Peb (Vikatgad) - Matheran

If you are up for a quick but thoroughly enjoyable trek that would take a about than 24 hours (round trip from Pune or Mumbai), then Peb - Matheran is an ideal candidate.

Three of us – Anand, Manish and I left Pune in Maruti-800 on the night of 24th April at around 11:30 pm. The road to Neral – the town at base of Matheran/Peb fort - is quite a peaceful drive. Get off the expressway at Khopoli exit and head toward Mumbai along the old Mumbai-Pune highway. After about 16 km you come to ‘Chowk phata’ from where you need to take a right onto a road to Karjat. About 7 Km from there and 2 km before Karjat, you come to a junction from where the road to left heads to Neral, Badalapur. Neral is about 14 km from this junction.

Alternatively you can take a train to Karjat and then board a local train to Mumbai and get down at Neral station which falls on Pune –Mumbai railway line. You can spend the night at Neral station. The station area gets pretty busy from 5:30 am onwards and there are plenty of places serving hot tea and breakfast. So you can start your day early

We reached Neral at around 2:30 am and parked our car on the outskirts of Neral just off the highway that heads to Badalapur. We slept in the car. We hardly got any sleep because of the humid and warm climate. We got up at 5:45 am and drove to the station which was about 1 to 1.5 km or so from where we had parked. After our morning tea and breakfast we drove back to Badalapur road parked our car at one of the dhaba’s/hotel off the highway but adjacent to Jeejamata Bhosale Talao. You can clearly see Peb fort and Matheran towards west from almost anywhere in Neral. Peb (also called Vikatgad), lies to immediate north of Matheran. The talao (lake) lies to the east of the road, but a bit away from it. Start walking north along the highway from there and within 200 ft the trail to Peb fort springs off toward west. Within next couple of minutes you would find crossing a wall of a small dam.

We started walking toward Peb at about 7:30 am. It was getting pretty hot early in the morning itself, but the dry clouds in the sky decided to have mercy on us and covered us with their shadow till we reached almost to the top Peb fort. First 15-20 minutes of walk is along the ground level and then the climb starts. Most of the trail follows the high tension power line. So watch for the power line towers. Within an hour or so we reached to the top of the ridge that lies immediately to north of Peb (Vikatgad). Some call this as ‘panorama point’ from where you can see what lies to the west of Peb fort. The tower line climbs down to the other side of the ridge but the trail turns south and climbs up along the ridge that connects to Peb fort. We stopped here for 10 minutes, took some snaps of the fantastic view. Within next 10 minutes you will encounter a 15-20 ft tall rock patch after which the trail hugs the western face of Peb fort, with the mountain face on your left and valley on your right. Within next 5 minutes you reach a lovely cave called ‘Samartha Guha’. This surely is a great spot to spend the night if you are up for staying on the top. A couple of minutes before this cave you will come across a small cave opening on your left. You need to crawl on your knees for about 10 – 15 feet to reach a small water reservoir inside. You surely need a torch here because its pitch dark in here. But the water in here is clean and cold and absolutely drinkable.

From the Samarth cave the road takes you to a 20-30 ft tall iron ladder. Climb that one and follow the trail that takes you south in the direction of Matheran and then turns north again climbs to top of the fort. The top face is pretty narrow. The view from here is lovely. You can see Matheran to the south. Prabalgad toward south-west and Kalavantini-durg to immediate north of Prabalgad as if it is attached partially to Prabalgad. You see the expressway to the west. To your north-west you see Chanderi and Haji-Malang. We spent a few moments here and then headed down toward Shiv-temple. We were hungry by that time and had some food. We then headed south to Matheran.

The trail from the temple would take you to a steep iron staircase/ladder about 40-50 ft deep and fixed to the rock beneath and the rock walls on the side. Getting down this one is quite a thrill. From here on the trail to matheran is quite peaceful. Within 20-25 minutes it will connect you to the Neral station - Matheran toy train track. From here on you have to walk along the track to Matheran. The track would take you through patches of open and wooded areas and then finally enter into densely wooded region of Matheran.

We reached Matheran at around 1:00 – 1:15 pm, walked a little in the market area, had lunch and then took the 2:45 pm train to Neral. The train takes around 2 hours. We reached Neral station at 4:45 pm, walked to our car, had tea and then took off to Pune and reached home for dinner.

During summer or winter, if you plan your hike early morning, you can have breakfast near Neral station and reach Matheran in time for lunch. So you can leave your cooking gear at home. In monsoon though it would take more time to reach Matheran.

More photos of Peb-Matheran

Authored by: Mandar Garge

Chandragad

It was late night of Saturday, 21st March, 2009, (actually past midnight) when the four of us – Anand, Sagar, Heramb and I – set out in Heramb's Scorpio, for a trek to Chandragad, located in the Javali region, close to Poladpur (on Mumbai-Goa highway) and in the valley that lies north-west of Arthur’s Seat point at Mahabaleshwar.

If you plan to go by bus, there is a state transport bus at around 12 noon from Poladpur to Dhavle-wadi, which is a small village situated near base of Chandragad. There probably is another bus earlier as well that goes till Umarath – a village on the way to Dhavle and about 7 – 8 km from Dhavle. Umarath is also the birth place of Tanaji Malusare. You can also reach Dhavle by getting down at Umarath, and then walking till Dhavle cutting your way through the fields. I believe another bus that reaches Dhavle later halts there overnight and starts off to return to Poladpur at 6:00 am. If you want to make your trek more interesting and exciting and also longer by another 4-6 hours and, then you can reach Arthur’s Seat point at Mahabaleshwar and then climb down the valley on to the plateau below. Enjoying the breathtaking views of the valley you can then proceed down by Dhavlya ghat cutting your way through thickly wooded forest to get to Dhavle wadi. You can then climb Chandragad from the wadi.

