Greetings Steemians! I have been trekking around India since the last 7 years and I have hiked and backpacked to some of the craziest and wildest places out here. From the mighty Himalayas to Sahyadri range around my home in Maharshtra to Aravali ranges in the deserts of Rajasthan to Satpura ranges in Madhya Pradesh and to rainforest of South India, I have had a glimpse into all of these. I have decided to start the series #HikeWithParth where I will take you guys through some of my experiences in these wild destinations.
In this blog I will take you guys with me into the gorgeous Sandhan valley which is also known as Valley of Shadows in the Sahyadri mountain range in Maharashtra. Sandhan Valley is also known as the Grand Canyon of India. It is situated in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra and the trek into the valley begins from a remote village called Samrad. Sandhan Valley is a deep gorge in a mountain which is carved by flowing river over millions of years. It is over 2000 feet deep and around 2km long. It is often referred to as one of the most beautiful and unique treks in Sahyadri range
It was November 2017 and we were beginning our 9 day long Trans Sahyadri trek from Sandhan Valley this year. We were a team of 13 people and we started for Samrad from Mumbai at around 11pm in a private vehicle. There was a lot of singing and other games along the way. It took us 4 hours to reach Samrad and everyone was awake the entire way.
(excuse the blurred picture)
Upon reaching the base village, we slept under the open skies until the sunrise and got geared up for the trek after breakfast. We had an introduction and a briefing round before the trek began to make the participants understand the trek route, do’s and don’ts and basic mountain manners and then off we were into the gorge.
The trek is a full descent with water crossing, huge car sized boulders to be negotiated, rappelling, caving and walk through river beds. As soon as the descent begins in the gorge, we come across neck deep water. The water is very cold and it takes a lot of guts to cross it. We all had huge rucksacks and they needed to stay dry so we decided to stand at hands distance next to each other in the water and pass the bags over our heads. It was so much fun to work as a team where someone is slipping on wet rocks and where others are shivering in the cold water.
There are a couple of similar patches of water to be crossed in the first 30 minutes of the trek. Once this is done, a steep descent through huge boulders begins. It is very tricky at some places and one needs to take each step with utmost precision or else game over!
After an hour of descent through the boulders, we come across a huge 80 feet cliff where the only way to get down is to do rappelling. For many in the group, it was their first rappelling experience. We gave them a demo on what equipment’s are used, how the body posture should be and how to rappel down.
This rappelling patch has an overhang section which means after a point, the legs won’t touch the mountain wall. Many participants panicked at first but once they got a hang of it, they enjoyed the entire process.
The real thrilling part of the trek is to begin now. There are a couple of waterfalls along the way that has to be rappelled into. It was almost 2pm and we were only half way through the trek. At this pace it would have taken us till night to reach the campsite. I took a call and decided that on all the further waterfalls, we would improvise and get down the waterfalls by just holding on to ropes, thus saving a lot of time. Obviously it was a well calculated decision taken upon judging everyone’s capacity and my faith in them.
Although throughout the trek, passing of the bags was a real challenge and we came up with some really creative ways to pass the bags. On one particular waterfall, we created a zip line to attach the bags and pass them on the other side and it worked out very well.
By now everyone was exhausted and all we could think about was reaching the camp and just unwind. The final 2 hours drained us a lot as there were a lot of tricky sections to negotiate but we helped each other through it and got too the campsite. As soon as we reached the camp, we did some stretching and cool down to relax our muscles and joints who had worked tirelessly throughout the day.
Bhaskar bhai, our head guide got into cooking and made some delicious biryani for us. That reenergized us real quick. We all ate like this was the first and our last meal, though we had earned it after a lot of hard work throughout the day.
As the sun was going down, we collected some firewood and made a campfire. As the night progressed with some stories and talks, we started barbecuing some chicken on the fire. Food made on raw campfire tastes out of the world. We retired for the night soon as it had been a long and a tiring day for all of us.
A lot more adventure awaits in the upcoming blogs. Follow on and be a part of my journey. Cheers!