Trek to Torna Fort

Masoom was coming to Pune and he told me that he was interested in joining me at the Alang Madan Trek I was planning for the Christmas weekend. But later when he learnt that we would have to do some rock climbing and valley crossing, he said he would not be able to do it this time as he had just fractured his finger when he visited Jog Falls last month. So we thought of trekking another fort for this weekend. We quickly decided on Torna Fort.

Torna Fort, also known as Prachandgad, was the first fort conquered by Sivaji at the age of 16. Located at over 1400m above sea level, it is the highest fort in Pune district.

I reached Swargate bus station at 640am. Masoom too reached in sometime. But we just missed one bus to Velhe village(the base village of Torna Fort). We then had to wait for another hour to get the bus. We left Swargate at 8AM. It took the bus 1Hr45Mins to reached Velhe, which was its last stop too.

On the way uphill

We got down and had a quick breakfast at a small restaurant there. We began our trek to the fort after that at  around 10:10AM. It was quite sunny then, but a nice cool breeze was blowing. So we didn't feel the heat at all. There were not many guys trekking there on the day. On the way we also met a group coming down after camping there for the night. If you start from Velhe you will enter the fort through the Bini Darwaza". We reached the top in around 1Hr 50 Mins. There are a couple of temples on top. We checked the temples and then went around the fort.

 There we met a group of 3 elderly men in their 60s. We spoke to them for sometime, they told us somethings about the fort and offered us some tasty chiwdas and laddoos.They were full of energy and their face did not show any sign of fatigue. They were frequent visitors of the fort. They showed us the ladder that had to be used to get to the 'zunjar machi'.

Zunjar Machi

We went down there, found a nice place and sat down for lunch. Masoom's mom had prepared some very tasty pulav for us. We ate that quickly and rested there for 10 minutes; enjoying the pleasant breeze on top of the fort.

Raighad in the background

We could see the Raighad fort from Torna. Many people trek cover Raighad and Torna in a single trek. We then returned back to base after taking a few pics. It took us a little over an hour to reach the base. After having some refreshments at the base, we got into a shared jeep that dropped us at the highway from where we could catch a bus to Swargate easily. 

The best time to visit Torna, or most of the forts around Pune for that matter, is during the monsoon. I hope to do revisit the fort, and if possible clubbed with Raighad trek.


Other posts that you may want to read:

• Dzongri Trek - Days 1, 2, 3 - Getting there!
• Dzongri Trek - Days 4, 5 - The Ascent
• Rappelling at Naneghat
• Waterfall rappelling at Vihigaon
• Duke's nose trek and valley crossing

Waterfall Rappelling at Vihigaon

I got a tweet last week which led me to this page about waterfall rappelling at Vihigaon last weekend (17th and 18th July). The pics looked good. The rapel was only of 120ft -around  previous 350ft rapel, but the waterfall would definitely not make the descend easy. But the only issue came up when I called up Zeenat on the number specified on the page and she told me that I had to reach Shivaji Nagar at 4 in the morning! That meant I had to leave my house at 3AM and would have to wake up at around 2! That like the waterfall rappelling was something I have never done before! But after booking seats along with 3 of my colleagues, I didn't have much choice.

So on sunday morning, after my alarm was successful in waking me up at 2.30, 4 of us, Prateek, Mansi, Vinod and I went to Shivaji Nagar in a  call taxi. Trekmates, the group conducting the event was waiting there for us. We hopped into the bus and in 10 minutes we started off to Vihigaon. It was a long journey, most of it was along the Pune-Nasik route. We made only 2 stops along our 7 hour journey - the first one when we saw a hyena on the way and the second one for breakfast.

A friend we met on the way

When we reached at 11, the group from Mumbai had already begun rappelling. The guys waiting for their turn to rappel were having a nice time watching the waterfall and people rappelling or enjoying in the water. . Within a couple of hours, they stopped for lunch. Prateek had brought tasty puris from home and Mansi had cooked some good pulao for the four of us.

People enjoying the place and their time

After lunch, we didn't have to wait much for our turn. I was the last one to go among the four of us. One of the guys who finished his rappel passed his gloves, helmet and harness to me. I put them on with the help of one of the volunteers and then was ready to go!

