Rajmachi : Durg Sahitya Sammelan 14-15 Feb 09

Last weekend been to my favorite second home, Rajmachi! The occasion was first Durg Sahitya Sammelan. To listen to Shri. Babasaheb Purandareji live was unique experience!!! Also first time clicked Rajmachi with my D80 camera. Few snaps clicked by Bipin..yes with me Tushar, Bipin Mehta, Harshal Mahajan, Ranjana Dudhalkar & Shriram Joshi were there to trek from Kondane village.
Here are snaps...
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/570224345DUtXdv

Dhak Bahiri Feb 7, 09

On Friday, Feb 6, 09 we left by Sanju's Sumo for Sandashi the base village of Bahiri caves. After two hours journey we reached the village and slept in the school varanda.
We asked the very first house when we enter the Sandashi, to make tea and snacks and also for guide. The alarm rang at 4:30am but it was very chilled so none of the trekmates were ready to get out of the sleeping bag. Finally all got ready and went to have tea and 'pohe'. We had to wait for guide for an hour so again all started craving for sleep. At 7am, once guide came we started our trek towards caves. The path is beautiful as its goes through jungle. The guide took us through the path which goes towards waterfall side and to back of 'Kalakrai' pinnacle. The stromy wind made just impossible to stand steady in the pass. As if there is no way and only valley front of you or as if you are going to descend down the valley. But once we started we could do it cautiously and safely till the start of traverse.
It was like one adventure after the another. Where and how we are going? you can see the starting path and can walk smoothly but then the actual rock traverse starts and you have to be very careful about your hand holds and foot holds. The two organisations from Pune, Vedh Sahyadricha and Safe Climbing Initiatives (SCI) have fixed bolts here where you can catch by your hand and just take foot holds. So now its become little easy to cover the traverse. After traverse the climb starts but its easy compare to traverse as you have to climb the verticle steps and then you have rope and wooden support for ascending till cave.
Ooff, you feel really thrilled when you look down and see from where you have come... We took three and half hour to reach the cave with all breaks including drinking 'Madi' from villager, on the way.
We all had our pack lunches and also enjoyed sandwiches made by Nivedita and Apurva. Carrots, oranges and cucumber is must when you are doing this type of climb.
Sanju carried all that weight in his sack for all of us. After half n hour sleep at 1pm we started descending as Chetan was warning from the start of the trek the rock was really hot. Looking down the fall made scary to Nitin but then Mangesh came and helped him to descend and finally the last person, the guide reach the stright base of the rock patch after half an hour. Yes, instead of again crossing the traverse we decided to descend straight down. From there we hault at place where there is remnants of temple of God Bahiri. Here again we had salad and desert, Puranpoli by Makarand Bapat. Trek hard eat harder is nowadays funda of unit's treks.:)
From there we took three hours to reach village. There is a water source before plateau which guide showed us but it was just small stream which will last only for a month.
After coming back to village we got freash up and had hot tea which was badly required after straining trek. How will we miss 'Vada-Pav' for any trek in Karjat region?
At junction, we had 'Vada-Pav' and then zoomed by Sanju's driving or rather racing skill...

Here are some pics by Mangesh Sannake, Makarand Bapat, Apurva Barve & Snehit Joshi.
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/570148771jhlXBr