Yesterday I asked Prithvi if we should do a trek to Sinhaghad. It’s been a couple of times that we’ve planned to trek Sinhagad but this time, I really wanted to go. We made a plan to leave the next day(which is today) in the early morning.
I didn’t know anything about the place and it was going to be an adventure for me, though Prithvi had trekked here couple of times so he knew most of the things. Initially our plan was to drive to the top and just roam around the fort area and come back, but then because of some reason the drive way was closed today and there was no option left apart from trekking. I was excited and nervous at the same time. We did light breakfast at the starting point and then left for the trek.
The journey
It was 5 of us, Me, Prithvi, Shivang, Rohit and Shajin. Initially it was just plain rocks with not much ascent so that was pretty fine. I was feeling like I can make it just fine. Then came slightly more sloppy climbs which was fine too. It was slightly windy with sun still rising in the sky which I think was a good weather for the climbing. Throughout the trek there are divisions in the path and you can take either the easier one which usually is round path to go ahead or you can take the steepy one which will be a little harder to climb but it’s going to be shortcut and you’ll reach faster than the long route. Most of the time we had taken the shortcut route and it was adventurous.
I was wearing normal slip-on sneakers which aren’t meant for trekking, and they were slippery as there’s no grip. But it was still not hard to climb apart from in the areas where there were small granules. It’s hard to climb through plain slopes with small rocks and granules as it gets slippery. Till 3/4th of the trek it’s pretty regular and difficulty level is easy, you just need to be hydrated. The last part of the trek is steepy and it takes just as much energy as it takes from coming halfway to the trek from the start. Though the trek is of around 1 hour as mentioned on couple of websites, we took around 2 hours to get to the top as we took some breaks in between.
We then sat at the top, did some rest and had some local dishes there. There are little eating places on the top which serve local food and the food is pretty good. We had kanda bhajia, the home made yogurt, taak(butter-milk). After having food, we went ahead to descend the trek. Going down was harder than climbing up, mostly because of my shoes which were slipping all the time. But I think I did just fine. It took us around an hour to come back to where we parked the car.
Here’s some info of the trek we did.
The experience
It’s crazy that you have to believe on the sturdiness of the rocks for your balance all the time while trekking. One wrong move and you can end up hurting yourself, along with the believe of trusting on the rocks for the support.
I was excited since the start even though I didn’t knew we were about to trek. And once we came to know that the drive way was closed and we have to trek to reach the top, I got excited even more and was looking forward to know what actually a trek makes you feel. I was nervous too, because in the inital part of climbing the trek only I got tired a bit quickly, but after we took little breaks to keep up the energy, we did good.
There were times when there were large rocks, you can climb them on your own too but it’s better to be helped and have a hand to support you to jump up. That made me realize how important is team work in trekking even though it was a easy trek.
