Finding a good
location for a day trek with an grade of easy level so that beginners can give
a knack to their trekking skills, we decided to trek the Mahuli fort near
Asangaon. With eight members ready for joining in as it was a preffered point for
beginners, we started planning the trek journey and ended with only six members
present at Asangaon station in morning.
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Mehatab,Ketan,Sushant,Me,Aakash,Abhilash(Left
to right)
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| Trail that leads to Mahuli entrance gate with temple on Left side |
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| Entrance gate of Mahuli |
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| Informative board 1 |
A before-hand idea that exploring the complete fort
is not possible in a day made us uncertain due to time factor as we ought to
complete it within a day. So to avoid getting late we decided to board 6:24 am
Asangaon fast local from Dadar and explore atleast forty to fifty percent of
the fort. But we couldn’t make it as some members were out of schedule and
failed to reach on time which resulted in missing the 6:24am Asangaon Fast from
Dadar, but to our luck Kalyan fast 6:21 am local train was reaching Dadar at
6:35am so we quickly improvised our plan by boarding it with an hope to catch
our missed local(Asangaon 6:21 am slow) from Dombivili.
With two members of our group who were expected to
board the same train from Dombivili were late thus improvised plan was on the
verge of failure, but again to our luck the red signal halted the train at
Kalyan for five minutes which in turn helped our members to execute the
improvised plan. With five members on time and the sixth member residing in
Asangaon, we met him at Asangaon station. Quite lucky to have this trek
destination near to his residence.
Several breakfast facilities outside the station
are available serving dishes like Missal-pav , Vada-pav, Samosas, Bhajia along
with tea and coffee. After having our breakfast at Chetan hotel which was more
of dhaba type stall and Misal-pav here was made by local recipe which lacked
the actual taste you would expect from it, but worth a try not that bad.
Filled stomach energized us to move ahead to our
next step of journey which was to reach Shahpur Bus depot via rickshaw with all
members packed into one so we were total seven people including driver inside the auto. There is only
one bus that plies to and fro from shahpur depot to mahuli with an interval of
1 hour, so after reaching there at 9:10 am the next bus available to us was
expected to commence its journey towards Mahuli at 10 am.
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| Start of trek route |
The surrounding premise is barricaded and
basic directions are marked throughout the region that lies around Mahuli fort
helping trekkers to easily navigate throughout the fort and its area. A bore
well tap near the entrance gate is available so fill as much potable water as
you can the boring part is push and pull mechanism of these taps, but a great
way to encourage people to avoid wastage of water.
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| Small tent on left side of route that leads to Mahuli |
There are no human settlements around the
trekking route as the area falls under the jurisdiction of Tansa Wildlife
Reserve. Different trails were emerging after passing through the entrance
gate, with marked boards at beginning of each trail indicating where they would
lead, we followed one that directed us to Small Mahuli with a hope to complete the Big Mahuli at some later
point of time as we didn’t planned for an overnight trek.
Route towards Small Mahuli and Big Mahuli gets
diverted just at the beginning of the trail so completing both in a day means
descending one before ascending the next.
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| Pond and a bridge passing over it |
Rivers, pond and a wooden bridge to cross the
river showcased us the natural flora and fauna of the Tansa wildlife sanctuary. A visible pond from our route,
followed by trail leading to waterfall made us more enthusiastic about marking
the end of the trek by having a plunge in this pond and a fun time near
waterfall even before starting the trek.
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| Route view |
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| Route view |
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| Mahuli surrounded by clouds |
Weather was pleasant with minor indication of
moderate to heavy rains thus we felt good as the thrill to enjoy a trek in
heavy rains is an adventure time for every trekker. The good weather and cold
breezes didn’t tempt us to take long-breaks so total break time during
ascending just spanned around 20 minutes.
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| Hillock |
At 11:20 am a hillock was spotted
by us with no trails and only muddy patches throughout it with gradient
slope of sixty to seventy degree.
Ketan and I decided to ascend the peak but later
Ketan followed the actual trail instead of getting diverted to reach this small
peak point maybe he was bit tired by his regular schedule of going out of way.
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| View while ascending the hillock |
Soon Sushant and Mehatab joined in to ascend
this small peak which has no clear route, so climb the way you like it. We
started to climb it from a point where we predicted the chance of
free-fall to base village was minimum, there was no safe route to ascend it,
especially when the wet mud starts acting as a grease making you slip every-time
you try to ascend. It was like one step forward and two steps back so don’t
risk climbing it without proper shoes and gears during rainy season.