My first few steps

When the rope was free, I was called. Few instructions were given, the knot was tied and in a couple of minutes, I was walking backwards along the waterfall. 

In size, the descend was only a third of the Naneghat rappel I had done earlier. But the force of the waterfall and the slippery rocks made it equally if not more difficult and challenging. My footwear only added to the problems. I was wearing my shoes earlier, but for the rappelling I decided to change to my sandals thinking I it would give me the same grip and I that I could prevent my shoe from getting soaked! I didn't sleep properly the previous night, I had a fever and still went ahead with the trip but changing the footwear was the stupidest of them! I slipped once after covering almost the quarter of the height. After that I kept feeding the rope faster so that I stood perpendicular to the rocks and managed to complete it fine. It was a really thrilling and enjoyable experience. 

I believe the pics speak for themselves

 By the time I finished, it had started to drizzle. I was feeling really cold so I changed to a dry shirt and wore my wind cheater. But before others finished and we reached the bus the only dry shirt I had was wet too. We had tea in the evening and then left for Pune around 630; we should have started 2 hours earlier to reach on time. Now we knew we were going to reach back home pretty late in the night, but what we didn't know was about the accident on the highway ahead which caused a huge traffic block and delayed us further by more than an hour. The fever and cold was getting worse. We now had to stop at a restaurant for dinner which again consumed some time. But with the help of the good roads (we came back via the mumbai pune national highway) and the driver's heavy right foot, we managed to reach Pune around 3.40AM. I then took a rick from shivaji nagar to my home and reached there at 4am! I have slept past 4 in the morning a lot of times before, but never after waking up at 230am the previous day!

As Jack Bauer says, "...this is the longest day of my life".


Similar posts:
-Naneghat rappelling
-Duke's nose Valley Crossing

The world is flat...VERTICALLY!

"pls let it be full......lord..."
That is exactly what Pancily's chat said, when I told him that I was going forward with the trek even if he was stuck in Mumbai with his work. It was Pancily who told me about the 350ft rappelling at Naneghat on Feb 21st. But later, he had got the deadline for his project as 22nd feb which pulled him back. Girivihang trekkers, a club from mumbai was organizing it, and they would have it again only after diwali. So this was my best chance. Just as Pancily hoped, their bus was fully booked! But as they were coming from Mumbai and I was in Pune they told me that they'd let me do the rappelling if I arranged for my travel.

I then called up Viggy and Kini. We decided to go there on bikes. Kini was hungry for a long ride on his new R15! But on saturday, we learnt that naneghat is around 4 hours away from pune on bike, and your back is not going to like the last few kilometres. So Ashwath and Vignesh dropped out! The organizers had told me about Samyak who, along with his friends, was joining them from Pune. When I called him up, Samyak told me they were going in a Tavera, and they had space for another person!! You know what happened after that. :)

The pic that compelled me to go for the trek ;)

We - Samyak, Rishikesh, Anirudh, Prasad, our driver, Sachin and I- reached Naneghat at 12 noon. The Mumbai guys were there and around 30 guys had already finished rappelling. We sat down and waited for our turn to come.Some of the guys who were in line to go next were looking tensed. But the guys who had just finished seemed thrilled and we were eagerly waiting to get going.

 Click on the pic and spot the two guys who are rappelling.

Once everyone from Mumbai had finished, we got to start. They had a two sets of ropes coming down from the top. So a couple of participants could rappel at the same time. After waiting for few minutes, it was my turn. I got into my harness, got the carabiner attached to it and went to the top.

  I was then told how to rappel. The instructions were quite simple; atleast seemed simple when I heard them. Keep your feet at a distance of around 2 feet and do not bend your knees. Lean backwards and using your left hand behind you pull and feed the rope to your right hand, which would be a few inches above your forehead. The sole function of the right hand is to maintain balance. So you must not try to hold the rope tight if you are going down too fast. The speed can be controlled with the left. And if you do not come down in a steady manner you could spin around like a top, as Sachin did. :) This mostly happens if you do not use your feet properly or when the rappel is overhanging (it means the rocks are curved inward).

