Memorable Trek to Harihar Fort, Nashik

This memory is related to our trek to Harihar fort in Nashik. I had made a plan to go to Harihar trek with some friends from school and as planned we went to the location in a private car and had dinner at the one of family living at base of the village at night. The plan was to do a night trek, so the trek was a bit long, so we had to cut it in half and go up and camp there until we found a good place. By the time I left, there was a lot of leopard news coming out on television. There were reports that leopards would attack and attack in certain places, but because of all this news, there was a fear of going somewhere at night. Because we had only one group and it was completely dark.
We were climbing the fort in the flashlight of the mobile and it was freezing cold so the thought came to our head that if we wanted to stop for camping we would need firewood for the fire so we picked up the pieces of wood and branches we needed on our way.
A lot of the weight was with us because we were planning to sleep in the middle of the camp, so we had our own bags and so on and we were going upstairs carrying the load of wood. On the way to Harihar fort, there is an ancient Jal Kunda. From there, the road on the right leads to the fort, but since we were all new, we did not know exactly where to go from there, so we walked a little further towards Kunda and tried to find our way there.
It so happened that the villagers had cut down the trees and we were walking on the road that had become the place where the trees were cut down, but after reaching a point we realized that something was wrong and we had come the wrong way. Just as I was flashing light here and there, a blue man-like figure suddenly flashed in front of me and after a while I looked again and realized that someone had drawn a picture of Mahadev on a rock. At first it looked scary but then everything went back to normal. Some of us were talking jokingly because we missed the road. We once again came to the Kunda where we had turned left and thought we would see a flat place, pitch a tent there and spend the night there and start the trek early in the morning.
Then we pitched a tent on a flat spot and with a short distance near the tent on the side we saw a good place and lit a fire. The fire was not burning because of cold weather or damp wood. Then we poured a bottle of sanitizer on the wood and lit the fire. After a while, when the fire was near, there was a noise like wolf growl from somewhere in the distance and everyone started saying that it would be better to sleep, and we all went to sleep in the tent after extinguishing the fire completely.
The two of us were extra for the size of the tent, but we still adjusted and slept. The tent was at open ground, and there was a great deal of wind, and it seemed as if someone was moving the tent with his hands. Since there was no such coward in all of us who had gone, it would be confined the movement of tent due to wind only. After waking up between five in the morning we packed up and packed tents etc in the morning.
We realized there was turn on the right where we had to go at night. We went up that road and on our way up we saw that many more groups had come to trek Harihar fort. The charm of Harihar fort is its straight steps leading up to it in eighty degrees. I had the same thing in my head for so many days about this fort that I had to go to this fort and experience it.
We went upstairs to the fort while helping the people accompanying us and after reaching the top it was a different kind of quiet and pleasant experience there. About half an hour and a half from the top of the fort, we stopped and relaxed and went down again.
Now the real challenge here was because the steps I mentioned now about descending the fort at 80 degrees were about forty or fifty people gathered at the foot of the steps.
Stopping for a while, we slowly descended, making room for the people coming up and down. All the trekking experience was so amazing and would like to mention one thing that a 70 year old grandmother came up the stairs, so in this trek we saw trekkers from a seven year old girl to a seventy year old grandmother. That's a motivating & inspiring thing.
I would also like to say that if you want to take your school children on a trip, take them to these forts and tell them our history. If you are regular trekker then you must be aware of advantage of trekking at night is that the discomfort and fatigue caused by the sun is very low and it does not feel so much but I will say the same again, if you are alone, avoid trekking at night. But yeah overall it was an amazing experience.

Now it's time to stay home due to the lockdown but I look forward to the day when it will all come to an end and we will move on to the next trek.

;Anil Dhakane

Instagram: @mi_anil

#trip #trek #memories #fun