Hello trekkers🙋🏻‍♀️

​Jay Shivray!

Hope all are doing good. Recently, I came across few posts from Mumbai trekkers group in which they are sharing treks stories and experience of different participants. So, I thought to share my trek experience as well. Although till now I have only done around 5-6 treks with MT but I would like to share Rajgad-Torna fort range trek experience today. Also, this is my first attempt to write something like this. Hope you would like it.

​In Feb 2019, I got a chance to do Rajgad-Torna range trek with Mumbai trekkers. It was a 2 days long & tiring trek. We were total 8 participants including 2 trek leaders. So, on 8th Feb 19 overnight, we started our journey from Thane by private vehicle and reached at Rajgad base village called "Gunjavane", Pune in early morning around 5 AM. Without wasting any time, we had our breakfast (Spicy yet delicious Misal pav and Tea) at Padmavati hotel which is located at the base village.

​Post breakfast, we started climbing Rajgad from Chor darwaza as per our plan. Final climb of this route was steep & tiring. we reached the top in just 2 hrs of climbing. After reaching the top, we had spotted a place for our night halt somewhere mid way village of rajgad torna.

​We visited Padmavati Temple, Padmavati lake, Janani mata temple, Pali darwaza, Amberkhana, Balle killa and Maha darwaza. The Idol of Chattrapati Shivaji maharaj located in padmavati temple gave us goosebumps. We had to rush in from the balle killa due to intervention from monkeys. After reaching Suvela machi, we took a halt for lunch and had variety of food brought by all of us. Then we visited Sanjivani machi traversing through an exposed route however the view from here was breathtaking.

One must ensure to carry more than sufficient water on this trek as we were running out of water to quench our thirst. Soon we started descending to a mid way village towards Torna fort as we had to reach there before its dark.

​After reaching at base village as decided earlier, we pitched our tent in a nearby farm and got freshened up, had lime juice and started preparing our dinner soup and hakka noodles. While preparing our dinner we saw some creature from a distance & it scared the hell out of us. On probing deep we found it to be a ferret roaming near our tent. Then we had our self cooked dinner. At night one of our trek member named Dharma started feeling cold so, he went off to sleep along with Ameet at villagers warehouse. The three of us girls - Pooja, Asmita and I shared one tent and the other duo Kartik and Kapil shared another tent. It was a peaceful feeling to sleep inside a tent on a cold & breezy night.

​Next day early morning, we had our breakfast (Maggie, American corns and coffee) and started our journey towards Torna fort. This route is very long through jungle with constant view of Torna fort right in front of us. While walking, we took halts for short breaks and had lime juice & buttermilk from local vendors.

Then finally we reached Torna fort from Budhla machi. We explored the entire fort where we saw various historical places such as Budhla machi, Zunjar machi, Kothi darwaza, Konkan darwaza, Menghai goddess temple, Bini darwaza, Sadar, Toranajai goddess temple etc. On top of the fort we had seen a group of kids with their masters singing songs(Powada) together and narrating the history of the Torna fort. We also joined them for some time and felt more energetic after listening to them. Atop the hill there is a Menghai devi temple from there we can able to view Raigad, Rajgad, Purandar and Sinhagad forts in the distance too. Again we took a halt for lunch and after that we visited Zunjar machi and started descending the fort. Soon we reached the base village parking area on the Velha side.

​In entire journey we were singing, chatting, clicking pictures of nature as well as group pics and had a lot of fun. After coming back to the base village, we started our return journey towards Mumbai by our hired vehicle and reached Mumbai in the evening.

​We successfully completed and enjoyed our 2 days range trek of Rajgad-Torna fort.

Thanks to bhavin to take the pains for shooting the entire trek. So, again I would like Thanks MT and all the participants for the wonderful trek memories.🤩🥳