ONE DAY EASY YET REFRESHING TREK TO ROHIDA FORT.......

Hello folks,

Monsoon in 2015 is in full swing this year in Pune and surroundings. As is the case with my gang of trekkers, we usually do weekend travel and cover 7-8 fort treks each monsoon season mixed with 5-7 bike rides in between. That is a total trip count of 12-15 weekends in the monsoon season stretching from June to Early October.

Each year, we try to mix up the trekking experience. We cover newer forts, introduce new people to trekking, do night treks etc. This year, we decided that the first trek should be to a completely new fort which we had not covered in the past years. June 21st was also the first ever International Yoga Day. So I came up with an idea of doing Yoga on Rohida also known as VichitraGad..! And just like that, a plan was set.

There were 5 of us on the trek - Myself, Ashutosh, Anurag, Raunaq & Suraj. We decided to take our car instead of biking because it was raining rather heavily. Reaching Rohida is easy. We took this simple route -

Direction - 

1. Start from Chandni Chowk
2. Take NH4 bypass towards Satara
3. After about 37kms, reach Kapurhol (the village where there is Balaji temple)
4. Balaji temple goes to the left. We had to take a right towards Bhor (landmark is a HPCL petrol pump on the left; the road to Bhor is bang opposite to this)
5. A 15kms ride on this (good condition) road took us to Bhor (take a slight right to go inside the village at the Y junction here instead of continuing on the good road)
6. Once inside the village, we went through a narrow bad condition road for about a km or two to reach Shivaji Chowk (ask anyone for the road to MandharDevi or simply Shivaji Chowk in case one feels lost)
7. Rohida is about 7kms from this Chowk. Take the MandharDevi route and travel for 4kms to find an arch on the right. Take this right turn.
8. A further 3km winding route takes one to Bazarwadi. The base village for the Rohida trek.

A trek from this point is an absolute pleasure with light rain to keep company. It takes about an hour to reach the top of the fort. Most of the fort is in shambles, though one can see the ramparts are still in reasonably good condition. We observed that a private group is trying to restore many sections of the fort, particularly the temple of Rohideshwar. Kudos to their efforts.

Rohida

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Enroute to the top..!

The doors to the forts are in good condition. One of the doors has two beautiful elephants carved in stone on either side. Once on top & a quick darshan of Rohideshwar, we started exploring the fort. We couldn't see much owing to the dense fog and clouds & rain. There's not much to see anyhow except for one Buruj (rampart) on each corner of the fort. Standing on one of these and looking down on a sea of rain clouds is a surreal experience. Do try this..!

Rohida First Darwaza

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Few steps towards second Darwaza

Rained-out, Wind-swept, Trekkers on a Buruj

Another Buruj..! Ghostly! Awesome Weather!

On top of the world!

Following some silly antics & strange dancing in the rain, we decided to walk back down. Here I must mention a peculiar thing about this fort. It had the Strongest gusts of wind that I have ever experienced on any fort. What's more, the strong winds come from all directions almost forming mini-typhoons. Better have good grip footwear, especially during rains and ofcourse walk carefully.

The downhill trek is very easy. We indulged ourselves to a round of Yoga to celebrate International Yoga Day. A round of photography and some 'Gaonwaalo, Suuuiiiiccciiidddeee' drama on top of a water tank at the base of the fort and we finished the trek. We hardly broke a sweat on this trek.

The second Darwaza with the Elephant carvings!

Road to Nowhere???

Yoga Dudes!

Reach for the Sky..!

I would recommend this trek for beginners. Simply carry your own water & food and take standard precautions of trekking i.e. wearing good footwear, not indulging in foolish dares and/or rushing oneself too much. And the whole group will have a great time.

With a total distance of about 60kms from Chandni Chowk & a hour's climb, one can plan this as a relaxed one day trek.

Hope you enjoy your Rohida experience. Do share your thoughts/experiences here in the comments section..! Cheers folks..! The Trekking Season has begun..!