Amol's Travelogue: Lohagad trekk

Height Above Sea Level - 3400ft
Location - Malvali (Next stn. to Lonavala , when going from Mumbai to Pune)
Difficulty - Easy
Duration - 2.5 hrs from Malvali Stn.
Members - Abhishek, Me,Shankar, Kalpesh, Mane (Mahesh - The GOD ), Jayyu and G (gautam).

Kothaligad being our previous trek, this time we wanted the trek to be simpler but much of sight seeing.
Lohagad proved out to be just the perfect one !!
Also it is amongst the few forts of Shivaji which are still in a better state.

So as per our earlier experiences where food was wasted this time we decided to carry only sandwiches. But still Mane suggested that we go for maggi which we can cook on the fort.

So on the decided day we met at 5:00pm at Borivali. Then we went to Dadar to catch a Pune bound train. We had to get down at Malvali stn. Its next to Lonavala stn. It took us around 1 hour to reach there.

From here in 20 mins walk we reached place called Baje. The famous Baje caves , from the Buddhist era are located here. If a small diversion is taken on the way to Lohagad we can reach Baje caves. Way to Baje caves is through properly built staircases. But as Baje was not planned we did not go there.

To watch the first ray of sun on the way towards Lohagad was an awesome experience.

So the trek began. The road was pretty simpler also climate as cool. So dint face any heat like we did during Kothaligad trek.

One rare snap in which Jayyu (Gajendra ..) can be seen. :-D and others trailing behind.
This is the first time I coined the word Gajendra ( one with power of elephant) for Jai because on all the trekks he used to just pop in those headphones and walk and walk and walk without stopping as if during trek his legs would get the power of elephants. :-P

Another fort called Visapur was seen on the way. The locals said its not much visited because most of it is in ruins and also the road up there is through bit dense jungle.

Some rest with Visapur fort in the background.

Now the mighty Lohagad ( Iron-Fort) could be seen in one view. I couldn't resist this view to be captured.

The mighty walls visible now reinforced the thought that why this fort would have been called as the Iron-Fort or Lohagad.

The main entrance.

Interior.

Great architecture and strongly fortified fort. Our camera just went clicks- clicks and clicks.

There were many large and small water cisterns at the top.

We sat at the largest one to have our sandwiches and of course now was the time for our Maggi .

We great effort we some how set a fire because the wind was blowing. Also somehow the Maggi got cooked but thanks to the wind some ashes fell inside the Maggi. No need to say how the maggi now tasted ( which we till date remember as "Maggi with Raakh ka Tadka" ) :-D

Small temple and and remains of an old dome structure

.

Then we moved to the tail end part of the fort which is also the most famous one called as Vincchu - Katta (Scorpion's tail) . It looks like the Scorpion's tail from a top view. Used mostly for surveillance i suppose.