Kothligad Fort Trek

Also known as Kothaligad/ Peth fort. First a brief description.
Base Town: Karjat (well conected by rail/ road)
Base Village: Ambivali (150 metres)
Height: 620 metres
Difficulty level: Moderate (but somewhat dangerous in monsoon)
Time: 1 day trek (Although we took 3.5 hours for ascent and 3 hours for descent for various reason;  I think it can be accomplished totally in 5 hours)
Food: At Ambivali you can get food at Sawant's house (the first house when you take turn to get into the village). At Peth, Sawant's brother does the food arrangement. 
Accommodation: There is accomdoation available in Peth village.


Route: Vashi --> Panvel --> Karjat --> Ambivali --> Peth --> Kothaligad

1. Vashi --> Karjat was covered by State Transport bus. (about 2 hours)
2. Karjat --> Ambivali village, we hired a 6 seater (or TumTum as i colloquially used). Note that it is important to hire for entire day......as there is no means of transport available from Ambivali. He took Rs. 900 for dropping us at Ambivali and then taking us back to Karjat. (Time: 1 hour)
3. Ambivali --> Peth village is a hilly ascent; although long but is made easy bcoz of the stony path that has been laid for the villagers. (2 hours)
4. From Peth, the steep ascent begins to the mount of Kothaligad. (1.5 hours)

Now for the detailed description.

If you ask my body, how was this trek; it would complain about a 1000 things. As am writing this post, most of the body is aching. Of course the mind has exactly opposite views.

Home to Ambivali village:

Originally 11 of us had planned for this trek and reach Karjat by public transport. But on the trek day; we got split into groups of 7 and 5. 

The G7 of which I was a part met at Karjat at about 09.30. Tanmay, Jiten and I came by S.T. while Dileena, Gayatri, Tejasree and Suyog by train.

From there Suyog, our guide, bargained with a 6 seater driver and settled for Rs. 900 (for drop and pickup to Ambivali village). It took nearly an hour to reach the base village. There we had tea at Sawan'ts house and then started with the trek at 11.00

The G5 were coming in a car and lost their way to come till Karjat. They reached Ambivali by about 12.00.

First view of the destination:

Ambivali village to Small Plateau:

Although this is a long climb, it was made easy by the stony path that has been laid down as a connecting road between the two villages.

The road is not that steep because it is winding one much like the roads while climbing a ghat.

It was somewhat hot because it hardly rained during this part.



Much of the path is lined with the mountain on one side and dense monsoon vegetation on the other. Wherever there is a clearing of vegetation you can get good views of the surrounding greenery. The higher you climb, the better the views.

Some waterfall on the way......to bad it was not accessible:

Some flora and fauna:

         

         

 Small Plateau to Peth village:

This place offers one of the spectacular views in the entire trek. This is the first time you will get to see the mount.

The mount is almost continuously engulfed by cloud cover.

Only if you are lucky will you get to see any views; because there is continuous cloud movement at this point.

This is nearly the last point where we clicked photos. It had started raining heavily and most of us had to keep our cams packed. Very few photos were clicked later on.

This part of the trek was also most enjoyable. It is mostly a flat walk with very little ascent.

We were continuously engulfed by rain and cloud cover reducing visibility to a few meters.

The wind was blowing like hell and howling like that of a horror night.

Later part of the walk towards the village was an entirely flat walk. There were many rain-filled ponds and paddy fields on the way; the greenery pleasing your eyes.

Peth village to Kothaligad fort:

Cactus with such dense leaves.....seen for the first time:



After arriving at Peth, we first ordered for food be prepared by the time we returned from the fort.

Then we started with the final ascent. I saw the first next door view of the mount and mentioned to Dileena that the height from here looks like that of Koraigad fort even after we have trekked for so long.

Anyways, we started the steeper path of the ascent through dense forest vegetation.

After climbing for some time; you will arrive at an extended part of the Peth village. A little higher from here offers a splendid heavenly view of a green plateau.

The light green is grass while the dark green are paddy fields.

Much of the trail after this is slippery; watery, windy, mossy, muddy and a walk in the clouds.

Thankfully, we did not get lost at all because of Suyog.

Hardly any photos in this part except that from Tanmay's cam. For some reason, he didn't care much about his cam.

This was the part in which my legs gave up; cramps had occurred (shows how little stamina I have). Somehow started along by applying Relispray thanks to Jiten.

Also, I had broken the record of most slippages from Dileena by a huge overwhelming margin. Even Tejashree, for whom this was the first trek, did not have any problems.

The first signs of fort will be the nearly worn out walls and one gate.

One advise: Please don't feed the dogs at this point however tempting some may find it. They cause a big nuisance by blocking the already narrow and dangerous path.

Somewhat before the final lap, on the right side there is a sole cannon left of this fort.

And a little ahead towards the left are caves from very ancient times having carving on pillar.
Carvings inside the cave:

The final lap is through a hole in the mount.
Dileena looking through the entrance:





Emerging inside the entrance:

The mount:


On the top, we got views for a very short duration. It was mostly raining heavily with extreme cloud cover and chilly wind blowing.

Jiten in samadhi......come rain or wind.....his penance cannot be disturbed:





As usual, thinking of jumping:

The Descent:

We started our descent after spending about 15 minutes on the top.

Applied a lot of Relispray that Dileena had bought. Thankfully, no issues occurred after that.

I just casually mentioned to Dileena we might bump into Ashish while descending. After a while we met the G5, with Ashish overjoyed and shouting. This was the only point in the trek where we met.

The descent was fairly easier than the ascent though we thought it would be much worse than ascent.

We continued the descent, with me slipping all the time at just about any place. Even Tejasree who had worn sandals for trek, did not slip.

We reached Peth village in about an hour. Had lunch at Sawant's home. Food here is good enough and if I could eat it probably most people can eat it.

After lunch, we started back to Ambivali at about 16.45. Although there wasn't much rain during descent, didn't have much time to click since we were quite late and hence had to haste.

We reached Ambivali back at about 18.00.