2019- A year filled with amazing treks and trails, offbeat adventures, reading, travelling, success, failures and lots of beautiful sahyadri moments! And this trek to Prachitgad was surely a feather in it’s cap!
“Although I deeply love oceans, deserts and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty.” – Victoria Erickson
On 6th december 2019, we didnt even knew that we were going to complete one of the most amazing and strenuous treks ever.
After having a delicious dinner, we left Pune at 10 pm. Our bus went from Banglore highway, Mahabaleshwar, Poladpur phata and reached Sangameshwar taluka in the morning. We parked our bus at Chikholi gaon and visited Bhavanigad. Bhavanigad is a small fort situated in Chikholi gaon in Sangameshwar taluka. This small sized fort is covered with forests from all the four sides and is not more than half an acre in area. A beauteous Mahadev pinda grabbed our attention at the very beginning of the fort.
A clean and beautiful temple is situated at the top of the fort and includes idol of Shivaji maharaj and Bhavani mata. There is also samadhi of Pitambar Puri Baba on the fort. Prachitgad, Bhairavgad can be seen clearly from the top of this fort.
On our way to Prachitgad, we visited some beautiful ancient temples and even hot water streams. The sulphur content in the streams made the water so hot that it was not even possible to touch it by our bare hands.
Reached Shrungarpur village at approximately 12 pm. Kept our extra bags at our guides house. Left for Prachitgad with our guide- Vaman Mhaske at 1 pm.
Prachitgad is located on the boundaries of four districts- Sangli, Kolhapur, Ratnagiri and Satara. This fort is very famous for the thick Chandoli forest, its tremendous size and various types of wild life found in its surrounding area. It has 3 names- Prachitgad, Uchitgad and Ragwa. With its position slightly ahead from the main Sahyadri range, Prachitgad is joined to Sahyadri with a small khinda. Located on the mid western border of Chandoli, with an altitude of 3187 feet ASL, this trek is surely a conundrum for the trekkers.
Shrungarpur is a small ancient village at the base of Prachitgad. The main families residing here are Jadhav’s and Mhaske’s. When Shivaji Maharaj was surrounded by Siddhi Johar at Panhala fort; Suryarao Surve (ruler of Shrungarpur) and Jaswantrao of Palwan were helping the Moughals by fighting against Maharaj at the Vishalgad conquest. Maharaj had to fight with these two men before reaching Vishalgad. Maharaj captured Shrungarpur on 29th April 1669 and named the fort as Prachitgad. On 1st November 1676, Sambhaji Maharaj came to Shrungarpur at the age of 19 and wrote the Sanskrit grantha “Budhabhushan“. On 10th june 1818, the fort was captured by East India Company force led by Colonel Cunningham.
Before some years there were many routes to reach the fort; via Patharpunj, Bhairavgad, Chandoli, etc. But all these routes are now under Koynanagar Sanctuary buffer zone. So only one route is now available for a trekker which is from Shrungarpur village, where there is a huge ascent of 4-7 hours (depending on the climber) through thick forest, karvy thickets and scree with high gradient.
After walking for a few minutes, a white colored temple is seen. This temple is specially built for the Surve family by the local people of the village as it was not possible for every person to climb such a big fort and take darshan. This temple is of Bhairi Bhavani , which is the kuldevta of Surve’s. The next ascent is very steep with almost a sharpness of 70-80 degrees. Half of the ascent is completely covered with thick forests. The thick forest paths, Konkans humid weather and the sharp ascent forced our bodies to throw out every remaining drop of sweat inside it. No wonder the fort was checking our stamina from the very begining itself. We reached the top in approximately 5 hours.
At 4-5 places, broken stairs are replaced with ladders (which seemed to be even more risky at some point). After climbing the last ladder, we reached the north faced entrance gate of the fort. There is a crenelation at the right side of the entrance. This crenelation can be seen even while climbing the fort. This fort is a north-south facing fort.
After climbing towards north direction from the entrance there is a bhairi bhawani temple. 5 tofas are kept outside the temple.
There are 7 water tanks on the top of the fort. 5 of which have water worth drinking. A Wandar-tembha cliff which has got seperated from the fort is quite captivating.
There is not much space for a proper safe halt on the fort. Only one Indian Fig tree (umbar tree) is at the top, below which we can spend a night. After some rest and talks, wind started blowing at such a speed that it became impossible for us to cook anything or even sit and talk. So we all decided to sleep. A beautiful sunrise in the morning, lush green forests in the valleys and beautiful Sahyadri range made our morning memorable.
After eating delecious Khichadi and various variety of sweets we started our return journey.
The descent was equally tiring and difficult as the ascent. 70-80 degrees descent and scree made it quite difficult but the karvi thickets helped us a lot.
Reached the base of the fort in approximately three and half hours. Being completely rundown we decided to quickly refresh and start the next journey.
(After knowing the history of this area, the only thing which kept tearing my heart away was that how this tremendous Prachitgad fort must be feeling on it’s failed attempt to save Sambhaji Maharaj from the cunning Aurangzeb Emperor!)
We then visited ancient Karneshwar temple located in Kasba village. This is an ancient Hemadpanti style temple. It is so believed that Raja Karna from the Karvir dynasty established this temple almost 2000 years ago. There are no words of praise for the artists who had built this temple. The Karneshwar temple is one of the most beautiful temples I have ever seen. The area of the temple is filled with serenity. There are many beautiful carvings engraved on the temple. The ancient images of Shiva, Gods and demons, Yaksha, Kinnar and of different dancers are engraved on the walls of temple.
Without any further delay we started our return journey to Pune.
Sitting in the bus, staring at the darkness outside and thinking of the trek which I had the privelege to complete today, Kavi Yashwant’s poem came into my mind and I was speechless!
Kshitija Dhamne : Gypsy trekkers-exploring the unexplored!
Thank you for reading my blog. If you want to read my other trekking stories then click on the ‘blogs’ button in the menu section.
©TheOrophileYogi
Like, Comment and Follow!
Yours, Kshitija
No comments:
Post a Comment