The Sinhagad trek

This trek had been initially planned for the 6th of December, the day after our first semester exams. But as is understandable for homesick FE hostelites, most of them ran home as soon as they could leaving too few of us behind to go on with the trek. However, by the 8th of this month, almost all the hostelites had returned and somebody again mooted the idea of going on a trek. Since a large group was ready this time around, I decided to shelve plans of watching King Kong and decided to join the trek. Hence I found myself with 11 other eager trekkers ready for the trek at 9:30 AM. Whether it was a good call or a bad one, I can only say once I see King Kong.
We first left for Swargate, the first mistake on a day in which we surprisingly committed very few of them. On reaching there, we were immediately surrounded by a bunch of 6-seater wallahs all asking us to travel with them, assuring us that there were no buses to Sinhagad till noon or even later. However, common sense prevailed and after waiting for a few minutes, a bus came our way and we all jumped on. The mistake, as I had pointed out earlier, was coming to Swargate as the bus route starts from Shanivarwada which is at a walking distance from our hostel.
The bus journey to the base of the mountain (actually more of a hill, but saying mountain gives me a greater sense of achievement) took 50 minutes. The journey was an adventure of it's own due to the bumpy roads on our way and we were more than happy to reach Sinhagad in one piece. We assured ourselves that the worst was over.
On reaching there, we immediately started ascending the mountain. As there were 12 of us, we got divided into smaller groups, with me bringing up the rear. Do not attribute this to any lack of stamina, for I have done too many treks in the past to be troubled by such a short one. It's just that I have always enjoyed going slowly, looking at the beatiful scenery around, for that is the main reason why I go for a trek. Therefore I fail to understand the attitude of people who treat it as a race and try to complete it as soon as possible. Anyways, they have to wait for the tail in the end, so it's better to take your time while walking rather than having to wait.
Honestly speaking, I was rather disappointed by the actual trek. It took us just 1.5 hrs to reach the top and we had walked at an extremely slow pace and taken a large number of breaks as one of us wasn't too well. For someone who has done week-long treks, it isn't much. So even after reaching the top I wasn't really exhausted. We had a great lunch at the top, consisting of Zunka-Bhakar, which was really tasty. Actually, once you're tired and hungry, anything tastes good as it was in this case. We then roamed around at the top, spending a lot of time staring into the valleys in absolute silence. This is actually my favourite part of a trek as the silence gives me time to catch up with myself which is not always possible in the daily rush which is my life. Hence such moments, spent in the company of nature are absolute bliss for me. All existence finally boils down to these special moments of quiet which you never get to experience otherwise. I may be an atheist, but even I get a spiritual feeling in such places. Such is the magic of nature. No wonder so many ancient civilisations worshipped nature. Any trekker would agree with me on this.
But all things have to end. Soon we started our journey down. Actually it was more of an evening walk, taking only 40 minutes. Then we had to wait for a bus, which duly arrived and all of us hopped on and most of us slept on the return journey. This brought to an end a pretty memorable day and a not so interesting post.

The Cast:
Aniket Khasgiwale
Ashish Metkar
Hrushikesh Kulkarni
Rishikesh Baviskar
Apoorv Vaidya
Govind Ingle
Mahesh Hase
Rahul Kedare
Rigved Shenai
Harshal Chavan
Smit Gade
Yogesh Dukhale.