Kothaligad/Peth trek

It so happened that our last trek to gorakhgad was very memorable, specially on 2 count first it was a trek which we did on our own and secondly the cost to each person was very petty. This prompted me to the thought why not let us have a group where we all gather and have fun and enjoy our passion of trekking rather than follow a commercial route. So on this noble premise I started my group call Weekend Wanderer  which incidentally is also my pseudonym.Our trek to Kothaligad was our maiden outing.

Initially we had planned a small group of 8 -10 ppl for this trek but it so happened as everyone got the news that we are going for trek the numbers started swelling and we ended up with a team of 26 members.


Now the Million dollar question was where to go for trek . I was very clear that the first trek has to be simple. Few of my friends suggested that we should do Chanderi but I was little apprehensive as Chanderi for a first timer could be dicey prospect. Anyway we narrowed down our choice to Kothilagad/Peth as this trek is not very long and not too difficult so all in all a good trek for beginner.

Kothaligad/Peth Village

One of my co-trekker said kya sir simple trek rakte ho kuch difficult lo na" so I explained to him and said "Raja kabhi kabhi dal chawal bi ka lena chaiye roj roj biryani nahi mangni chaiye" and the trek was on !!!


The night before the trek I had butterflies in my stomach Saala puri raat tension ke mare neend hi nahi aayi, Ki agar subha utha nahi to sab gali denge aur bolenge organiser hi gayab hai. Sharp at 3.00am I was wide awake made few wake up calls to Nikhil and Subhashji.4.30 sharp Nikhil and Pooja were there at my place. I felt this is good sign dost log time per hai.We had targeted to catch 4.42am local to Dadar but were there before time to catch 4.39 local. At Vileparle station Subhashji were to join us, but unfortunately the train came on the other platform and Subhashji was on another, still I managed call out aloud and meri pukar sunkar  subhashji jumped from his platform and made it to our train  I thought Wah kya start hai . We all regrouped at Dadar and then from Dadar we took 5.37 am Karjat local.Enroute all members kept joining us and as usual it was Sunday Reunion.

Sunday Reunion...

 It is always fun to catch up with old friends, each one narrating some trek  tale. Few of the members were new to me but I think it was a matter of few minutes ki sab janam janam ke dost lagne lage.

janam janam ke dostwala scene at Karjat Platform

Never ever I have seen such a cohesive group and the best part of this trek was that though I had not written on the event " If you miss the train you miss the trek" then also each and every member was there in the same train 26 ppl all together!!! ( Do log to ticketless traveller the, Bole kya aashish  train kaise miss kar dete) I said to myself Wow!! Agar agaaz yeh hai to anjaam hoga hasin for sure( If the beginning is such then end will definitely be beautiful).

Unlimited Group photos me se yeh pehla group photo

We reached Karjat station at 7.44 and because Mayur sath me hai toh boss photo session to banta hi hai.


We all moved out of the station and decided to catch 8.30 ST bus to Ambivali but then on second thought I felt jab maje kar hi rahe hai to kanjoosi kyo kare chalo Tumtum karte hai and we hailed a tum tum stuck a deal with him and hired 3 tumtum for 26 of us so that we all can go in comfort

For a change trekkers are not stuffed in a tumtum akhir me yeh aaram ka mamla hai   

The tumtum journey was again one of the most memorable moment for me, what with crazy array of song spanning all the eras and genre of music Aur gaane ke sur aise ki aacha bala aadmi pagal ho jaye it was a wonder that the driver of the Tumtum did not get down and said Sirji mujhe maafa karo!!! 

Some how I wish I could be omnipresent and be able to enjoy the atmosphere of each tumtum. Akhir me mere ko Sanket Remix bi sun na tha and Anusha's contagious enthusiasm bi enjoy karna tha. In all this high voltage song and dance drama on tumtum we never realised that we have arrived at Ambivali village. 1 hour journey and it was like a blink . Wah re Mere Kishore kumars and Asha Bhosles !!!

We all assembled at the local hotel where we had our breakfast of Idli and Chutney which my wife had lovingly made for my co-trekker.After all it was our maiden trek.

Idlis for Breakfast

After stuffing ourselves with Idlis and gulping hot masaledar tea we had a intro round which was full of masti that the whole thing has to be conducted all over again.Koi lawyer tha(Ramya)(did I hear someone say divorce lawyer) toh koi private me kam karta tha(I mean in a pvt Co) toh koi 8th ki ladki lagti thi (jyoti) Intro round kum aur pagal khana jyada lag raha tha.

