SAHYADRIS THIS SEMESTER

Trekking is an adventurous blend of adrenalin and nature. Till now, I have been to 6 amazing treks in the Sahyadris this semester and most of the time, it has just been the two of us: me and gidz. We started with going to the ones easily reachable by locals like Peb fort and Mahuli and ended with the awesome 2-day trek in Ahmednagar covering Kalsubai and Ratangad, which is like more than 200 kms from Mumbai. There were a couple of things that made this last trek special. Firstly, both the treks were completely cloud-less. Second, there was a navratri mela going on at Kalsubai and village people doing the hike just humbled me. There were ones without any footwear, there were women (a broad age range) in their saris and there was even a man suffering from Polio!! Third, we stayed in a village house for one night, ate village food, even attended the nature’s call in the open and the whole experience was memorable. For the trekkers, here are my stats/facts:

Trek	Base Village	Region	Difficulty	Staying overnight?	Waterfall?
Peb Fort	Fanaswadi	Karjat	***	Yes	Yes
Mahuli	Manas Mandir	Asangaon	***	Yes	Yes
Matheran	Bhivpuri Road	Karjat	****	Yes	Yes
Harishchandragad	Khireshwar	Malshej	****	Yes	Yes
Kalsubai	Bari	Igatpuri	***	No	No
Ratangad	Ratanwadi	Igatpuri	***	Yes	Yes

I have done some treks in earlier years but never with this level of enthusiasm and thrill. I do feel bad about not exploiting the first 3 years to this extent, now I am not going to leave this passion of mine for years to come. Of course, the next thing to do after the Sahyadris is to go straight north: Himalayas and before that, learn Rock Climbing. There’s also a very wonderful thing to try out: Waterfall Rappelling (The professional trekking groups of Mumbai do it in the monsoons). It’s basically rappelling down a gushing waterfall. Doesn’t that just sound awesome? Some of the things trekking has taught me:
1. Trekking in monsoons (particularly sun covered by clouds) is way too different than trekking in the sun. We first truly realized this in the Matheran trek, which anyways was a long enough trek. Also, the former is usually more fun.
2. It’s not just physical strength that counts, mental strength plays a bigger role sometimes. It’s one of the very important thing you can learn from a trek and apply in life generally.
3. Trekking in a bigger group always takes more time. So, until one really is a big-group kind of a person, trekking in lesser numbers is better.
4. Other than the climbing part, one can get to enjoy a flavor of rural life too in these treks. It is also a very good option for almost all treks to reach previous night at the base and start hiking the first thing in the morning.