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| View while descending the hillock |
My shoes were lacking the required grip to ascend
this hillock, Grip was almost lost while trying to ascend further after
reaching till half way of this hillock, Mehatab and Sushant ascended in lizard
posture by pushing their body weight towards ground thus maximizing the grip
and resistance to the downwards pull experienced on legs by muddy route. After
climbing this hillock, Mehatab informed that no other alternative route for
descending was possible other than one used by us for ascending, so I planned
descending from mid-way itself as going ahead was risky.
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| Mehatab in bushes trying to search stuffs that got clinged into bushes |
Descending was much of a challenge rather than
ascending as body weight enforces the downward pulling force exerted by
the muddy route during descend. To make descending a bit easy both of them
threwed all possible stuffs they could with a hope that I will catch it from
mid-way of that hillock, but odd winds flewed the stuff far away from me, with
bush plantation nearby the stuff got clinged into it thus preventing a search
operation. It was equivalent to descend on playground slide by walking on it while
trying your best not to fall. Half hour spent doing thrills on this hillock
with rest members waiting ahead on the actual path for us.
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| Route view |
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View from hillock
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A clear view of fort borders is visible just 500 metres
ahead on the path after this hillock. Later at 12:20 pm we reached near the
ladder point and felt relieved that we were on the right path, a meager
distance of 1 km from this point is the peak point of Mahuli.
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| Ladder for avoiding tough patches |
After reaching peak point at 1 pm, we were
astonished to see the huge area to be explored on the peak point it was nearly around
300 acres. With no direction boards available nearby we started wandering
around and moved in the direction towards Tansa lake. On our way was a five foot deep water cistern with
muddish color water maybe it gets potable after being refreshed during heavy
rains/mid rainy seasons.
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| Route on peak plateau |
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| Route on peak plateau |
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| Route on peak plateau |
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| Route on peak plateau |
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| Fences protecting the solar panels installed |
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| Solar panels installed on peak plateau |
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| View from peak point |
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| Wild turmeric flower spotted on route |
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| Pinnacles on peak plateau passed by us for reaching Palasgad(Pic clicked from Palasgad) |
You will have a good view of beautiful
mountain ranges nearby while exploring this plateau, we passed a few in one
hour walk.
During our ascend there were few mild showers
of rain and our lunch session at Palasgad was even interrupted by few droplets
of rain. Views from Palasgad provides a good scenery with Tansa River and a lake
in background.
All of us slipped either a bit while few
getting injured as the wet mud didn’t provide the required grip. Some wooden
sticks which were used as hiking poles prevented some falls.
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| Waterfall and a pond nearby |
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| Crabs near the riverside area |
Water near this waterfall is clean and not muddish color as
you would usually find near the wooden bridge. Beware with broken pieces of
glasses nearby this pond as there were many which severely injured some of us.
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| Giant Red velvet mite |
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| Red wiggler worm |
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| Underground world of ants |
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| Fungi spores growing on trees |
After spending one and a half hour wonderful time
near the pond and waterfall we ended our trek at 6:30pm. We missed last bus to
Shahpur depot from Mahuli, so walking towards Manas mandir was the only option
as there are other modes of transport available from there. After walking for
20 minutes we spotted a goods tempo passing by the route, on requesting the
driver he agreed to drop all of us at Asangaon station in Rs.100/- so we
grabbed the deal as it was equivalent to cost of a bus ticket, even bus drops at
Shahpur depot and not near Asangaon station.
As one of our member named Aakash resided in
Asangaon we visited his house had some refreshments and then boarded the 9:57
pm fast local from Asangaon.
Thus ending our trek with a great exploration
time at the peak plateau and gorgeous view from peak point as a
reward to ascend Mahuli while keeping some views aside for our next trek.
Location
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Mahuli
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Base Village
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Mahuli in Thane district
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Reaching there
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From Asangaon station take auto to reach Shahpur bus depot, then board a bus towards Mahuli.
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Required time
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3 hours to ascend Small Mahuli,
5 hours exploration time on peak plateau,
2 hours to descend.
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Facilities
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Local tea/cofee facilities available near entrance of Mahuli
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Last bus from Mahuli to Shahpur
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6:45 pm
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