Songiri / Palasdhari Fort Trek, unique thrilling route

Songiri (Palasdhari Fort)
31/8/2014.
               There is nothing much abt this fort is what u will hear of it from guys who been there from the village side,some may say its tricky and all when hiked in monsoons.. these words didnt amaze us to hike it,,, so we decided to make it bit spicy!. tried a new route all together.

               We took Karjat Fast local from Dadar at 6:30am. got down at Karjat and took Kjt-Khopoli local which is connecting to it.Got down at Palasdhari Stn. around 8:30am and started walking towards the starting point.

Starting point is from the first cabin area just before Tunnel no.1,u can ask the person in the cabin abt the starting point. its highly dense jungle right from starting point. do carry a stick to scare away snakes if any,also sickle will be needed if u talking the path which we took,to cut though some thorny shrub,if any..

also starting area be careful ,there are few active honey combs we spotted.. now,our exp. of ascend via orange route.. we were about to take the yellow route,that was our plan, after few steps in right direction we lost the path and kept on going straight instead of taking a right turn,after going around 25-30 meters we realized that the tampered grass were made by few grazing cattle and not usual trail route,as grass was very long and dense,we thought we would never find the real route,so decided to take a stream which we could hear it was nearby,all the way till top as much possible. It was around 9 -9:30 am now.We cut our way through dense amazon till we reached the stream.Now on we just walked upstream,,took lots of time spotted plenty of gigantic crabs,spiders,amazing small waterfalls slippery rocks,,,,after couple of huors slow walk through the stream two hills started coming closer to the stream,we decided to climb the left hill,as it indicated end of the stream is nearby,, also the cabin guy had told there is easier route from the left hill.after some acrobats we somehow reached the top of left hill,and saw small trail going towards main songiri,we found that route and took that route and again got lost,there was 2 diversions,we took wrong left one,thinking the right one would again lead us to cabin from the right hill.Route which we took also ended after few meters, we could see songiri top just 50 -100 feet above us, decided to climb the flat fortification area itself !,after climbing that tough steep area with loose rocks and slippery mud with help of horizontal trees,,,we reached the top of songiri,practically from nowhere.,, it was around 12pm when we reached top, explored it,had lunch,found the proper route just near the lone water cistern,, that route is the yellow one as marked in the pic. there was nothing much tough abt the descend,just took around 45mins for us to reach base,the cabin,, during last few meters we found out where we had missed the right turn,,it was right behind the tree where we spent some time to take pic. of the honey comb!,,we later started walking back to Palasdhari stn. took 2:10pm CST fast coming from Khopoli.. if u want to know more in detail of any section,message me.

Summary of the trek:-
Maps,Imp. pics of the trek:-

                                        Yellow line is a valid route from Tracks side,which we used to descend.

Orange line is the one which we used.

Blue circles are tough spot

                                                      Waterfalls/stream route

                                                                Jai Hanuman

 

                                                                Cutting our way out

Happy Trekking..

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