THE BEST TREK I EVER HAD!

Hello Hivers👋
Hope you guys are doing fine. I really missed chances to get in touch with you guys from my last blog but had some things to be taken cared of and its been taken cared of, so here I am with my new blog. Hope you guys enjoy this one too.

!Blog 3 - # THE BEST TREK I EVER HAD!

As from my last blogs you guys know that how much I love to trek in mountain range of Mighty Sahyadri. This Blog is also about a trek that I had in the western ghats which probably became the BEST TREK named A.M.K (Alang, Madan, Kulang).
A.M.K stands for Alang, Madan, Kulang. This trek consist three forts which are on three different mountains one after the other. A.M.K lies in the Kalsubai range of the Sahyadris, Maharashtra. It Takes 2 days to complete this trek but the best 2 days I spent in the arms of mother nature away from the city chaos.

One week prior to the journey me and my bud, we were just discussing that what should be our next plan. All we knew was it should be a "SHANDAAR EXPERIENCE"(amazing experience). So, 2-3 plans popped up but it wasn't what we were looking for and then I remembered A.M.K is pending and it was one of the most challenging trek in maharashtra. So, it was fixed our next experience would be Alang, Madan, Kulang and we did the necessary things which should be done, collecting information, doing the necessary bookings and getting the technical support and the MOST important thing in this trek i.e TREK GUIDE because this is one of the challenging trek whose challenges starts once you leave the base village itself.

You must have heard about the sentence, “higher the risks, higher the rewards”. This trek proves that by providing the most stunning views from the plateau on the top of three forts.
Not just the views from the top, the combination of dense forests, rocks and boulders, the caves, water cisterns and the ancient writings on the rocks make this one of the most amazing treks that you can do in the entire Western Ghats!

Started the journey a night before as it was gonna take us 4 hours to reach the base village. We reached the base village by dawn rested for few time and moved on forward with trek soon. As we left the base village we came across the first challenge of many A walk in the dense forest of Sahyadri.

After this dense forest walk/run/hike with major confusing paths we managed to pass it well and as we come out of this forest a wide open area with long grass, hot sun and cool breeze we can have the first look of the first fort that we have to trek named ALANG (which btw is still far away to trek😅).

Yes that's right these three forts are blessed so well by mother nature one cannot see this forts in the first sight from a distance as you can see in the photo it looks like just a mountain but its a fort.

From the top, we can see many of the prominent peaks and reservoirs including the Kalsubai, Vikatgad, Vishramgad to the North East, Ratangad, Harishchandragad, Sandhan Valley, Ajobagad, Dangya Pinnacle to the South, and Bhandardara to the South East — just to name a few! that is why Alang, Madan, Kulang forts have seen a lot of change of hands — from the Marathas to the Mughals, and back to the Marathas and finally to the British in 1818 — all fighting for power and control of the forts because from these forts all the above forts could be monitored without being noticed.

As we walk by through the plains closer to the first fort the second challenge should up. "An Incline climb" and "A Narrow walk-path" to reach just the foot hill of the fort. It was way to fun!

Climbing, Walking, Running and also losing balances in some steps😅😆
But that's the fun of the trek. As we brush past this obstacle, there comes the next. A long side inclined walk to reach the first step of the actual fort.

As we walked by the one can see the beauty of mother nature in the side where it appeared to me that 'thank god these lands are not killed for man's greed and turned into concrete jungle.' After few more steps there is one more iron ladder which takes you to the first part of the door which is half destroyed paths, closed door and as we climb the ladder the two caves can be seen where we rested for a while had our lunch which was carried by us and then some of us rested and some crazy asses like me decided to explore the place. I knew there was 4 main attraction on ALANG FORT :

• The Caves
• 11 water cisterns.
• A Historic palace House
• Beautiful views from the top

Caves we saw and now its time to see the cisterns, there are 11 water cisterns, only reason being 4,500 feet above sea level so the only source is to store rain water because one of the biggest challenge is "THE SUN".
There is a heavy chance of being dehydrated soon. So there are these water cisterns where one can drink natural water. These waters are drinkable in-fact these ground reserved waters were so clean to drink.