We started to trek moving from the hotel following the tarred road as it was going but just little ahead one must take left turn and follow this new way .

Stone laden road....You simply cannot miss mumbai roads wherever you go !!!!

 This road is not tarred but kind of stone laid way.  The walk from here is nothing but a gentle climb.While walking you can see lovely mountain range

view from the road on the way

 Walking on this road for around one hour we reached the first plateau. Reaching plateau generally take 40 minutes lekin hamare log to sab photo ke bhookhe so har panch minute ke baad kabhi group photo toh kabhi apna profile picture. Kabhi Kabhi sochta hu yeh photo ka bhukhar FB ke karan to nahi.

Ek photo FB ke naam bhi

Thankfully we reached our 1st point of break  per yeh aur baat hai ki photo ke chakkar me is se pehle 25 break aur ho chuke the.

Everyone wants to catch the Heaven 

Once we reached the plateau everyone lost their sanity few of us wanted to touch the heaven toh lage jump marne and in this melee I too lost my mental balance and turned into James Bond  akir me itne haseen chekre jo sath me the..lolz.

The name is Bond, James Bond!!!

We rested here for a while, few guys had Nimbu pani, few hung around. Koi masti me laga hai ,Anjali,ramya,divya,jyoti,anusha all had extensive round of photo session. Atmosphere pura ka pura charged up tha !!!

Fooling around at the plateau

 You can have a lovely glimpse of Kothaligad from here ( plateau.)

Glimpse of Kothaligad from the plateau

For first time I have to do the dirty work of reminding everyone to move forward. Dushro ke sath trek per jata tha to mai unki problem tha, Bechara organiser mere ko chilata rahta tha ki chalo ab bus hua photo baad me nikal lena" but today we were on our own hence sab ko bola Bhai ab immandari ke sath aage nikal lo warna shaam ko late ho jayege.

Approaching Peth Village ,green fields on both the side and Kothaligad right in front

Moving forward on the way we came across few streams, few green field and soon we reached the base village of peth.Everyone of us took a short break here, again some masti and photos and we moved on

Masti at Peth Village

Refreshed after this break at Peth village we started our trek further. For the benefit of my reader let me tell you from here onward the climb is little steep and you gain height very fast.The route is well marked and one has to cover a long rock patch.Rameya and Pooja found this portion little challenging but kudos to both the ladies that they managed to overcome their fear and moved forward.

Rameya fighting the way forward

Pooja has Question here but ek muskutahat ke sath arre aur kitna aage chalna hai

Once this Rocky portion was covered by everyone we reached the cave. The Cave here is big enough for 40 to 50 ppl. 

Caves at Kothaligad good enough to shelter 50 ppl

Carving on pillars in the caves

First we decided to have our lunch here but because this cave is full of bats so the idea was dropped.Adjacent to the cave is a small temple and few water tanks.Sadly this time I found the water was dirty in all the water tanks so not advisable to drink.The caves has some interesting carvings on the pillars.

Spiral steps 

Now comes the best part of the trek the spiral stone stairs right next to the caves.This is indeed a very unique and interesting portion of Kothaligad because sitting at the caves one will wonder how do the ppl reach on the top but as one moves through this spiral stairs which are no less then 2 feet ..Kabhi Kabhi sochta hu kitna tras hota hoga purane jamane me roj roj yeh stair chadne me. Sometime I also wonder whether the Moguls were tall that is why the steps were so huge or was it to keep the enemy at bay. Whatever may be the reason meri to hamesha asi seede chadne me waat hi laagi hai  Kya kare apni height choti hai na

The final climb to the top is very thrilling and once you reach the top suddenly you can feel the cool breeze caressing you and you forget all the hardship of the trek.The View from the Top is mesmerizing and one can see innumerable peaks like Padargad,Karnala,Bhimashankar range and many more.  

All of us lied down on the grass at the Top and enjoyed our well deserved lunch.

Lazing after well deserved Lunch

 Here I want to add Rameya because of height Phobia could not make to the Top but she showed lots of will power to make it to the caves. To her credit I can say she missed the top by hardly 20 steps.

After spending some time at the top we all started our descent. The descent was not very tough all of us made it easily to the peth village where we rested for a while and moved gradually to Ambivali village.

