping the number of stops to minimum. so it was doubtful if they wud stop at places like our base village vaishakhare. in hindsight, we shud have taken another bus standing nearby, a bus for ahmednagar, that was to start 15 minutes later. anyway we boarder the tuljapur bus.

to tokavade:
the bus takes a route which passes close to my home in shahad. i cud point out my building to yogesh. the bus goes through hamlets which have small hills which turn green in the monsoon. so the trip was quite a sight. the bus pulled over for 10 minutes at the industrial town of murbad. then it took another stop at saralgaon, finally reaching tokavade. the conductor had refused to stop at vaishakhare, so we had to get down at tokavade and find another transport to vaishakhare which is about 6 - 7 km from tokavade. one thing unique abt tokavade is that, a restaurant is officially the bus stop. all buses stop at an open clearing outside the restaurant for 10 minutes allowing the bus crew and the passenger to have refreshments. u can try out vada, vada usal and misal here. these r made in typical maharashtrian style and r very tasty. the tea is also served piping hot.
once our refreshment was over, we saw our bus carry on its way to tuljapur leaving us behind to look for some form of transport that wud drop us at vaishakhare. this was the part that was a pain in the neck. please try to avoid stopping at tokavade to find another transport to vaishakhare. we took an autorickshaw which took us there for 30 bucks which is a rip off really.

to naneghat base:
the autorickshaw dropped us at the outskirts of vaishakhare village, leaving us to trudge the remaining 4 kilometers or so to the naneghat base. at the base, there is a clear board pointing towards naneghat and arrows marked on stones all the way to the top, making it hard for us to lose our way!!! from here we cud clearly see the duke's nose poking into the clouds and the deccan plateau starting far behind. the thing about naneghat pass is that this series of mountains is the first big wall on the way inland. so they voraciously capture a lot of clouds right away. a lot of rain falls on this mountain and creates a lot of waterfalls which form one of the tributaries of the ulhas river.

the ascent:
the route continued along a flat path and along the way we had to cross three rivulets formed by the numerous waterfalls along the mountain wall. finally the climb started. the entire path was created by a waterfall. remember that this was a medieval highway and they didnt build roads then. they used to find roads made by nature. on naneghat, the route is automatically created by eroding waterfalls. the central waterfall leaves a long winding path that spans from bottom to top. on this day, there had been heavy overnight rains and the path still had the waterfall running on it, instead of drying up and leaving a mud path behind. so it was a slippery path. the path goes through a lot of areas with clear signs of landslides, so be careful to keep an eye on loose suspicious-looking rocks lest u tumble on them and create a landslide and get carried with the slide. midway through the ascent, the path runs through a very thick jungle, so keep checking for snakes along the way. another common creature here is the crabs, some really huge ones, so if u r trekking bare-foot stay alert. then the path led out of the jungle and went into a clearing where on one side of the path, there was a high cliff and on the other side a sloping ravine. here we heard a clap of thunder. within seconds it started raining very heavily with squally winds. the rains up here in the sahyadris can b very wicked and merciless. so for sometime we took shelter in the slipstream of the huge cliff on our side. luckily for us the wind was blowing parallel to the path, had it been strong towards the ravine we wud have been blown away. the raining slowed down to a drizzle after about 10 minutes, but not before the waterfall now covered about 70% of the rocky path. we had to carry on anyway. we knew we had come closer to top when we saw two water cisterns filled to the brim with stone stairways leading to them. part of the stairways were damaged in land slides. in 5 minutes we reached the ghat top. welcoming us there was a sheltering cave and a board which announced, "naneghat pass, 2800 feet above sea level". so were there. a lot of trekkers went to the warm shelter of the cave, but i and yogesh wanted to carry on and see the duke's nose first, coz that was the summit. the rocky path turned into a well-cut but slippery stairway which led from the cave to a flat area further above. we reached the flat area and the first thing we saw was the stone pot which was used by medieval travellers to drop coins as toll. this day it was filled with rain water and frogs!!! the most unbelievable thing about this flat area was the really really gusty wind. so gusty that our clothes dried in seconds when the wind just carried away the moisture off our clothes. nearby a small puddle filled with water was mercilessly being emptied by the wind, which carried away the water in swirls. on the side of the flat area opposite to where we had trekked from, a paved road led from junnar to this point and holidayers came here by vehicles.

to duke's nose:
a steep slope led up from the flat area upto the summit, the duke's nose, aptly named bcoz of the shape. it slopes on one side, the side which we were climbing up now. to the other side, there is a treacherously vertical cliff. it was so cloudy that day that, we had to walk in near 0-visibility every now and then. the wind blew the clouds in and out of the area in intermittent intervals. we walked whenever it was fairly clear and in 15 minutes reached the top. but another scary thing awaited us here. very very strong wind indeed. the wind was good enough to lift us off our feet and blow us off the ground. when we cud no longer safely stand, we sat down and crouched. even so, the wind lifted us off our sitting position till we spotted a dry puddle and lay flat inside it. even so, the wind was too strong to lie still. we moved but the edges of the puddle saved us from getting swept off the cliff. when the wind was slightly bearable, we scampered on our way down totally shaken. we warned other groups of trekkers who were bound to the nose about the wind on top. then we made our way back to the cave, so that we cud trek down. there was a lot of crowd in the cave. then we noticed something we hadnt on our way up. the cave had an open food stall. we decided to have something and stepped into the cave. we were lucky to do so, coz after another couple of minutes it started raining very heavily again. inside, we ate bhurji, biscuits and had tea. the number of trekkers started streaming in gud numbers till it started suffocating in the cave. when we looked around the cave we saw a lot of ancient engravings in brahmi script from the satvahan dynasty rulers. and some modern vandalizing messages all around them.

descent:
the crowd was now too much for us to keep staying and so, we decided it was time to leave. the path which of corz as i said before, is actually traced by a waterfall, was now completely covered by the waterfall. yogesh's shoes got so slippery that he had to take them off and go barefoot. that really slowed us down and we had to descend in slow motion for 3 hours for what really shud take only 2. once we descended, we found a huge tree, behind which we took cover and take off all our soggily wet dresses. we had to take care not to get spotted by the numerous female trekkers who had come that day. luckily the area was deserted until we finished changing. once we did, we walked on towards the highway and started towards vaishakhare.

by bus to kalyan:
luckily a bus plying from ahmednagar to kalyan stopped when we waved it down. so much of a contrast to the way we had to get here in the morning. the bus stopped at tokavade where we again had some refreshment, before the bus rashly proceeded to kalyan, stopping along the way at saralgaon and murbad. along the way the bus stopped at shahad, where i cud see my house and cudnt get down as i remembered that my bike was parked at kalyan. i helplessly looked on as the bus took another painstaking 25 minutes in the traffic to reach kalyan. once there, i went back home. but after this trek i didnt have any sore muscles, only the memories of a trek and an unbelievable wind, both of which swept me off my feet.

PS: the photography conditions were too hazy, so i cudnt take any photos during this trek to naneghat. i will take some when i go there next time. until then u can see some brilliant photos of naneghat in the following hyperlink on one of the best sahyadri trekking blogs ever written.
Naneghat trek on Deep - Abhi's blog on Trekking the Sahyadris.