Raireshwar Plateau & Kenjalgad Fort (8 October 2017)

     Trek to Raireshwar Fort/Plateau & Kenjalgad Fort. This trek was planned by Mr.Amit Gupta on behalf of Girivihar Trekkers group. Girivihar is one of the oldest trekking & adventure group in Mumbai. My rider mate Ajay Mhatre & I joined the team. Raireshwar & Kenjalgad are plateau & rock mountain respectively, situated close to each other to the base village Korle, between Pune & Satara region.

     The journey initiated on 7th October 2017. Amit had arranged MPV Innova from Dadar. Our group size was seven namely Amit Gupta, Prashant Lele, Ajay Mhatre, Rajashree Kamath, Franklyn Silveria, Mr.Harish & Me. We started from Dadar at 10:30 PM. Routed via, Navi-Mumbai, Lonavala, Pune & then by inner roads we reached Korle (Base village) at 4 AM & rested in a temple till 7:30 AM. We had tea & snacks & initiated the trek sharp at 8 AM. To the right is the Raireshwar Plateau & to the left is Kenjalgad Rock fort.
     Raireshwar is a plateau on altitude of 4273 ft. The jungle route continues till the steps of Raireshwar plateau. It took around 1hr 45min to reach the top. At top is situated the Raireshwar temple of Lord Shiva. It is famous because Emperor of Marathas, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj's oath taking ceremony was held here in 1645.
     We moved from Raireshwar & started trek path towards Kenjalgad Fort. we have to cross multiple hills to reach Kanjalgad from Raireshwar. It a dense & very high jungle walk. Kenjalgad is a hard rock mountain situated on altitude of 4590 ft. The has been in hands of Bhoj Rajas, Adilshah, Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Aurangzeb, Peshwas & British. The fort has a small plateau. The appearance of the fort from long as well as close distances makes it more fascinating. It is a stone scarp 40-50 ft high rising as a cap on irregular hill. We did a walk around this rock parallel to reach the steps. It was a dense grassy walk on a hill side. We reached Kenjalgad fort top at 1:30 PM. We eat all the food stuff we had as the heat sucked all energy within us.
     We started a descend at 2 PM. It was a 40 degree descend till the base village. After a while, raining started so heavily that it made our descend too much difficult. After a continuous descend of 3 hours, we reached the base village Korle. We arranged for changing in a local's house. Had a tea time & we started heading back towards Mumbai.

     It was a tough trek, overall distance covered was 17.1 Kms. The Rain made it more adventurous. One should surely visit this block of Raireshwar & Kenjalgad to feel their love about mountains. 

PHOTO GALLERY :

Temple in Base village

Trek starts

Mandatory selfie - All time partner !

Left up hill view of Kenjalgad Fort

Up hill view is Raireshwar plateau

moving towards Raireshwar, backside is Kenjalgad range

Up to Raireshwar

Climb to Raireshwar Plateau

View of Kenjalgad from Raireshwar 

Steps to Raireshwar

Well developed Raireshwar Plateau

New friend on Raireshwar plateau, spent around 1 hour trek with us

Raireshwar Temple

Inside Raireshwar Temple

Shivling where Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj took Oath for 'Swarajya'

'Gomukh' - It  is Drinking Water

Team for the day - Girivihar Trekkers

Goodbye Buddy, Trusting Dogs is worth all the time

Now lets go from Raireshwar to Kenjalgad

Towards Kenjalgad fort

Kenjalgad Fort

To go around this huge rock

Steps to Kenjalgad

Water tank on Kenjalgad

Rainy descends