प्रतापगड

।। श्री आशापुरी देव्यै नमः ।।

पुरणपोळी special.. प्रतापगड

प्रतापगड is accessible by road, right?.. yes.. so, you are now wondering, 'what is this article about?'.. let's explore.. together..

a few years ago, I too was equally surprised 😮 to learn about 'जोर - Arthur Seat' trek via Vinayak's status, when WhatsApp had just introduced 'status' as a feature.. but once anybody starts to get fascinated by the hiking fraternity, it's only a matter of time that activities, even of the magnitude of SRT start to come along as a normal routine.. automatically, we get to learn about various forts, discover different routes 👣 (including घाटवाटा), and then, one day, get acquainted with yet another hiking possibility to सिंहगड fort, from मोरदरी village, on top of at least 6 others already locomoted.. and once we gain know-how about these terrains, it's again, only a matter of time ⏱️ (can vary from 2-3 days to multiple years) that they migrate themselves from TODO 📝 to the list of DONEs ✅.. one such entry was प्रतापगड..

an year ago, we were in this same region, on our way from-to आंबीवली - चकदेव - शिंडी - महिमंडणगड - शिंडी - stay - वळवण - पर्वत - कांदाट - कांदोशी, one of the memorable 😇 and super-duper 👌 (range) trek (read a detailed post here).. while executing that, there were some discussions around a possible option of hiking प्रतापगड from this side.. and, that was the moment, when this article was destined 🤞..

few days ago, STF announced 📣 their tentative schedule for the next couple of weeks, and it took us no time 🤷 to decide what we will be doing during the weekend of 9-10 April.. when bookings started, they were for an event spanned over the entire weekend.. if travelling this far (from पुणे), indeed it needs to be a multiple day event, as I sometimes emphasize in my articles, RoI is an important factor in anything and everything we execute.. but some unwitting factors popping-up had the schedule reduced to a single Earth rotation on its axis 🌏 (दो का एक).. what was supposed to be the first was still the first ☝️ (and only) day but on a different day of the week(end) and what was supposed to be the second day, could not slide itself out of the TODOs, मधू-मकरंदगड.. इतक्या लांब जाऊन फक्त एकच दिवस सह्याद्रीच्या कुशीत घालवायचा म्हणजे चोत्तो हिरमोड तर व्हायचाच होता 😟.. कोई नई, I also keep repeating 🪃 this in my articles, "there is always a next time" 🙃..

10 April 2022

on the eve of the d-day, we started our overnight journey from पुणे to the starting point of this range trek, कुडपण बुद्रुक village, about 27 kms from पोलादपूर, via वरंधा घाट.. when we alighted at पोलादपूर (~50m above MSL) for a tea-break, it was disappointingly कोकण hot, considering the timekeeper was pointing just around 4 🕓.. instant worrisome thought lingered 'आत्ताच इतकं उकडतंय तर सकाळ झाल्यावर भाजूनच निघू'.. marching ahead, we were thankfully 🙏 now driving to a higher elevation.. Google Maps absconded today, as we failed to spot a motorable घाट road on the verge of परसुळे ZP school (GMaps location).. fortunately, an oldie came to our rescue signaling us to reverse a kilometer and left (GMaps location), where Google Maps actually shows a dead end after a while towards South ⬇️.. perplexed 😳, we dared, only to be relieved 🤗 after spotting a milestone "कुडपण बु. ५" in some time.. and soon, we were driving on an unmapped road, giving us momentarily a proud feeling 🤘 of knowing more than Google.. 

today's confusions, (out)sourced by Google Maps meant the preparations towards starting our activity of gaining elevation by feet during wee hours 🔦 were all beaten hard and we were set to suffer soon in the scorching heat ☀️.. when the bus was parked, it was the end of first प्रहर of the day 🕕.. after toast-with-morning-tea ☕ break coupled with instructions, we could only start the recording of the trail at 07:30 a.m. 🕢 from about ~620m above MSL..

pineapple in pink

भिवाची काठी - a mini कलावंतीण or लिंगाणा.. a standalone pinnacle rising above the adjacent valley with महिपतगड range in the background, approximately half a km from the starting point in the opposite direction of today's destination, प्रतापगड..

भिवाची काठी

back to the starting point, we were soon doing a k2s kind of thing, ascending the first hill before continuing on to relatively gradual terrain.. the first halt was duly accompanied by forest delicacies, रान-मेवा 🤤, in the forms of अंबोली and तोरणं..  in the South-East ↘️ was मधू-मकरंदगड, closest for today, as route to our destination was North-East ↗️ from here.. things went slightly south ☹️ (mood wise) when we saw the biggest spoiler of any hiking activity in front of us - a tar road.. everybody was like, 'what?.. 🥺 there is nothing here that needs a transport facility.. then, why ruin our pursuit of happyness?'..

मधू-मकरंदगड in faint shades, left-center

and now the guide goofed-up.. following the tar road, we had detoured by more-than-enough margins from the clearly marked trail on the AllTrails app, which was supposed to go along the ridge of this range, straight to प्रतापगड.. continuing on the same (detoured) we were exploring the possibilities to turn right 👉 and get back on the track.. at some distance, we spotted a hut 🛖, where another oldie agreed to join us and help navigate to the ridge.. but, by then, more than half of us were already penetrating through the woods 🎋 on their way towards the ridge.. parted in 2 groups, we were now separately marching towards a common destination, creating a lot of chaos, that was absolutely not necessary 😬..

when we reached the end of this hill, we had the first larger-than-life view of प्रतापगड, depicting its amazing frame from this side, much bigger than observed from the opposite side, experienced twice ✌️ before today by tar road, once in 2005 and then in 2007.. soon we were all back together, and had started filing in concert along the paved path, without any more, even remotest possibilities of losing hold of the track..

प्रतापगड

the clock was now reading 11 🕚 and everybody had started wondering about the purpose behind the 'things to carry' bullet 'packed breakfast'.. spotting a tree, big enough to throw away shadow for at least two of us, me and Vaibhav decided to not go any further, before we finish off whatever we were carrying under that bullet - पराठे, apple 🍎, खाकरा.. 

at 12:30, we reached the smaller रामवरदायिनी temple.. from here, there was an option to divert to the bigger रामवरदायिनी temple at the base village.. while most of us continued to the fort, few of us also decided to call it a day 🛑.. as they shared their water bottles with us, we were on our way towards the remainder of the plan.. in no time, we were fortunate enough to spot a chameleon, posing only to be snapped by us..

credits: वैभव

we are all aware that अफजलखान was assassinated at प्रतापगड.. this fort even has his tomb ⚰️ at its South-East end.. our initial plan was to descend to पार village from there.. but then the localites told us that the area is restricted 🚷 and nobody is allowed to trespass that.. so, after exploring the main areas on the fort, we were on our way back to the base via the same route, we used to reach till here, where we already had spotted a diversion 👈 that we were sure, would take us to the arranged transport 🚌 back to पुणे, 18.6 kms 👣 feet distance away from the morning's starting point..

रामनवमी निमित्त पार गावातल्या रामवरदायिनी मंदिरात 🛕 आज महाप्रसाद होता आणि menu मध्ये होत्या पुरण-पोळी म्हणजे I should not have spoiled it any further by extending this article by even a single word.. but on our way back we went to acknowledge the architectural skills from 350 years ago, a शिवकालीन दगडी पूल 🌉 on कोयना river, that is still intact, and will be standing strong for ages to come..

शिवकालीन दगडी पूल