TORNA FORT - Combination of Heavy rains, windy, shivering cold, aching thighs = Super awesome experience

A good trek on a long weekend, is kind of a perfect combination, which doesn't happen quite frequently in reality.
So when this EID, when we had a day leave on Friday, 6 of us decided, to put it to some good use - Lets go to Torna Fort.

The news that we're going for trek, came as a shocker to me, i already had plans to visit my home. Ahh.. but these mountains and rains, got over the better part of me, and I ended up skipping my home visit, and opting to spend the night on top of the mountains in freezing cold, wet in rains, putting every muscle to work, leaving my warm bed, lots of coffee, and my ebook at home.

So the crooked plan goes like this:
1) Start very late from pune.
2) Start climbing mountain, reach the fort by evening
3) Spend the night in a temple
4) Start early morning from there.

Although a word of wisdom - this is practically a one day trip.
Reach the village early morning, go up, come back, catch the bus and reach Pune.

So 7 of us assembled at Swargate bus station, to board the bus to Velha, scheduled for 12PM.
But our friend was running behind schedule, and reached station on 12:30PM
Luckily the bus got late, and we didn't have to wait much, and we got the 12PM bus.
The road is good till Nasrapur, but after that till Velha, is just like any typical village road, POTHOLED.
The Velha village must be around 65KM to be precise from Pune, so if you're planning to go by bikes, that can be done, ample parking space is available besides velha police station.

Alright, so we reached the village by 2:30PM, had our lunch and we started climbing by 3:30PM.

map

The climb is of mediocre nature in terms of difficulty, coupled with a breathtaking view. Enough to give an adrenaline rush.
You don't need any special mountaineering equipments, but definitely a big NO-NO for weak hearted people, since at two places the climb does gets difficult.

My Gang, two of them are coming 

This shrub was looking so good

entrance of the fort

jailed !!!

shiv mandir

It took us 2:30 Hours to reach the top of the mountain, where the Mengai Devi Temple is situated, the place where we were planning to stay in night.

Mengai Devi Mandir

                                              

It was almost 7 in evening, the rain was our constant companion right till the time we reached top.
We changed in to dry clothes, had something to eat, and man it started getting colder and colder as time was passing.
The mist was making everything damp, it was raining kind of heavily outside, almost it rained heavily throughout the night.

No jerkin, can keep you protected in that kind of cold, and half prepared most of were planning to brave this chilling night.

So after making lot of adjustments, we slept.
Manoj's china made USB lights, was our only source of illumination inside the temple.
For entertainment, again Manoj's bought from china radio, with inbuilt woofer, digital display, expandable memory, inbuilt MP3(am i missing any other feature ?) came to our rescue which was surprisingly tuning to Mumbai radio station.

No one's cellphone was working, in short ZERO connectivity at top, so people who are planning to go, please inform you're dear ones in advance.

Now the night ......
We were having stuff to wear and protect ourselves from cold, but the flooring, damn it was of stone, and always so so cold. Infact it never got warm.
We didn't had enough covers to spread on ground, so the result, sleepless night, with continuous teeth chattering.

We had a company of naughty mice in night, who took away some of our food, and gave goose bumps to almost everyone.

Shivaji's Picture, i must admit
      never have i seen till now, such an intense picture of his

The morning ......
Got up at 7AM, and boy it was still raining with almost zero visibility outside.
We started our descend at around 9AM.

Morning Pic !!!

                                              

Our situation while descend, cannot be explained better than this proverb:
"khudi ko kar buland itna chadha woh upar jaise taise.............
 khudi ko kar buland itna chadha woh upar jaise taise.............
ke khuda ne hi puch liya, abbe aab utharega kaise .................."

Had our set of tough time dealing with descend, and dodging tricky winds,
mud, puddle, stones, etc.etc.

Enroute we met a group of school children(10th standard) who came there for their excursion.
I am tempted to say, teachers you must have definitely gone out of your mind to bring 130 students to this kind of place.

I had a shoe bite during descend, Gaurav had a mild slip, must say was looking like "dharti ka putr" was red due to soil.

While reaching the village, we decided to take a small diversion, and decided to pass through a small stream of water, hmm wont say it was a river, but looked like one.

Descend took almost 3 Hours !!!
Had a heart filled lunch, and started our return Journey.

Phewwwwwwwwwwwww .............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!