The above image is of the palace house. This palace house is at the opposite direction of the caves and it is placed such way that one cannot spot it from far away easily. It was an amazing and windy part of the fort. It was quite destroyed due to British, weather and time. but the walls are quite strong still.
As we friends moved from the storage house to the caves back to move to our next trek for the day MADAN FORT.
As we went further for our next fort to explore. We saw the path that we were suppose to walk on or I should say take steps.😅

Oh Yes, it was so thrilling, literally while stepping down those steps which by the way were to small to keep your whole foot at once. and it was tilted towards valley 100's of feet above and there were no harness here. These steps were made like these purposely, so that enemy cannot come up all at once, only they can come one by one, what brains does the great MARATHAS had.🙌
As we stepped down a small cave where maximum 4 to 5 people can stand at once ad its dead end but not really because its time for doing abseiling.😍Rappelling is something I am very fond, it was just 40ft flat steep-wall but what's interesting is MADANGAD or MADAN FORT has one and only one way and that is by crossing this wall. One you come down a long way to be walked of with big rocks and patchy parts with dense canopy.

In these above two photos you guys can imagine how narrow the paths were. one side rocky patch and the other side is the deep valley of Sahyadri.
after walking little more there starts the foothills of MADANGAD. after a few steps a breath-taking view awaits.

This is the mighty ALANG FORT and from this spot we can see the whole Fort. What a beautiful creation it was this half mooned shape fort is just outstanding sight to the eyes.
F.Y.I The north-western part where there is little greenery in that corner you can see in the photo is point where we started our journey climbed this mighty one and also descended it and also watched through the different fort from where we started our journey. It was an special moment where we took a minute to appreciate ourselves and we moved forward😀

It was by evening we reached the above Madan Fort and we setup our tents for the night and started gathering water from 2 cisterns on this fort and some dry wood and bushes and sticks for bon-fire and preparing our food.
This Fort wad built to keep watch on ALANG on one side and KULANG on the other. There wass also one cave on this fort but we decided to camp outside(which we regretted later, due to heavy winds and frickin cold climate. Literally are tents were blowing away we had to keep stone in the middle of night in the tent to keep us in place and the temperature was falling down my the dawn heavily and it was COLD😬)

You can see our tents , the water cisterns with the most chilled water one can have and it was clean water as there were small fishes to eat the bacteria's out and these cisterns. It was a fun night with friends and music and the glowing blanket of stars above our heads. at least 6 to 7 shooting stars were spotted by me on that night which is a big deal for city boy like me.😍It was aa night to remember of course we were almost frozen later that night but it was an experience in itself.
Next morning we decided to stand tall at the peak of this watch-fort to watch the sunrise.
and boy it was some morning view we had of the Great Sahayadri.

Imagine this guys standing above 4900ft above sea level with cool breezes with some mischievous wind blows in between with the sun-rising the beautiful SAHAYADRI is in front of you showing love and nothing else. Felt like never wanted to end this moment.😌
But the moment was broken by the sound of empty stomach😆and was back to reality and we made our breakfast rearranged our tents and were ready to move for the third and final fort of our trip KULANG FORT.

For Kulang you have to climb down half Madan fort where there is ay to go to Kulang Fort.

The rocky patches and narrow curvy turns descending downwards with small rope abseiling without harness patch of 25ft with one wrong foot you are down and maybe out😅 but we all made it well. The road to kulang from madan is the most toughest of the three because of very dense canopy which makes the walk on the edge pretty tough as we walk by the sun tests you pretty badly😫then from the foothill the steps to kulang starts. One might be wondering its only steps what difficult about it, well the size of the steps is only of 1 man can stand that's all and the height between to step is way bigger then normal.

Yes that's what my hand was looking while being at top of kulang.😅boy the scratches I had to both my hands. but there was zero regret because its all worth it. Like other forts there are few caves on this fort as well there are few cisterns as well there are small temples at the fort with some ruins but beautiful fort 4825ft above sea level with amazing views.

This is my favorite photo which was clicked from KULANG FORT where one can see ALANG FORT and MADAN FORT which was trekked by us for the last 2 days these huge three mountains tested us thoroughly may that be strength, stamina or mentality. because while coming to the base camp it was almost a 10km walk and we were dehydrated as our water was over and there no source on the path. But WHAT A TREK it was.

Every trek teaches me something this taught me how important it is to keep your body in good shape, your mind strong and how important water is and how we should not waste water.
We had little food and relaxed at the base camp and left for the city with snoring sounds of guys literally all were EXHAUSTED.😴😂
But undoubtedly IT WAS THE BEST TREK I EVER HAD because it had everything
Jungle trails, rocky paths, narrow walks, abseiling, rope rappelling, tent stay, laughter, tiredness, nervousness everything.😄🙌

Just wanna thank quickly to @blog-beginner for being supportive enough when I have my hands full with few other things, and kept motivated me to write more. THANK YOU!!🙌
See you around, Hivers!👋 Keep supporting the new blogger in the community.🙏

NOTE : All the images used in this blog are of my own. No copyrights reserved images have been used for the sake of this blog. The content is also not reserved to any copyright.