Ratangad Trek

रतनगड,

9/1/2011.

         Ratan or ratna means jewel.. and no doubt it is named so, by our great shivaji.. strategically imp. placed with one side in thane dist. (konkan) other side on the a.nagar dist(deccan). its really a gem.. medium sized fort, super windy place,, and a excellent caves,, all conditions suitable for a perfect night stay trek during that period of year... and hence we decided to do a 2 days(with night stay trek to ratangad)..

we started on 7 night(i.e 8th early morning) by taking last local to kasara from dadar around 12:20 am something which reached kasara by 3am, then a vehicle(jeep) to shendi, and then 2nd jeep to ratangadwadi. reached around 5 :30 am there,, it was cold like freezer.. cant even move hands to collect woods for making a fire..somehow we managed to make a campfire which surely saved us getting frozen.. must have been below 10*C for sure. laters had tea and poha(as usual) from the vill. and then started the trek,, the route is birds paradise,and a small rivulet for half the way till the plateau. we made nice tea on the banks of the rivulet,as we were going to stay for the night, we had no worries of any time schedule etc. so we went very slowly taking our own time,exploring places around the path, and also went after each bird which we could hear until we got a good picture of it.we reached the caves by noon, gathered wood, cleaned  the caves, etc. later went for sightseeing, sunset etc.later at night cooked our food,made nice pulao, and then we slept around 8 pm.. there are huge nos. of monkeys out there,tc of ur bags and things kept in plastic bags,, they are rate.1 robbers.. we kept chasing them nonstop.later appointed one of our enthusiastic trekker to tc of this monkey dept. who was good at this work :D.. next day morning we got up early, made tea, it was super chilling cold.. to fetch water,, there are 3-4 tanks on top of the caves,,which is couple of mins walk from the caves.. but the path is such the wind blows very strong, and morning it was freezing even with protection on body.. later we took magnificent pics of sunrise,which rises over ghanchakkar hills.view of bhandardara lake from ratangad is unexplainable..specially during the twilight and sunrise..later in the day made egg-rice and then another session of tea and then went to the famous needhe on top of the fort.later descended via thrayambak darwaja and the thought of descending in a new route,, and we found one on the far left, near the pinnacle, which is steep and used by goatherds. it directly connects us to the ratangadwadi. its also a shortcut saves much time.One the same day, DRDO employees were on the trek too, they came in huge nos. with plenty of govt and army vehicles and they gave us lift till ratanwadi phata... later we took last bus to kasara which comes from akole or rajur,, around 5:10pm at the phata.

were back to kasara, and took the 8:15pm fast local to cst.thus ended a superb trek :)

grade,accessibility, etc all are easy-I.. water availability very good even in jan-feb.

a must trek for all trekkers...

Summary of the trek:-


Maps,Imp. pics of the trek:-

                                   green circle:- the ladder.
                                   black line:- route going to ganesh darwaja,
                                   red line:- the common route used from ratanwadi to fort.the red continuous                                            goes to kalyan darwaja via yellow circle.
                                   yellow circle:-a junction,one goes to khutta, another to the original route                                                towards green circle. 

                                   blue line:- new route found by us!very good for making the trek more                                                      challenging.it goes till pink circle,and connects the original route directly at the                                      base village.
                                   pink circle:-  steep  path used by                                                                                                              animals(goats,cows etc) which bring to straight to ground level from level of                                          50% almost that of ratangad itself.
Approx. expenses for the trek:-
Kasara to Shendi by ST bus around 80-100/-
Shendi to base(ratanwadi) approx 600-750/- per vehicle trip,,bargain hard...(more the ppl,less per head burden)
likewise for return also..so per head it shouldn't be more than 300/- for transport to and fro.

Do visit ancient temple of Amruteshwar at Ratanwadi

Happy Trekking

"Keep the forts clean,do not litter around,keep trekking commercial free"