Rajgad-Torna

Rajgad-Torna, a dream trek of mine. I had heard/read a lot about this trek and so it was always there in back of mind. This trek needs lot of stamina as one need to first climb Rajgad, then from top of Rajgad go to top of Torna (Rajgad and Torna are joined with long ridge having many small hills in between) and descend Torna to go to base village. I was planning for this trek since 2 years but didn't succeed due to some reasons... Once we went with full preparation but then heavy rain spoiled the party...So this trek was always a treat for me.....

So now we decided lets do it during weekend of Ganapati visarjan 29-30th Sept. As usual there was no planning, no preparation as such since all others in our group are bit lazy, on the contrary i like to go with full planning and preparations :)....Even i was thinking it will get cancelled since 2 of our regular trek members backed out at the last moment...still somehow we managed to make a group of 5 (me, Amod, Aniruddha, Dev and his friend Yogesh) and then on Saturday morning finally decided that we will go....this time I want to do it at any cost...;)

We decided to start from Pune at 5 pm but again as usual time was not followed as one member (Dev) came late and finally we started at 8 pm. There was no worry of dinner as we had ordered dinner at one home based hotel in base village of Rajgad - Gunjavane. We reached base village at around 9.30 pm, had our dinner quickly and started to climb Rajgad at 10.30 pm. At base village there were many vehicles parked so we thought there must be lot of people already gone on top so there was less chance for us to get a good place for sleep :(, but we had no option than to go up... :) 

Climbing in the night was not an issue as we had already climbed Rajgad in night many times (Once at 2.30 am too :)). 

Start of climbing Rajgad at around 10.30

We had enough torches with us and as it was full moon the climb was more simpler. We reached the top of Rajgad at around 12.00 am, and then had some chat, fun. Now we went to Padmavati temple to find a place for sleeping, but the temple was already full of people and on top of that it was locked from inside so people like us will not come inside and find some small place for sleeping. There is another room(usually called Guest house - but don't go on its name as its really not a good place to sleep) that was also full :( 

Now we decided to sleep outside the temple in the varanda as we had no option left and we just wanted to sleep for 4-5 hours. The varanda had very less space but somehow we managed to sleep as these things are immaterial when you go to treks. Aniruddha was not so convinced to sleep there as he is not much used to treks and not used to sleep like this :). But again he had no option than to sleep there...I had good sleep till 3 am and then it was little cold which was making uncomfortable. We woke up at 5.30 am. There was person who was making breakfast (Pohe and Tea), we took breakfast from him which we desperately needed before going ahead. 

Must needed T :)

It was 7 am and we targeted to reach top of torna by 1 pm, take some rest and descend torna to reach village Velhe by 4pm, but things don't go by planning each time. We need to traverse Rajgad from one side, go down and take U turn from Alu darwaja to head towards Torna. From here there was stiff descend and it was very slippery so we had to walk very carefully. Here is the snap of the path and our target....

Ridge between Rajgad and Torna, one can see torna at the end

We kept on walking and at around 9 am we reached on one road which we need to cross on the way. Here Aniruddha looked tired and his speed has already gone down, he said he don't want to go ahead as he was getting tired. But somehow we managed to convince him to proceed. As he was very slow we asked him to go ahead with another small group who was also going to Torna. At around 10.30 am we saw small hut on the way and asked for some butter milk and water. Here we decided to take one break as Aniruddha was very tired and was in no position to proceed. We ate some cream roll to get the energy and decided to start. Somehow again we managed to convince him to proceed as there were only 2 options either to go back to Rajgad or go to Torna :). I was still not much tired as such so I told others that now we will stop directly on top of torna because we wanted to reach base village on time and also there was chance of rain too. But it was not that simple because now onwards there was a stiff climb till top of torna. From here the climb was very stiff, Amod and me were fast enough to proceed but there was much gap between us and other 3 guys. At around 12.30 pm, me and Amod climbed the ladder and decided to wait for others as they were much behind. It was very hot and really taking a toll out of us. Here I thought its done so I took some victory snaps but later realize that still we need to walk for more than an hour to reach a temple on torna from where we need to descend ;). 

Celebration time...but still long way to go :)

Aniruddha, Dev and Yogesh too came in sometime and then again we have to wait as these guys were tired. Now we have to go towards other end of fort and from here my speed also gone down and started to feel little tired. I reached the temple at 2 pm and again had to wait for others to come there. Finally all came and we had some food, took some rest (sleep infact :)) as we were really tired and then started to descend at 3.15 pm towards Velhe vilage.

I literally slept in 2 mins...;)

The descend was quick enough and not tiring and so we quickly reached the base by 4.45 pm. Thankfully it didn't rain because if it rained then it would have taken much time to reach base. That is why i was pushing everyone to move quickly :)

From Velhe village we took a jeep and reached Gunjavane village where our car was parked. Finally my dream trek and long waited trek was done :). It took almost 10 hours for us from top of Rajgad to base village of Torna. The feeling after reaching top of Torna was unbelievable when I saw from where we came :);)

Definitely it is not difficult trek but one need to have good stamina to do it. While coming back to home we had lot of fun, shared experience of the trek, did jokes on Aniruddha and decided to do complete trek again during summer in one day (from Rajgad base village to Torna base village :))....Lets see...;)