Monday, March 24, 2008

Kulang gad trek... Tough one








***
Dont try to read this whole blog in stretch! its looooooong !!! :p
visit many times and read is parts. it will feel more interesting!
Enjoy the Blog
-Nik
***


9.30pm, 14th march08


Seven of us assembled at dombivli rail station. Sushaant, Tanny n Charu were supposed to join at kalyan directly. Even at 10.30in night kalyan station was flooding with crowd ! We caught havda expresses for Igatpuri. After minor dhakka bukki the group of 11 managed to secure place in corridor near the door. Everybody rested at the floor. Few sat down on floor, few stood. And our regular(below waist) jokes, time pass n fountains of laughter begun; not having slightest idea about What were we going to face in next few hours..

Some time after kalyan, train halted at a signal. Some of us got down on the ground walked till next door & found that totally empty! Why all sit crowded only at one door?? So pavan,kau n charu got down the train n shifted to the next door n the train started again. I sat in door, enjoying cool breeze as the train caught speed. It Ran madly through pitch dark. To participate in talks I faced inside,..
I sat in door, feet resting at door steps, facing inside.
THAT FRACTION OF TIME IS ENGRAVED ON MY MIND !

suddenly ... Bang!!
My right leg was thrown up in the air!
I don’t recollect anything that happened in next 10seconds. I sat eyes closed, tightly crunching thigh. It felt like in full force, someone has hit a big hammer on my foot! . After some time i could actually hear friends talking to me..
Some worst thoughts made of forgot the pain. I thought my finger bones’ve been crushed to pieces. I could see whole life, past and future in those few moments. When train was in full speed, my foot was actually hit by some station flat form... When my senses returned,1st qn i asked,


“Is my shoe Red in blood???”

"NO" FROM FRIENDS GAVE ME COURAGE TO OPEN MY EYES...


Despite of hell lot of pain, I was happy that, my foot was not into pieces. happiest moment i will call it.
Sushant ,saurabh gave a light massage n i was slowly recovering from the shock!

Train reached kasara station. just the train had halted at platform ; kaustubh from next compartment, came to our compartment asking for bandage and some sophra cream.. But looking at his face, I sensed something serious! Picked up my medicine kit. all tried to stop me, but not paying heed, rushed to next compartment fully limping!
.
.
.

.
.

Agassh..scene was horrible !!!


charu sat there with cuts on both shins!!


Pair of RED socks lied in the basin… pavan had sacrificed his brand new socks to soak the blood.


Just like me; Charu too was hit by the platform!

Despite of the wound, Charu had controlled himself really well.(sports people are gr8! )
Did some basic dressing and soon we reached igatpuri.. Everybody got down. People in my compartment were shocked to know that there was another casualty! It was 1AM when we settled at the platform. stupid spectators started gathering.. Really hate that mentality.
Then it was time to find a hospital. Me,tanny,kau n charu came out of the station looking for a hospital. Doctor at the private hospital nearby refused even to open hospital doors for us!
And ironically that hospital was proudly holding a board of "24hours service”!!!

I had purposely made him walk just to make sure that there was no fracture.. It must have been great scene.. J Group of four walking at midnight on that desserted street, cracking utterly nonsense jokes while Two of them limping Badly!!! Hahaha
By the time we reached back to station some locals had gathered there n told us to go to municipal general hospital which was right in front of station. I called the whole group. sent tanny with charu to get the dressing done! Outside we just started discussing further plans, when i was called in the hospital.









Charu sat on bed,n Doc was cleaning his wounds. Sat next to him, holding his hand. Next 5min were really bad… The pain must have been horrible ! He gripped my hand very very tight as Doc started cleaning his wounds.. The whole episode lasted for 10mins and nice good looking white bandages settled on his shins.
The hospital people were so loyal to duty, they refused to take Single penny for the treatment! Forcibly handing over 50rp note, we left the hospital. it was 2AM and we had to spend time till 5am.so nothing better than rail booking office! Everyone spread their trek mats and had Tiffin dinner.

4.30am.. Now it was time to take decision. Whether to catch bus and go for trek or to catch train back to bombay. Being bit senior trekker, I was confident that i can trek with 1.5legs! But what about charu?? That guy was on very first trek of his life! I just told him, "only you know u can do it or not! if i were at your place, i'd have surely done it! I really don’t want you to miss this gr8 experience..."
.
.
.
He thought for a while n we all put sacks on shoulders n started to....
BUS STAND! Yessssssssss.. We were going ahead.