I wore my gloves. The knots were tied and I was at the edge of the cliff! The first couple of steps weren't very easy. An instructor told me a twice not to bend my knees while going down, because I could bang then onto the rocks if I did. After taking around 4 steps, I started to get the hang of it. The speed started to increase and I started to  literally run backwards [and downwards ;)] for a few seconds. I suddenly realized that the team at the top was no longer to be seen, neither was the control team at the bottom. I was alone for the next 50-75 meters, before I could even see the guys waiting for me down there. But now it didn't matter much. The fun factor had overcome the fear! I was really enjoying it! And before I knew it I was on ground; ground that didn't make a lot of angle with the sea.;)

 Coming back to the base after the rappel.

  
At 430 pm, everyone had finished rappelling. Once the organizers checked the count of people present, we set out for Pune. On the way, in Junnar, we stopped by at Anirudh's gradparents' home. After having some tasty poha and tea there, his granddad took us to a packaging factory they own. The person managing the place showed us around, and it was really impressive!

 After that, it was a non-stop drive to Pune, ending another memorable day and a great experience!

NB: The pics were taken from Kunal Shinde's picassa album of the same trek with rappelling conducted by the same club, Girivihang trekkers in 2009. The first pic was from another blog.

PS: This completes 3 on 'My White List'. :)

Duke's nose trek and valley crossing

On the 6th of this month, I went on a trek with valley crossing on the Duke's Nose which is situated in Lonavla. The trek was conducted by Trek'di, a trekking club I found on google when I was back in Mangalore. The valley was around 850m deep! And for 800 bucks I thought it was a good deal. And when I saw these two pics of the valley crossing on their site, I had no doubt about registering for it. :)


The biggest challenge for me was reaching the station at 6 in the morning, which meant I had to be up by 430! LOL! I could only manage to go to bed by 1am but somehow woke up on time and made it there.

We caught the 620 local train to Lonavla, and reached there at 0750. Some guys from Mumbai also joined us there. When we were walking towards the exit, I heard a couple of guys just behind me talking about Manchester United and Chelsea. I realised twas bcoz I was wearing a cap with 'Chelsea' logo behind it. Thats how I met Albes, Vamsi and Prashant who also work and stay in Magarpatta City. Their offices are next to the Amdocs tower.

We took a sumo from the station to the base of our trek. There we had our breakfast at a small restaurant stall. And after the breakfast, we had to sign an agreement which read "I am solely responsible for my safety and for any mishap during the trek and Trekdi isn't responsible for any of my actions." Everyone was so positive after that..hehe ;)

Then we started off. It was drizzling a bit. And was foggy all around. You could see only a 5 meter radius around you. We reached the top of Duke's nose pretty soon [took around 40 mins]. But the main part was yet to come.

From the top of Dukes nose, we had an awesome view. There were clouds below us. We could see rives, waterfalls far away. Well, we couldnt see them very well. They were just a few white lines among the green landscape below.

Can u see the cable across the valley?
click on the pic to see it

When we reached atop, the cables were being setup. There were two trees acting as the base anchors for the cable. And from there, the cable went to three different secondary anchors (just in case the tree got uprooted because of a really heavy guy ;) ). There was another cable too, connected in a similar way, for safety.

We were first shown a demo crossing by one of the organizers. After that, the participants started to cross one after the other. At midday, it started raining. For a couple of hours, it was ok to stand in the rain. After that, it wasn't very pleasant for sometime.:)

Ropeway to heaven

At four, I got ready to cross. The sky had cleared by then too. I got strapped and hooked to the cables; and was good to go. When I was crossing, I kept looking down. The ground was sooo far away; almost a kilometer down! And it was a great feeling to be hanging on a cable so high above. For the minute, I was crossing, I even forgot that I was scared of heights. :P

Looking at the ground far far below

It was over pretty soon. But I had one of the best 60 seconds or so of my life. The best so far was without any doubt the Bungee jump in the second year. :) Even though this was much higher than the bungee, I enjoyed the latter more; the feeling of free fall is totally different.

Below is the video of me crossing.

Next on the 'to-do list' : Rappelling on a waterfall. :)