Trek Of Death!!. Review on Bhimashankar

Trekking Bhimashankar ?? Better Leave it to the experts!

A trek to bhimashankar from the karjat side is not child’s play, its like playing with ur life! Its mentioned in many newspapers that bhimashankar is a good place to trek but they dont mention the risks involved.

Myself n my friends are fond of trekking and while planning a trip we put trekking as the first priority.We read about bhimashankar in newspapers and started searching for more details on the internet. seven of us were ready for the trip, we got the information and decided to go...

It was the month of april and too hot to trek so we decided that we should start as early in the morning as possible,so we caught the last train to karjat at about 12:30 AM which reached the destination at about 3:00 AM , as soon as we got down the local chai wala came running , we had some tea ,took some rest and then around 5:00 AM headed towards the bus stand only to hear that the bus to khandas is

cancelled (Khandas is the place where u start the trek)

we then took a 6 seater rikshaw who charged 200/- for the trip, the rikshaw trip was an uncomfortable one.It took 7:00 AM to reach khandas in that filthy rickshaw indeed a waste of time, so we didnt waste any more time and started the trek.

The shidi ghat is a short but more dangerous route.

(At one point on this route u have to hold a rock and swing over the valley to reach the other side Brrrrrrrbetter leave it to the experts)

The Ganpati Ghat is a long but less dangerous route.

We choose the Ganpati ghat as we had learned from a local guy we met at the railway station that shidi ghat is a risky one.

We took a villager to show us the way to the top coz its very easy to get lost in the hills , that guy demanded 300/- but we settled for 100/-. Thus began our 6 hrs trek.

We had taken a 1.5 ltr bottle of water each and 4 more 1.5 ltr bottles of cold drinks ,even this amount of fluid didnt last till we reached the top...

The ganpati ghat is called so coz there’s a ganpati temple on the way up , we trekked for about 3 hrs and the villager said that its about just an hour to the top and a simple route so we paid him and continued.

little did we know that he had lied and left the dangerous trek to us .

We climbed further and found signs indicating the way to the top, as we climed futher for about one and a half hour we came across very steep trek , following the signs we reached a rock that was unclimbable it looked as a dead end !!

we had been fooled by some fake signs , totally exhausted and confused we shouted for help ! we heard some people replying us but we couldnt see them ! we asked them for the way to the top and thankfully they too were going up. so we sat down and waited for them to come up.

By that time all our fluid was finished due to which some of us were getting cramps...

2 villagers came up , we asked them whether it was the correct way and they replied positively , we came to know that not all signs were fake.They gave us some water and we asked them to show us the way , it was about an hour remaining to the top approximately 1:00 PM .

The villagers lead us but then came the dangerous part of the trek a HUGE rock which had about a foot space to walk with a little slope and a slip meant death as the rock was vertically aligned to the deep valley , there was nothing to get a grip , only thing that could be done was to rest ur palms on the rock and put the weight towards the rock and walk side ways parallel to the rock! This thing was extremely dangerous so we asked the villagers if there’s another way? but to our disappointment there is no other way to the top and after a 5 hrs trek there’s no turning back !

We had to go up without any other option, so we followed the villagers we crossed the rock slowly but there was another similar rock ahead we were feeling trapped but had to go this rock was not so huge but was riskier as it had a steeper slope , I began crossing using support of my hands but suddenly I slipped , in a split second decision I used full body grip to save my life , it did save my life bcoz if I had slipped a lil bit more I was dead the valley was ready to eat me! It was a slip of my life.

I crawled to the top of the rock and sat down to regain confidence . The villagers told that it was a simple trek later and indeed it was. we reached to the top at about 2:00 PM , went to the temple to thank god for our life. The villagers gave us a room to stay ( 100/- per night) it had a carpet and a bulb . what else can u expect in 100RS ,everything up there is cheap.

we had lunch and slept as we had not slept the previous night . In the evening we attended the aarti in the temple, next morning we didnt get time to explore bhimashankar as we had to go( probably we missed the best part ! there r places like gupt bhima which r said to b beautiful), we took a bus to kalyan a 6 hr journey.

But we did discover an excellent echo point , the echo was so clear it was amazing!

A whole word can b heard back.

The point is at an unexpected place , the bus stand ! , there’s a broken wall of the stand towards the valley when u cross the wall u get a beautiful view of the valley and it also is an echo point !!

The best part of bhimashankar is the climate!

So if u really wanna go there forget the trek take the road from pune...n enjoy.