Till this moment, all this matter had made me forget my pain, but soon as we started walking to bus stand, it surfaced. Only thing on my mind was, "charu is through but how i myself am going to make it."

caught bus to Ghoti. took breakfast there n hired a jeep to Ambewadi ; the foot of Kulang gad. Whole night i'd not got sleep even for a second, so In the jeep i tried some YogNIDRA- A TECHNIQUE OF DEEP SLEEP. Its really refreshing..
Morning 8.30we landed at mountain base! lots hours had passed and i was hardly able to touch my right foot on ground.
In front of us stood a monstrous mountain range, covering half of the horizon! Alang,madan n kulang stood stout like kings, touching the skies...
Though it was a splendid sight, it pumped some adrenaline in my blood.. I was really tensed! Taking out crep bandage out, Sushant asked me to relax! In next few mins, along with some ointment, my foot was tightened in bandage!. On that i put the shoe! But this felt even worst than before. now it was paining even without walking! So i had on choice to use a stick as third leg... :-)

it was hardly 9.20am sun turning harsh...
We all had covered head and face with Talibani style cloth! Hehehe











After 7km walk, we entered a dense forest! This was one of the most beautiful forests, with bird chirps, cool shade, the typical woody aroma; this took away all the fatigue. then the actual climb began. As we were still in forest, even the heavy climb gradient, wasn’t tiring at all.
Suddenly i thought of my foot!! It was hardly paining! What you call this?? Mountain magic?
:-)














Corners of tanny's highly colorful head scarf stood straight up.. Making him look like a fat tomcat! Or BOKA!!!









On the way, we met a trekker who was on way back. I waited trying to get some info about the route. Susu,tanny n adi stayed back with me while rest of the group walked further. Our talks went on for couple of mins. by the time rest of the group went some 15min ahead.

After we done with talks, decided to take a shortcut, going vertically up through a dry waterfall path...so we could catch others fast. We confirmed this with the further group with our specialized signaling calls.
But we didn’t know this short cut idea was going to take us for a ride... We Were climbing over half hr, yet no sign of the actual trail. And Step by step the climb becoming steeper! Rocks were easy to climb, but now it ws all scree,(very loose slippery soil).only grip available was the thorny bushes on the slope! Even they would come off if we grip them harder! Turning back was impossible. Some how we made it till the actual trail. Though this shortcut was tough one, we were way too up on the actual trail!
From here, whole forest was visible. Through which the trail was coming up. we waited giving signaling calls to rest of the group. but not a single reply! It was over an hour we had parted! Tension started building up. Another trekker group whom were far behind us, reached up. When we asked them if they saw our group on the way, response was negative! Now this was really serious. They had lost the way! After trying thousand times, one mobile phone connected!
We didn’t know exactly where they were, nor did they know where We were... It was Only knowledge of directions, basic geography and topology that could help us!
Fortunately i stood on top of an exposed cliff, having whole terrain under site, n entire map In my brain. but in the lost group, only abhishek could've possibly understood the navigation co-ordinates i was going to give them.

...."we see a coal, think we have reached madan-gad" , started abhi.

I knew that was impossible !
They couldn’t have reached that far!

"do you see kalsu bai???" i asked..

"No!"

That was a problem.i understood that they had walked far back from the actual ridge. And they can’t see me at this moment!

"do you see bhandardara lake?"

"No".. Replied abhi.

Hushh i realized that they haven’t gone that far… the condition was still under control. Fortunately their location was tracked easily otherwise i was going to ask them to make fire n release signaling smoke! But jarurat nahi padi.

Gave direction co-ords to abhishek and asked him to backtrack till they see a Bright orange dot on top of ridge! (that is the reason I always wear THAT special gaudy orange tshirt on all treks)

By the time, I asked sushaant n other to reach caves n start with food preparations.

Standing on that cliff, flashing my own shirt...next half hour felt like half year! N finally we spotted each other.
Sigh of relief! But i guess not for me. The group below had missed the trail to climb the ridge.
So only solution was I climbing down that 800feet part and show
them the way up.
felt like crying aloud! Bloody i have to climb up this part ones again..
Naheee..
:-@

when i reached down at the junction, I realized that, trail was really confusing because of heaps of chopped bushes lying on the trail.
I gave them idea about the heavy gradient climb we've to do for next one hour. And again we headed to top. me with two sacks on my back.
This climb has many exposed rock phases... Over 2000feet of fall. In company of harsh burning sun. This climb was lifetime's toughest climb for many people in our group. Nothing wrong in that, because it really WAS!

The speed which all climbed was dead slow. On the way sat tanny giving away glucose. So nice..






finally got to the top!!!














sushaant n adi had a fire ready. so we emptied the packet into the pan. In 5min, tasty upma was ready to eat. We realized that there was no salt in upma but by the time, the pan was emptied to half. Taste hardly matters when you have scaled highest climb in maharashtra :-)

3.30pm. cool breeze n Tight tummies, so all were on verge of catching a nap! Yesterday i had not slept even for a second. So i knew if i sleep, no one would be able to wake me up at least for at least 6hours! So i took camera n left the cave for site-seeing. It was late noon but Sun was very harsh! In 10min i reached the western face. from here whole range fort was in sight right from kalsubai,alang and madan.








