28/06/2016
Trekker's Diary #1
Trek to Kalsubai:
This trek was special for us because of two reasons:
1. Despite the unexpectedly slippery ground and the extremely large height of the mountain(1.6 kms) all of the trekkers reached the top fairly quickly(about 3 hours) and the youngest one was in the 8th standard.
2. We never got such an amazing response before ( way to go Trekker's Adda ;) )
Most of us started at CST station(some at Dadar), catching the 12:14 train to Kasara and surprisingly we reached Kasara at more or less exactly 2:55 am, it's amazing how punctual trains can get at night.
After reaching Kasara, the first thing we did was introduced ourselves to everyone and headed towards Bari village, which serves as the base camp for Kalsubai by a Sumo, a Jeep and I think what was a Bolero, packing almost 12 people in a car.
Reaching Bari village, we had to wait outside the resting point for about half an hour because the base village can get pretty crowded during the monsoons.( Later we came to know that there were almost 400 people trekking with us that day)
We entered by 5:30 and after having breakfast we started the trek around 6:30.
A light drizzle greeted us as we started the trek and the majority of us, wished only if we had brought our sweaters, because it was quite cold(and nature was like ' duh wait till you reach the top😂')
The first 20 minutes was easy climbing. Then came the big slippery challenge.
Because of the constant drizzling, the mud had become so slippery that it was hard to get a grip. The rocks were our only support and so we moved slowly till we reached a sort of flat top, it was quite a relief reaching there, but then we came to know that is was not even 10% of the trek, the relief sort of evaporated(I didn't get a proper word, sorry😅 )
We then started climbing from there towards the top after some rest. Thanks to the trek-side shops on the way, we were able to get ourselves refreshed all the time.
The same slippery mud patch continued till we reached the stairs, which made life easier for us.
The view from the stairs itself was so amazing, we began to wonder how it would be from the top. We kept climbing the stairs till we reached patches where it was too difficult to climb via normal rock climbing.
That's when the Tourism department, Government of India pitched in and with the help of the locals build the ladders which helped us climb the hard patches.
As we grew closer to the top, the wind started getting increasingly strong, the weather started getting colder and the fog started getting denser.
This trek was more like a test of endurance and stamina than your rock climbing skills, because let's face it 1.6kms is not a joke, it's almost Everest divided by 5.5. We were almost parallel with the clouds and we were shrouded in fog from all sides and a fall from that height, you wouldn't even know whether he's alive or not due to the fog.
Although it took a little bit longer because of the long waiting due to the 350 odd people who were with us that day, well we can say that worked well because we had ample time for resting.
Finally after 3 grueling hours and God knows how many stairs and ladders we reached the top , the view was covered with fog and with winds of around 80-90 kmph smashing us in the face( No I didn't have a speedometer, just a guess) and temperature of around 10-15 degrees, it was quite thrilling.
For a few seconds when the clouds moved giving us a peek at the view below,it was absolutely divine, Atleast I have never seen a view like that!
After spending some time there we came down and had Chai and Kanda Bhaji😁💓
Some people also had the privilege of eating Maggi, I feel sad for those who didn't .
The descent was pretty easy, initially it was a bit tough owing the fog and the slipperiness but after that it was quite easy.
We took around 2 hours for the descent and all of us reached base camp by 3:30 pm
We had lunch prepared by the locals and made our way back to Mumbai by 4:30.
We took the 6:18 CST local and reached Dadar by 9, from where everyone bid farewell and took home a little parcel of sweet memories called
Kalsubai.
All in all it was amazing to finally say that I have scaled the highest peak in Maharashtra!❤
P.S : We need better photographers with us next time.