We drove from Pune to Mahabaleshwar and then down toward Poladpur via Ambenali ghat. Via Mahabaleshwar is the safest bet especially if you are travelling at night, given that there have been incidences of private vehicles being stopped and looted on the winding ghat roads. We wished to have tea, but had almost given up hopes of it as we found no hotel open in Wai, Panchgane and Mahabaleshwar area. Then unexpectedly, at Ambenali which lies at the base of Pratapgad in an extremely wooded and forested region of Javali, we found a small roadside hotel open. It was 3:00 am when we had hot tea. It was pretty cold and -dark outside, with the night sky looking absolutely magnificent, thickly packed with stars and constellations. The tea revved us up. Heramb then continued driving us down the remaining part of Ambenali ghat lying in Raigad district to the west of Pratapgad. At around 7 km before Poladpur, you come to a village called Kapade from where the road to Dhavle wadi branches off to the right. It was about 4:00 am when we reached Kapade. From here till Dhavle the tar road is in a bad state and its a bumpy ride. It took us an hour to travel 20 kms. Again the night sky - with the moon now risen over Mahabaleshwar mountains - was a visual treat.

We reached Dhavle-wadi at around 5:00 am, parked our vehicle near the temple and went off to sleep inside the temple. It was 6:30 am when we woke up, rolled our sleeping mats and requested a nearby family to make some tea for us, which they did. We had a good breakfast of corn-flakes. We then started off toward Chandragad at around 8:00 am. Within next 10-15 minutes, we came across Shelarwadi - a small wadi with only few houses. The region which is usually lush green during monsoon and a few months after as well, runs dry this time of the year. But it still looks pretty and green. Dhavali river that flows hugging Dhavle wadi was completely dry. From Shelarwadi, the trail is a well-marked one all the way till the top of Chandragad. With small boards with ' ॐ नमः शिवाय ' written on them, mounted on tree trunks along the trail, you can easily find the way on your own. No need to hire a local guide. For about half hour we kept climbing and came to a stream (that was running dry) and across it stood a sign board that read' चंद्रागद दर्शन '. From this point on trail is significantly steep and slippery and hence a difficult one. A foot-slip may land you anywhere between 30 to few hundred feet deep below. And if you are lucky you can escape with only few bones broken. At some places it could be much deeper and a fall could be fatal. We encountered few easy-to-medium grade rock patches on our way and then reached the top after another hour or so.

The view of surrounding valley from up there was magnificent and breathtaking. On the west we could see Dhavle wadi. To South-west we could see Pratapgad. To south-east we could see Mahabaleshwar.

Chadragad was built by Chandrarao More who controlled the Jawali region before Shivaji Raje Bhosale took over. On the top you find broken remnants of a temple, houses, walls and fortress. There is a Shiva-linga and a Nandi statue at one place. On the eastern edge there are couple of water reservoirs, not the kind you would feel like drinking as soon as you look at it. But often such water bodies have green layer on top and beneath it, the water could be significantly clear. That’s not always the case though. The water in this reservior is drinkable (more so if you filter it out using a clean handkerchief). We then refilled our bottles then wandered around and took snaps. After spending about an hour and half we started heading down after a light snack.

The trail down was much more challenging that it was while getting up. Of course it was the same trail, but the sheer fact that you are heading downward negotiating a steep and slippery and winding trail enabling gravity to get the better of you, makes it more challenging but exciting nonetheless. One surely needs to have good trekking shoes on. It took us around two hours - double the time we took to climb up, to climb down this part. Maneuvering ourselves on our way down, walking part of the time with either our face or our back to the valley, and part of the time sitting down and sliding short distances, we gathered on ourselves layers of red mud/dust. The remaining part was walk through the woods and we reached Dhavle in next 35-40 minutes.

We reached down near our Scorpio at around 1:30-1:45 pm. It was really hot. Anand and Sagar then pulled out from their backpacks (sacks) a couple of Glucon-D packs, and we all shared the energizing drink. We then proceeded to Poladpur. We were deadly hungry. We had got some stock of chapatti and pickles with us as a back-up meal, but the poor chapattis couldn’t stand the killer afternoon heat and went stale. Anand who attempted to have a few bites of it, had to let them go and hold his hunger till we reached Poladpur. That was going to be an hour or so.

Anand, who knew Poladpur area very well led us to an authentic dhaba - 'दुर्गा माता ढाबा' – run by a sardarji. This ढाबा was as rustic and as shabby and to some extent as unhygienic as it should have been.We were sure to get tasty food here। We ordered tandoori rotis with chana masala, bhendi fry, mixed veg curry and chicken masala and of course rice and curds. We unleashed our hunger on the yummy food and didn’t let even a bit go waste. After a short rest of 10 minutes, we had tea and then at around 5:00 pm, set off on our way back – again via Ambenali ghat and Mahabaleshwar. To top our day off - we stopped at “Mapro Garden” between Mahableshwar and Panchgani and hogged some yummy grilled sandwiches, sipped some mocktails, gobbled some ice-creams and then headed toward Pune. We reached home at around 9:45 - 10:00 pm.

During monsoon or winter, you could plan on starting from Pune early morning and can still get back by late night. Some people like to plan a two day activity by also covering Mangalgad (Kangori-gad) which lies to North-west of Chandragad. However you plan it, Chandragad offers a nice and heartening trek !!!

For more photos of Chandragad - click here.

Authored by: Mandar Garge