"The mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambitions to achieve. They
are my cathedrals, the houses of my religion..." - Anatoli Boukreev and myself : )
The very idea of planning for a trek elates my mood to extreme levels of joy and enthusiasm and leaves me anxiously and desperately waiting for the day to come.
Often I keep imagining about what wild things I would experience and finally get lost in the thought process…as the plethora of joy and happiness is mesmerizing and enigmatic.
The night before the trekking day is always a sleepless one….obviously out of excitement but much due to the fact that we generally start our adventure at night itself so as to make to the base camp early next morning…(my friends hate me for this : ) ).
Trekking has a lot to do with attitude and preparation and being able to accept when things don't go as planned. Not making a strict timetable is essential. If you can't get somewhere, don’t worry about what you might have missed. Just enjoy what you ARE experiencing. The beauty is not just about the adventure and physical challenge that one experiences instead it is more about admiring the natural beauty of the place and I consider myself to be damn lucky to have such places nearby. The silence of the mystique peaks of “Sahyadri Range” (The Western Ghats) speaks loudly about their natural beauty and ancient origin. The mosaic structures of the hills provide astounding views of the ghats from top as well as bottom. The cool breeze that gently tickles past you playfully drags you to a different world altogether, away from the daily rush hour, and pathetic city life….where people have become ignorant about their claustrophobic environment having puffed nostrils and lungs stuffed with toxic polluted air.
Coming back to my own experiences, I won’t be unfair in admitting about earning the reputation of being much like an enthusiastic cockroach with broken antennas often leading my friends to no where and ultimately getting stranded on a lonely mountain all by ourselves…hehe… If I begin counting my wild experiences…..
The first time it was the ultimate rocking Jeevdhan trek (one of the greatest!!! treks our Maharashtra has to offer) where we were left atop the monstrous hill with no water, no hint of a trail leading down, no place to have a bonfire & chitchat, exchange spooky ghost stories to pass the dreaded night ; ) and on top of that we had an adamant ‘papaji’ insisting us to spend the night in wilderness …..then there was the Lonavala trip where we had the guts to climb up the hill under torrential rains on bicycles with wooden seats and no brakes : ) for a 25 km journey…. and last but not the least the recent one to Rajmachi….where our over excitement made us follow a fake trail and ultimately climb a ‘triple headed’ impenetrable stupid peak (named ‘teen-kane’-original aka ‘teen-shen’ (kept by mee) in marathi for its three heads) completely filled with thick dense shrubs and snake pits, pretending it to be the desired mountain….hehe…
I can’t forget any of them. I couldn’t have had all this fun without my mates as we all lived the desperate situations together tackling it with fun and this even helped in increasing the mutual bolding between us to a higher level. Thus I believe this post would be incomplete without their names being mentioned. Here they are:-
Tanmay aka Desi
Harpreet aka Honey or Papaji or Redundant-chond!
Dhanesh alias Marwadi or dhanno and many other names which I am not disclosing bcoz of public viewer ship ; )
Shantanu aka Sunny or Jhantanu
Swapnil aka Powar or h****i
Sanket alias ‘Tiger’ or simply called gawade.
Myself---- ‘Devar’ : )
We rock!!!!! So guys ready for another one?????
Well for experiences like trekking the kind of people one is with doesn’t matter until they are willing to face the heat and ready to accept the unexpected and of course love and admire Mother Nature…..so anyone interested to join our elite gang is most welcome : )
