Follow The Gutka Trail. Review on Bhimashankar

It’s been a while since I wrote a review for Mouthshut or any other website for that matter. It’s too much a hassle you know… first write a review and then wait with bated breath for the other Mouthshut members to rate and comment. It gave a kick initially, but the enthusiasm ebbed out later. So why am I back at it?? Its divine inspiration and nothing less. Ok! Without further ado I’ll get on with the story:

Last Thursday, I and an underweight friend of mine (I exceed my Body Mass Index by 30 Kgs) decided that tomorrow (1st September 2006) would be the day we take leave from office and carry out our long withheld desire to trek to Bhimashanker. So we got up early, packed a towel, a packet of glucose biscuits, 1 lit. H2O, 1 lit. H2O + glucose, Asthalin Inhaler and a cap. We caught the 8:15 am train from Kurla to Kasara and alighted at Karjat. We went to a place called Kashera by ST bus and from there on to Kandas by doogdoogi (otherwise called Vikram by the locals) for Rs.10 per person. The doogdoogi driver tried to fleece us by offering to take us to the feet of the ghats for Rs.100. Thankfully a local informed us that the foothill just happen to be a walk of 10 mins from Kandas village. We alighted at Kandas and proceeded towards the ghats. The locals informed that us that there were two routes to trek to Bhimashanker, one via Shidi ghat which is nearly impossible during the monsoon (and especially for a person of my proportions) and the other via Ganesh ghat which is easier and achievable. They also estimated that it would take up to 4 hours for us to reach the top.

We strolled towards Ganesh ghat from Kandas enjoying the scenery, the wilderness and the silence as we happened to be the only people there. From there on we could sight the mountains. I had no idea how high 3600 feet (Bhimashanker happens to be about that height above sea level) is supposed to be, but was pretty sure that it can’t be as much as the great wall like mountain that was slightly visible in the background. The upper portion of the mountains was engulfed by grey clouds with waterfalls as their tails and the sight exceeded all the beauty I had encountered in my life. Let me tell you that the whole scenery was exactly like the one we get to see in nature posters and emails. We came across a river with a bridge and two pathways after that. The left one led to Shidi ghat and the right one to Ganesh ghat. We took the left road and reached the foothills within 5 mins.

Both of us had a swig of the glucose water and started up. None of us felt tired initially, but were a little scared whenever we heard a ‘hooooh’ like sound from somewhere deep inside the forest. We could see plastic bags, empty gutka packets all over the path and cursed the people who had dared to litter in this pristinely beautiful location. So we reached up to a place where there was a ganesh temple. We took few minutes break there, prayed to the lord and lit up the diya and agarbattis. Now after climbing up a few meters from there we totally lost the trail. We could see a place from where a mini water fall was happening… we thought ‘no way can this be the path’. We waited a few minutes looking hopelessly around for someone or something to show us direction. I then noticed a gutka packet sticking out from a place where a tree’s root was running above us. Both of us made an effort to climb up to that place and looked over the root and saw the trail once again. This happened many more times when we had no clue as where to go and a ‘Goa’ gutka packet showed us the route. We passed through many places which can only be described as one more beautiful than the other. We even passed a few rest huts and cowherds along the way.

Each and every person who we came across at various stages of the climb told us that Bhimashankar was only two hours away and the way up was ‘Saral’. We were rapidly getting tired and I was getting breathless as well. The climb was arduous and all our energy reserves were getting depleted. The water bottle was empty and the biscuits were over. All that was left was the glucose water. We had resorted to drink water from the streams to quench our thirst.

Finally we managed to reach a plateau which had a very pointy peak close by and we thought we have made it to Bhimashanker as two hours had definitely past. We then saw a cowherd who couldn’t speak properly and he indicated that to reach Bhimashanker we had to reach to the top of the great wall like mountain. Our head was pointing 90 degrees up and yet we couldn’t see the top. I definitely heard him make sounds that could have only meant ‘saral rasta’. We took another break; I had a puff from the inhaler, a drink from a stream close by and headed ahead.

.... continued in the comments section...