One day Trek to Kothaligad fort/ Peth Fort

Here is my first Travel blog.

Although I have been traveling from last 4 years, this is first time I'm writing my blog.

Trekking is sahyadris is always closet thing to my heart.

So on 24th Nov after break of 2 months due to various reason I decided to go to Kothaligad Fort in Karjat.

Here is little information regarding Kothaligad Fort :

Kothaligad fort is also known as "Peth fort" due to due to name of base village : Peth.

Its a pinnacle kind of structure whose main objective was to keep watch and work as defense station

History :

There is one famous battler fought between Marathas under Sambhaji Maharaj Empire and Mughal Empire. Unfortunately Marathas lost this battle, The Mughals renamed the fort as ‘Miftahulfateh’, meaning victory key.The Marathas continued their efforts to conquer the fort. In December 1684, the Marathas tried to stop Mughals moving towards the fort. Seven thousand Marathas constituted a strong battalion and fought with Mahamatkhan. But success was far away. In April 1685, 700 Marathas attacked again. About 200 of them climbed the fort with the help of rope ladders. Battle started between two parties and a lot of blood shaded. The goddess of victory again favored the Mughals and the Marathas lost the battle and the fort.

After 130 years in November 1817, Bapurao, a Maratha Sardar with Bajirao II fought with British and won the fort.

How to reach :

You can drive in of fort just need to put "Kothaligad fort" on google maps. Road till Ambivali village is in good condition, but after that road condition is very bad. you need good rider or professional driver to drive through that road.

From base 30-45 minutes is enough to reach Top, About 1 hour is sufficient to cover the fort area.

If you want to go via public transport in that case You need to reach Karjat Railway station. There is high amount of trains from Pune and Mumbai. You need to go to ST stand at walk able distance and catch direct bus to Ambivali, frequency is quite low, so another option is catch a bus or tumtum (six seater) to Kashele , from there direct tumtum is available to Ambivali.

Here is direct time to st buses from Karjat to ambivali : 8:30 am, 10 :45 am, 1:00 pm, 7:30 pm

Ambivali to Karjat : 6:30 am, 9:45, 11:30 am, 1:00 pm, 2:20 pm, 5:30 pm. But as its government buses so expect 30 minutes delay and plan accordingly.

From there you need to walk 4 km uphill road to reach base of fort. It can take 1- 1: 30 hours.

How I went :

So I and my friend Ashok (Patil ) catch the pragati express at 7:50 from pune station and reached around 9:40 to Karjat.

As there was around 1 hour to bus to ambivali we decided to board 9:45 bus Murbad which drops us Kashele fare 25 . At Kashele we ate vadapav as breakfast and run towards tumtum to Ambivali fare 20. We reached at 11:30 am ambivali, sun was right over ahead when we started trek.

I need to admit that I didn't checked the distance accordingly from ambivali to base of fort, I thought it was 2km and that too flat road but as I said it was 4km and uphill road. Walking though that and with sun over your head I'm sure trekkers can understand how that feels. But we started enjoying it after first 30 minutes and saw visuals of the Fort.

We reached the base of fort in around 1:15 hrs and drank Limbu sarbat (Lime water), water and food facility is available at base of fort but do not forget to carry at least 2 ltr of water with you.

We reached the top of fort in 40 minutes and saw this first view of fort which was just amazing :) All that tiredness just gone away.

There is two canons of Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj period , there is temple and cave as well where you can stay for night if you want.

Amazing stairs :

Descending fort is always easy than Ascending fort so it just took around 1 hour to reach ambivali, we ate some Chinese at local hotel as there was no other option and waited for some time of bus but tumtum arrived before that and we reached Kashele and took a auto to Karjat.

we boarded into Pragati express at 18:08 at reached Pune after exciting trek, office work was waiting for me at 6 am :(.

If you like the place information and photos, just visit this place once :)

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