Naadan Parinde Ghar aa ja

 So all in all a successful maiden trek as a group for Weekend Wanderer and to celebrate our success the heaven opened up in the evening and it rained very heavily. All of us rushed out of the hotel shelter and danced in utter pleasure under the downpour.

Weekend Wanderers rocking in rain

Mumbai me hote hai to chata doonte hai barish se bachne kiye and here sab ke sab Suru ho gaye Barsaat me tak dinadin.

Barsaat me Tak dina din

Mostly my blog ends with this comment that we took the tum tum back home lekin dost abhi thodi si kahani baki hai. This whole motley of crazy crowd "Jasise gaate hui subha me aaye the waise hi Shaam ko gaate hui tum tum me ja rahe the."


It was 6.00pm when we reached Karjat and CST local was at 6.30 so we quickly got wadapav packed  ki chola train me kha lenge.But the Karjat local was very crowded  so like a true trekker sab ke sab station per Mandi dalkar bhaite gaye and what a rocking time we had ,enjoying wada paw with no care of the world. We all enjoyed like nobody's business and to top it all we had Cadbury Chocolate kyo ki abb kuch meeta to banta hi hai na bhai.

Amit and me serving everyone

Train journey was another madness no place to stand also lekin Weekend wanderers ki Battery Khatam hi nahi hoti hai...Everyone  was singing till Thane. 
Some one asked me "yeh log thakte nahi I said Sir Yeh log Jannat se return aa rahe hai!!!"  

Thank You All

Irshalgad Trek

Whenever I used to pass the Karjat Highway I happen to see a peak with a hole kind of thing. I always wondered what peak is it and  will I be able to go there. One day while passing from there I checked with my fellow traveler and he told me it is called Irshalgad. 
Bas aur kya soch liya ki agla trek Irshalgad hi hoga 


Few days went by and these lines of Jagjit Singh kept playing in my mind ‎'tere bare main jab socha nahi tha... main tanha tha magar, itna nahi tha..'


Luckily for me I saw this event by uth-sut for trek to Irshalgad and quickly joined them.


 So Sunday we all met at Panvel Station.This time my daughter and my nephew also joined me.From Panvel station we all walked to the Panvel ST stand which is hardly 5 mins walk.Here we met other members of the trek and we had a small informal intro and chat.Rajesh our organiser (very simple and humble person) provided us with Vadapav and hot tea so that we all are well awake to do the trek.
We took 8.00 am bus to Chouk.The bus journey from Panvel ST stand to Chouk took around 35 minutes. It was here I was introduced to a very amicable member of trek Sarita Khare with whom I had a long and interesting talk about Himalayan trekking and in no time we reached Chouk.

Crossing railway line at Chouk Station

At Chouk Bus Stop itself we had a brief round of introduction and instruction. For those who want to go on this trek the first phase of this trek starts from behind the bus stop where there is Omkar Lodge and next to that Chouk Railway station. We crossed over to the other side of Railway Station by crossing the railway track (Not recommended but kya kare majboori hai , Railway line toh cross karna padega, Kyo ki bridge banaya hi nahi hai :-p )

Walking on the other side of railway line with Irshalgad  looking  very prominent background

once on the other side keep walking straight for around 5 to 10 minutes and you come at a point where the road splits into two directions you will see one road going to right which will take you to the Morbe Dam and one road goes straight which takes you to the village . I later came to know that this village is called Irshaalwadi.which is also the base village for this trek. one has to cross the entire village and in the end you come to a watertank from where we started our trek.

Deciding our route of the trek

 Standing at the start point of trek one can see Irshaalgad and the prominent  (nedha)  needle hole kind of mountain cut structure.

initial gentle climb

We all started our trek from here which was nice and easy, Shubhankar and Akshita both first time trekker was very happy (they were thinking trek aisa hi rahene wala hai...morning walk karte karte we will be at the top) but here they were in for a rude shock because suddenly the cool walk was abruptly got converted into a climb. 

Climb was getting little steep and heat was torturing us to no end

The path from here to machi is well marked . We all started to climb but as it was June month and rains playing truant the climate was horribly humid and hot.This initial climb was making  us feel tired and thirsty my daughter and my nephew been the youngest and total novice to trekking started feeling the heat more my nephew initially was panting very hard and was desperately looking for rest at every point.Many a time shouting Chachu Rest !! Rest !!

Chachu Break !!!

