Greetings Steemians! In this one and the next few blogs, I will take you guys through one of the most memorable trek I have ever done as a trek leader, the Trans Sahyadri trek in the Sahyadri ranges in Maharashtra. This trek is so memorable and close to my heart because of the fact that my role model, mountaineer Arjun Vajpai was the special guest on this trek.
Arjun Vajpai is one of the most active and the most spoken about mountaineers from India right now. He climbed Everest at the age of 16 and he holds the world record for being the youngest person in the world to have climbed 5 peaks above 8000m. He is the reason to why I am trekking today and it was a dream come true to be on a trek with him. Everyone who had joined the trek were a fan of Arjun. It was going to be one hell of an experience for all of us.
The trek was going to be of around 150km spanning over 9 days passing through some of the highest, toughest, and untouched and the most beautiful range of Sahyadri. Our trek was to start from Kalsubai peak, go through the forests connecting Ratangad and Harishchdragadh, descent on the other side and go up Gorakhgad, then onto Bhimashankar via Siddhagadh. These are some of the most beautiful treks around and usually, they all are done individually and never together. After a lot of research and exploratory treks, I was able to connect them all. If we pull this off, this would be the longest trek that would ever happen in Sahyadris.
Day 1:
The group gathered at our meeting point in Dadar at 11pm on 4th November. I could see on everyone’s faces how happy they were to meet their role model, Arjun. From South India to North India and to east, we had people from all across India. It’s always good to meet people who share the same passion as you. We boarded a private bus and we headed to our first trek Kalsubai, the highest peak in Maharashtra state. We arrived at around 2am at the base village called Bari and took shelter at a villager’s home till sunrise. It was quite cold in the night. After a quick breakfast, we began trekking. It would take us around 3 hours to reach the top and almost the same to descent
I had been to Kalsubai at least 10 times before this but this time it was with my role model. Throughout our trek he kept us enthralled with stories from his expeditions. He is also a motivational speaker so he knows how to use his words well to keep people engaged.
The trek goes through some beautiful forests, open plateaus and some really steep terrain. As it was our first day, a few participants were having a hard time but soon they found a comfortable rhythm to walk in. Towards half way, we come across series of steel ladders, the most exciting part of the trek.
After crossing the ladders, you see a summit which you think is the final summit but once you reach there, you see another summit and then the real one.
This mind game gets really frustrating towards the end but before you know it, you are climbing the final ladder leading to the summit. Once you are at the top, you’ll be rewarded with some crazy views of surrounding valleys and mountains. There is a small orange temple at the top of the Goddess Kalsubai.
Kalsubai was the first ever trek I did after getting inspired from Arjun 7 years ago which got me hooked to this world and now I was standing on the same summit 7 years later with Arjun himself. I told him this story and I almost had tears in my eyes. It was a very special moment for me. A very important circle had come to an end for me.
Another very special thing happened on the summit. We started chatting with an uncle and he told us that he had a surgery in his abdomen and because of that none of his group members were willing to take him along to the trek. He had confidence in his abilities so he decided to come solo. That really impressed us. We mentioned about our 9 day Trans Sahyadri plan and his first reaction was ‘Can I join?’ We looked at each other in awe. We were more than happy to have him onboard but what surprised us was how excited and willing he was to join a group of strangers for a 9 day trek. But it was all in our destiny. The law of attraction gets people aspiring for the same things together. Soon he was a part of our gang.
We spent around 30 minutes on the top and clicked a few group pictures and started descending.
It was 11pm and we had to reach the village by 1pm. The sun had gotten very harsh by now and everyone was feeling tired. Me and Arjun kept people engaged with constant talking to distract their minds and within no time, we were down.
We all were very hungry and we were rewarded with some really delicious village meal.
We rested for a bit and we started heading towards our next destination Ratangad. Ratangad is also a prominent fort in Sahyadri’s and the base village is Samrad. It is around 20km from Kalsubai and we hitched a ride in a local tempo which carries luggage. It was such a fun ride through mountain roads and Ghats in the evening.
Upon reaching Samrad, we went far from the village and closer to Ratangad to find a good secluded place to camp for the night. Now the highlight of this trek was that Arjun Vajpai would be conducting lectures on various aspects of mountaineering, trekking, survival and of course on his experiences on some of the highest mountains in the world. This is what everyone was waiting for. I fall short of words when I go about describing that evening. It was one of the most inspiring few hours of my life, listening to Arjun’s experiences first hand in an intimate manner around campfire. It moved me and inspired me a lot from within. I could not sleep in the night. There was too much going through my mind.
Next day was going to be very interesting as we would climb Ratangad and do a 25km traverse to Harishchandragad in one day. The events that unfolded on Day 2 will never be forgotten. Follow on for the next blog and many more crazy stories. Cheers!