मोरगिरी

।। श्री आशापुरी देव्यै नमः ।।

मोरगिरी.. the lost frontier or ?

One of the many ways to identify climb-able mountains ⛰️ is 1. to use Google maps 🗺️ in Terrain mode. 2. If a peak is surrounded by marked roads in two or more directions, there are high chances that it also has a trekking route paved to the top. 3. If there is no pin 📍, zoom in to check if Maps reveals more. 4. Learning about options (if there are multiple) and to work out a starting point🏁 then needs a bit of blog surfing, which also helps in realising if it is technical (needs ropes / helmet / harness etc).

One such discovery, a ruined fort, was lesser known मोरगिरी 🦚 in Lonavala region.

31 March 2019

Sujeet asked if the fort will not be a difficult grade, and can consider Advit (his 4 yr old young son) too. Will be a stupid waste to discuss and question his endurance 💪. Suggesting him based on my blog learnings, Karle family and couple of more joined for the adventure. Next time, when you read 'discovery' / 'adventure' like words, you'll know what I mean.

After the bumpy ride till the base at south of the fort (almost all the mountains have this unwanted feature - bumpy roads), we parked at a farm house 🏡 and kick-started. While all was good till we reached / climbed half of it, we least knew better was yet to come. Sarcasm! 😜

Came the traverse and we took left / went in the West direction, strictly according to the trodden route, downloaded from one of the blogs. Failing to observe an anticipated diversion to the top, even after going a few extra steps 👣, we gave up on West and opted for a U-turn ↪️. Time was to check for an open door in the East. We failed and gave up again. For some time, we rested on an open ground, Chhaya rightly suggesting, gazing at the waving flag 🚩 at the top, teasing and provoking us at the same time.

Definitely, we did not yet / never wanted to give up on the way to top 🆙. So, it was time to pull-up the socks 🧦 and explore. Redoing the West, diverting from the point where we were earlier / now expecting a diversion to the right, we decided to discover our way to the top, no matter what. Through the trees 🌳, their dangling branches and thorns, webs. After a while came the ascend without any sight of a walk-able option as we were surrounded by nothing but stick-like, dried-up, Strobilanthes Callosa. Ok, let's keep it simple - कार्वी. 🎋

With a Never Give-Up attitude, began the adventure through those white pegs, having Advit repeatedly moaning, मला हा गड नाही आवडला. After battling through the stems, we found ourselves over the East ridge, which means it was time again to go West towards the top. The ridge was relatively easier. Please note the use of word 'relatively'. 😉

Now we were facing a 20+ feet rock patch, another geographical structure not having a walk-able / climb-able option. Rahul and his height 🗼 managed to climb it, but was it worth it? Was there actually an option to descend from the West side (which we had missed earlier today)? After sorting it out, he pulled-up rest of us, one after the other. Soon, we were atop and celebrated the triumph 🏆 with शिवगर्जना.

In this all chaos, a friend on a short US trip was getting all notifications about our proceedings. Keep wondering why? I still am. 😏

Descend was (again) relatively easier, but still required cautious efforts negotiating the rocks, loose soil and Strobilanthes Callosa. After the descend till the traverse, realising where we had lost it, the U-turn we did, was hardly 10-15 steps away. 😢

Directly jumping to the end of story now. During all this, none of us got physically injured even in the slightest manner, which was an achievement 🥳 in itself after all the adventure we had. Only thing we lost was Yojana's bottle 🍾 full of besil seeds (सब्जा) soaked in water, and the time ⌛, which meant we had to drop our next activity involving तुंग fort (कठिणगड).

All is well, that ends well जे म्हणता ते हेच. 🙃

PS: If you ever wish and plan मोरगिरी (from south), when at traverse, keep going left, till you observe a small white signboard indicating 'go right'. Hope, it is still there.