We kept taking micro breaks so that no one gets tired. One thing I want to mention here that the view during this climb was absolutely fabulous on the right side one can see lovely Morde Dam backwaters and on the left side you see beautiful mountain valley and the saving grace during the climb was the gentle cross breeze which provided the relief which we all were desperately seeking.This portion of climb took us around  30 minutes and we reached the Machi or small village at the foot hold of the mountain..

View of Irshaalgad from Machi

From the village one has to walk straight till you reach a small temple.Take left from the temple , standing at this point you can see the Irshalgad peak right in front of you on the right side.However one has to traverse from left to reach the top.

To reach the Top one has to traverse from left

We kept walking through the bushes and high dry grass. There were lots of Karvanda fruit plants on the way so half the time we were plucking Karvanda fruits and gobbled this sweet pleasure with complete disdain. 

Karvanda Fruits which almost took us offtrack

" Sab log karvande dhoondne aur khane me itne busy ho gaye ki raste ka kise ko dyan hi nahi ... so for few minutes we were struggling to find our way Rajesh,Pawan,and myself went ahead to check the route it was very thorny and the way was not clearly marked . We had to spend considerable time to find the way after spending 10-15 mins of climb we realised we are on  a wrong trail.  I can still vividly remember what a sight it was with  Pramod perched at the top of one stone patch and Pawan perched on another stone patch and both thinking ki ab to is ke peech top per jane ko rashta hai...and what I was seeing standing at a distance was that there were further climb ahead. anyhow Rajesh managed to bring them down and we all descended and came to a clearing.We knew that a right turn has to be taken from the clearing to reach the pinnacle but bloody yeh right turn lena kahan se hai yeh samaj me hi nahi aa raha tha...

Micro break 

Actually even after getting down and moving forward I realised that it looked quite different than the lst time when I had come. I told Rajesh it seems that we have overshot our detour to right but luckily for us we saw the wooden ladder at the top, so we decided to move toward it but yet could not find proper way

Even after losing the way everybody is busy with the photo session !!

 but  thankfully we saw a villager who helped us and led us to the proper trail which leads us to that wooden ladder.here we encountered few rock patches but the climb was smooth and thrilling. after climbing the wooden ladder and trekking a few distance we came across a water cistern( This is a potable water so fill up your bottles here as there is no drinkable water source at the Top) 

Guys fill up your water bottles here..last spot to fill up

With in few minutes we reached the nedha(needle). This Spot is called nedhe. It is a unique hole in the rock ,which resembles a lot like a needle hole . This spot soon got converted into a photo shoot session with everyone scrambling to get a good pose at the nedhe. The wind at the nedhe is mind-blowing.  Standing at the nedhe one can see the Irshalgad  Pinnacle, one has to climb into the nedhe and move to the other side and take left traverse to reach the pinnacle.There is a water cistern almost adjacent to the nedhe but the water is not potable.Traversing we reached the top in hardly 2 minutes.The view from top as usual was simply breathtaking.The beauty of this spot is that you over look the valley and Morbe Dam Water.

Lovely View  Morbe Back Water 

 The sight is beyond description.Sitting at the ledge and over looking this kind of scene I can only exclaim "Khao toh jano" kind of thing then only you will understand the pleasure.We all collected here and had a lunch which was nothing short of multi culture cuisine.

All set for the Multi cuisine lunch

 We all rested here for a while and now for all of us it was showtime.Akhir me neeche se lekar upar tak pure trek me Rajesh ka dimag ka raha tha ki upar ja kar Pinnacle climb karege...in fact I also ascertained that he was carrying the rope with him. Yes Showtime here was Pinnacle Climb,

Free climb of the Pinnacle for me

As Rajesh was carrying rope so he got busy making arrangement as usual the lead climber has to go up to fix the rope for the climb. I took my chance  and I was itching to climb so I didn't wait for the setup and took my chance by making the climb sans the rope.

Thankfully I reached the top safely. Later we helped all the members to climb up with the help of rope.

Add caption

I may sound repetitive but the truth is that the pleasure of sitting on the top of the mountain is something out of the world experience.In the meanwhile Pawan climbed up the second pinnacle which was a mistake because it took almost an hour to bring our Spiderman down from there.

Rescue mission to bring Pawan down

Abbe isko koi neeche utaro!!

Ab uttar ja pyare!! 

Finally the time to descend has come,but before that we gave Salami to the mountains and moved forward to the base. The return journey was quick and fast.

Our Team

Thanks to all my team mates and special thanks to Ameya Mulye without whose lovely pics this blog would have been incomplete