One very much peculiar thing i observed was, there is not a single tree on top! Hardly any bushes! Zero grass! Terrain is more like moon land. possible reason was the land made up just of small stones n hardly any soil. Every where it was so so sooo deserted !

Blowing winds,made some really scary sounds. Though it was DAY TIME,A FULL SUNNY AFTERNOON, don’t know why, but i was SCARED!
Hurriedly i walked back to caves. Adi sat outside listening music Everybody else fast asleep. This was the time i too couldn’t resist sleep...
....It was total dark, when i woke up shivering with cold. sun had already set. We had just 1hr of free time before dinner. The eastern face of fort was still unexplored.
Grrr...
Nobody was ready to come out from the cozy warm cave! Finally it was just two of us. Me and charu the injured duo :-)
we started walking to the eastern cliff. It looked closer but took almost 20min time! Bye the time we reached on top, the horizon was dark, except a faint blue border left after sunset! Stars were peeping in.. Down in the valley some small villages appeared like rangoli of the tiny light dots... At south east, was glittering water body of bhandar dara lake. The lights at the dam looked as beautiful as the marine drive.
Winds were turning colder n colder. I felt like waiting there but we had to return.

When we reached back, Rest of the team was busy cooking maggy for dinner.
Yumm… that was tastiest maggy i ever had on trek.





10pm.

tomorrow it was sushant's Birthday. We had a planned a nice surprise for him. “A birthday cake with personalized icing.”

And surprise for me was, there were two cakes instead of just one! As it was just a week to my Birthday! Did some really wacky icing on the cake. Can u imagine a cake with naked man's ass? Hahaha :-)


11pm.

Bed time. cold was unexpectedly high. so my injured foot had started throbbing. When i took of the shoe, it had swollen almost 1.5times of normal!
Fuck..
God knows How i am gonna trek down.
Like others, i was sleepy too. But I love just love to sit alone in mountains... When Its only wind what you can hear… in full silence... Staring into deep valleys.. Experiencing the darkness.. Feeling the tranquility..

So i came out of the cave and sat on a rock. Bright moon shined in the sky. one could go around even without torch light.
I was trying to enjoy the beauty of the dark. This is what i do at every trek.
...but something felt really wrong!
atmosphere was not pleasing at all !
I am never scared of dark, not of being alone.. But this time felt something startnge!
I really was scared...
My eyes were wet, soon tears rolled out!
This was something i'd never experienced before!
I thought ok, lets wait for some time n see... But this feeling went on increasing. Ruins of the fort structure looked spooky. Moon had lit the whole area. so this was surely not fears of dark! Yet Every stone, every rock even the moon looked weird..
To divert my mind, i tried giving miss calls to friends, but it hardly helped!
It was like whole surrounding was trying to talk to me..
Trying to tell me something..
Hairs on my hands stood straight..
I was never so sacred.
Something really wrong with this place..

I returned to caves...
When I talked this issue to others, some other people too had experienced something abnormal around.
As if someone constantly keeping watch on us…


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

16march: 6.30pm

Before leaving the place, it was time for some photography.








Today trekking down was going to be long stretch. We were already behind schedule. Bags were packed.









Half team went to refill the bottles. We the Injured duo started climbing down.

I was continuously monitoring my altimeter watch that was plotting a steep descend graph. Indicating the gradient! We were climbing down really fast but that was really painful for legs! Some part of the trail was at total mountain exposure. It was unexpected that even some of our regular members had vertigo feeling looking down in deep valley! But soon that part was over and we reached the middle plateau. Took first break. Sun'd come up and it was really getting hot! The saga of missing the trail continued.. :-) Last two kilo meter stretch was very very hectic! And hussh..


Exactly after four long hours we were back at village ambewadi... Thanks to abhishek's fast walk, we could catch the 11.30am bus back to ghoti. Trek was over and everyone was very eager to reach Bombay! To beat the heat and rest our tired bums till the transport was arranged, we went to USU JUICU bar.. :P In ghoti it was REALLY HOT! Even the tar on road was melting! i was shocked to see that thermo in my watch was displaying 40.1degrees!reached ghoti bus depot. few mins left for the bus to come. The range of kulang was visible. It was really hard to believe that we'd actually came down from that plz touching top!!! Suddenly, last 48hrs swept in front of my eyes. What not had happened... But despite of all the odds, we had bagged another successful trek.


Its indeed the love for the mountains that keeps alive the spirit within...