On 26th April, I had my first trek in life. It was a trek from Katraj to Sinhagad night trek. It is roughly 20 km, and you have to cross a 7 mountains and a few hills.
We were 12 people and we started the trek by boarding the bus from Swargate to Katraj. We were all loaded, we had with us heavy bags filled with water bottles, bananas (because nothing gives energy like a banana), glucose packets, biscuits and torches. At roughly 9.45 PM, we reached Kartaj Old Tunnel, which is the starting point of the trek. We started the trek, and it was pretty amazing and easy at first, it was mostly a walk over the hilltops. And that is how this trek is, there is no tough trekking part, its just that it is a very long trek. One of us, Kaushik, had already done this trek before, and we estimated that we’d reach the Sinhagad fort by morning before sunrise.
We had chosen a full moon night so that we could see easily in the dark. We climbed the first small hill, and then we could see the red beacon, our target. In the whole trek, you can see the tower on Sinhagad fort with red beacon on the top, which is like the Pole Star of the trek, there is only the beacon to measure the direction and decide the path. There we took our first break, we sat for some time, and then continued going.
The trek is supposed to be fairly very easy, but it took a very dangerous turn for us, because we went on a wrong path. There was a path, from where we were supposed to go to the right side and climb the mountain in a straightforward and easy path, but in the fun and frolic and the mood of the trek, we took the wrong path. There was a narrow road circumventing the hill, and we started walking on the road. As we continued walking, the road got narrower, and at some point, the road came to a dead end. So instead of going back and finding a new route, we thought we should climb the mountain from there itself. So, we looked up, it was may be 500-600 meters ascend, and, from the look of it, looked pretty normal.
As we started to climb the mountain, the climb got a bit trickier. It was a 60-70 degrees slope, and the toughest part about it was that, there was nothing to hold on to. We struggled a lot to climb, and at some point of time, the struggle to climb became the struggle to survive. There was mostly mud on the slope, which we cannot hold on to, so as we climbed up, there was a risk of slipping and falling down into the valley, and that would mean only death.
We climbed by holding on to anything we could get, sand, rock, trees and even thorns. It hurt a lot, I could see blood running from my hands when I tried to pull myself up grabbing a trunk of a small bush that had lot of thorns. But, I did not feel the pain, because if I did not climb up, there was no way we could climb down, the descend would be uncontrollable and we would slip down and fall into the valley. Some of us made to the top, including me, and then we realized the grim reality - some of us are still far down and, from the look of it, they were stuck.
We people at the top tried to help them by highlighting the paths with the torches, and then slowly people started climbing up. First 2, then 5, then 6, then 9. 9 people climbed the hill with nothing but sheer determination. And then we realized, Shafi had slipped down and just grabbed on to a tree and was sitting on a rock, he was in a state of shock and was just sitting there not speaking anything. And Vishal was just hanging with Kaushik holding him, he had no energy left in legs to push himself up, he was neither in a comfortable state where he could sit and gain his strength.
We were all in a state of shock, Tejas thought we should call the police and get us somewhere safe, let alone complete the trek. But in such a remote place, there was no cellphone signal, and even if we managed to get one, where should we tell the police to come? As the people at the top were thinking all this, we were surprised to see Shafi climbed up from another path and suddenly appeared on the top and cried for help, immediately I, Harshad and Tejas went there and pulled him up. He had done an amazing feat by climbing on a path, having torch in his mouth and not tiring until he reached the top.
Meanwhile, Vishal had reached a comfortable rock and he told us that someone will need to come down and grab him up, Kaushik had no stamina left to push him up. Our rockstar, Nikil (first one to climb the mountain, our own Rajnikanth), told that he would go down to help him. Nikil went down, half an hour later, we saw Vishal reaching the top, and Nikil following up. It was a sense of relief like nothing before, we had the feeling we had fought and conquered death itself.
All of us sat there, speaking nothing, just trying to swallow the feeling of how we had, for a moment, thought that this was the last day of our lives. As we were sitting there, looking at the clear sky, looking down at the slope every now and then to see what we had accomplished. We had spent 3 hours on the mountain, and we were behind schedule, it was now impossible to make it to the destination before sunrise.
Still, we had the option of turning back, go down the mountain another path and stop the trek, but we decided to continue what we came for. After 15 minutes, we all stood up, and continued the path. But from now on, we all decided to stick to the easy path, and take the help of markers which were laid down to help us decide if we were on the right path.
After that, it got pretty easy. We were climbing up and down mountains and hills, and enjoying the walk in the moonlight. At one point, everyone just stopped. Tejas had spotted something in the bushes, it was glowing in the torch light, and on a closer look, it seemed like a pair of eyes. We all had our fears up, it was some wild animal. All of us picked up stones in our hands, pointed torches and took steps together. To our surprise, it was just a cat, and ran away when we approached closer. We all had a hearty laughter.
As we continued moving further and crossing mountains, the red beacon stayed at its place, it did not appear to get closer. The more mountains we climbed, the more mountains we saw between us and the destination. We could not go back, infact, there was no going back. There was no human population there, nothing but plain lands and valleys below, there was only one path - going forward.
As we continued the trek, fatigue started to take a toll on us. We had started exhausting all our supplies, we were taking frequent breaks, and it was getting very tiring just to climb a small hill. And we knew that there would be sunrise and after that, it would be impossible to continue the trek in the heat. We moved on, but could not defeat the sun in the race. At one point of time, we saw that we had just one more mountain to climb. After we climbed that, we got another shock - we had two more to climb, and from the looks of it, they were big ones, and already sun was continuously coming on our heads and it was getting hotter every moment.
We wanted to rest, but time was short, because the more we rested, the hotter it would get. And we had no water, it was impossible to climb without water, we were dehydrated. We had crossed several mountains and hills and now every step we took produced pain the legs. But anyways we started to climb the first mountain, it was very difficult, but we did it. And then we saw, the last mountain, it was very high. It had a very steep slope. None of us had the stamina to go on. We saw a road below, and a small village. We were very excited to see it. After a lot of debate, we decided to climb down the mountain to the village, and return back without reaching Sinhagad.
We climbed down, it was a very long path, but we finally reached a well. One of the villagers fetched water from the well and we drank from it. It was the sweetest water anyone had in their life. We then asked the locals and, to our surprise, we could reach Sinhagad top by jeeps. We boarded one, and then reached to the top, and relaxed in a tapri (small roadside restaurant). We ate a lot, we ate bhakri and pithla, had the most amazing chaash (taak, is what they call) and dahi from the matki. It was re-vitalizing. Shafi had no stamina to eat and just threw his backpack and slept on the floor of the tapri, we had to wake him up with great effort.
Then we departed, some of us took a direct car to Swargate, and some of us took the jeep to a nearby village and from there took a bus to Swargate. The trek was over, and when we looked back, we were so proud, we had achieved an amazing feat. At one point, it got so scary we thought we’d die, and at one point, it was impossible to take even one step ahead in the scorching sun, but we fought, geared up our willpower, and we did it. It was an amazing trek, one that cannot be forgotten in a lifetime.
