TREMALS - The Trekking Mammals

Chondeghat - Devighat Trek

Date : 18th Aug 2013

Participants : Imran Vasta, Subodh Bhave, Dhanidutt Bhat, Varun Bhosale, Pankaj Singh, Bhushan Shetty, Viraj Hadkar, Prashant Salian, Nikhil Karyekar, Kamran Shaikh, Shahebaaz Momin, Sanket Dalvi, Deepak Jagwani, Ashish Karmokar

A superb trek, jisme comedy hain, tragedy hain, thrill hain, emotion hain !!

Well, start of the week I had made myself available for the trek but from last couple of days before the trek, I was having hard time to decide between trek and office outing I’d made up my mind to ditch both plans, but thanks to last moment news – office plan was called off:) Immediately, confirmed my participation on WhatsAp (all are addicted to this app, so am I) to Imran.

Speaking of trek, plan was to ascend Chondeghat and descend via Devighat in the Ghatghar region. As per schedule, all had to catch first local to Kasara. It was a Bhaag Milka Bhaag moment for me to catch the train on time, as no rick was available early in the morning, and it would have been a near miss. Missing the train meant missing the trek – to which three proved it. The best part of the joke – one guy had set the alarm time as that of the train time which he needed to board from Vidyavihar station – ha ha ha ha!! Rest got along the train from their respective stations. So finally, 17 people made it to Asangaon from where we had already arranged for two Max jeep. Still waiting for the vehicles to arrive, we (namely Bhusy, Varun and myself) couldn’t resist the smell of the garma garam vada pav and chai coming from a nearby stall, so we slowly slipped in and fulfilled our taste buds and stomach. Few others too followed us. To our disgrace, a small verbal altercation was created by local rickshaw drivers who didn’t allowed us to board our vehicle from the starting point, which forced us to walk about half a km.

The group got adjusted in two vehicles and were on our way to Ghatghar Dam. The group comprised of regular trekkers and many newcomers. Few from Viraj’s group circle, and few from Prashant’s friend circle (in fact one was forced to join the trek, who I am sure would have cursed Prashant for d trek – kyu?? Aage pata chalega ). We started off the trek with small round of intro session, followed by trek plan. The starting point was Ghatghar Hydro Electric Plant which was quite fascinating and soon the cameras were in action. FYI, this plant is one of a kind, wherein water released from the dam is again pumped into the dam. Everyone chipped in to capture snaps of the dam and adjoining sceneries. At 8.00 am, we started our trek with ascend of Chondeghat which was a pretty descent climb, wherein everyone started with a lot of enthusiasm (especially the senior members by age – a catchy logo on one T’shirt speaks for itself – “Too energetic to be lazy”;). Along the way, we enjoyed couple of streams and had many snaps as possible. Soon we reached a plateau which was atop the ghat, where we rested for a while and had a view of the beautiful valley. This completed our first part of the trek. Interestingly, everyone felt this was a cake walk, and adding to this was Dhanidutt’s comment – Trek kiya aisa laga hi nahin !! Would have loved to hear his comment after we descended Devighat .

Next, we headed towards the Ghatghar village which was half an hour plain walk from the plateau wherein we had our packed lunch under a well-made shelter near Ghatadevi Mandir. Everyone enjoyed the menu –chapattis, vegetable, chicken, idli, bhurji, jilebi, cheese butter bread. There was a nearby picnic point which gave a great panoramic view of the region. As suggested by Subodh (trek planner) this trek was supposed to be an offbeat trek in remote area, but having observed the picnic crowd and well-settled village, Bhushan commented – “Ye trek mein kya remote hain”. Again, this was proved by the second phase of our trek. Everyone made sure to capture the scenic view in their camera to make their profile photo. Of special mention, everyone was fascinated about Viraj’s hair style which was imitating Mangal Pandey’s look. Strong wind, distant waterfall, beautiful valley view made a perfect place for picnic getaway. We had spotted out final destination from the top itself which was through a thick jungle and stony descend.

Here comes the most memorable part of the trek – after an easy ascend via Chondeghat, descend via Devighat proved to be a challenging part where many had slip/fall here and there, twice we lost and found our way. At first instance, we got on right track after a quick re-work, but the second mishap tested our endurance and experience which we proved to ourselves. We spent almost one and half an hour at a point searching for the right track. We tried all the possible trails in search of the correct path, but were disappointed as we were surrounded by river streams on two sides and mountain one side. Me and Bhusy too gave a try but didn’t succeed. To our amuse was Bhusy’s comment - “nadi ke raaste se jayenge toh basti milega” which he inherited from Bear Grylls - Man vs. Wild episode on Discovery channel. Doston – ye Sahayadri hain, na ki Bear Gryll’s ka US locations. Every path lead to a dead end, so we decided to move backwards to a small plateau – a point where quick plan was initiated by Imran, Dhani, Subodh and Prashant to find out the correct path. It was like – aadhe left mein jayenge, aadhe right mein jayenge, baaki sab jagah par rest karenge.

In the meanwhile, many thoughts began to run into newcomers’ mind – ye kaha phash gaye, aaj raat yehi pe kaatni padegi, and so on. Many called up their dear ones and updated their status. All negative thoughts were put to end when positive news came from Imran about the right track. Soon everyone moved along, and felt happy to be again on track.

While crossing the ghat we had a great laugh, Bhusy suggested to change the name of Devighat to “Imran Ghat” as he explored the route and saved us from the nightmare of getting lost in the jungle. Finally we spotted a local villager who guided us all the way to the village – Math, where our vehicles were waiting. We checked in one home and quickly changed to dry clothes and had a cup of hot tea offered by the villagers, and soon we were enroute to Asangaon and caught 8.35 pm local to Mumbai, and reached our sweet home safely.

Thanks to everyone for making this a memorable trek. Special thanks to Subodh, Prashant and Imran for planning this offbeat trek. Looking forward for yet another challenging trek.

Yours trekkingly

Pankaj Singh