Distance : 197km from Mumbai
183km from Pune.
23km from Bhandardara
Height. : 4250feet.
Location : Ratanwadi,ahmednagar,Maharashtra
Difficulty : Moderate
Near location: sandhan valley, bhandardara damp
My first trek experience...
I went trekking solo for the first time in my life. My dream is to climb a mountain in the Sahyadri at least once in my life and see how this nature looks from the mountain. But I didn't go because I didn't have many friends Because although Sahyadri is beautiful to look at, I realized that climbing it would be a terrifying experience But one day I thought a lot that there are many people like me who love trekking but what do they do if they are in the same situation as me. I searched on Google, I got some fix in the name, where to go?
on Instagram, as the Karvi festival of Ratangad was starting, I thought that Let's go to Ratangad ... on Google The name of the trekking group was seen. In each trekking group, they had given all the information about the trek, event information, fees, itinerary. I googled some reviews.
Then I decided to go with a travel group. Four days in advance I booked the ticket. In the beginning, I was very afraid. How will the people be? How many will be there?Finally Saturday dawned I started preparing for the trek. I had taken the essentials as suggested by the travel group. There was a bus from Thane at 9:30 in the evening. I reached Thane by 9:15 but did not know the exact bus stop. My elder brother came to drop me off. He was the one who contacted the trek leader. And confirmed which bus stop we want to come to. In a short time we reached the bus stop.
There were many boys and girls standing Was waiting for the bus I saw them and I got more scared because they were wearing proper trekking shoes, clothes. I was wearing simple clothes and sport shoes as I was going for the first time. I didn't know much. At that time the bus came. Everyone started boarding the bus. I also said goodbye to my brother and boarded the bus. The seat next to a girl was empty. I sat there beside her. I was very happy because my dream was about to come true soon but I was also scared. The bus left and stopped for a while to fill petrol and have tea. By luck I got a window seat. I fell asleep looking at the view outside.
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| Beautiful Sunrise at Ratanwadi |
I woke up around 4. The trek leader chat They are like moons in the sky was sitting in the bus. I looked out and saw stars in the sky. As if the stars in the sky are falling on the mountains in front of it. And after seeing that scene, my mouth said wow, how beautiful...Then the girl next to me told me that the trekkers are going to Kalsubai peak with torches. Hearing this made me laugh. It was the first time I was out of the house alone, so I was feeling great. Soon we reached the village situated at the foothills of Ratangad.
The bus was parked outside the hotel and one by one everyone started getting down. Fresh air, beautiful nature. Wherever you look around, you can see mountains, rivers and farms And a very beautiful sunrise was seen. Soon everyone got fresh and a short introduction was done and our trekking journey started.
We had a group of around 25 people. Everyone was walking, stopping a little. By doing this, we came to the middle part. Everyone took pictures there.
There was also some forest area. There was also a fall area. After passing all this, at one place there were steep stone steps. There was a little fear while climbing those stairs, because if the foot slipped even a little, the people behind us would fall down. Removing the fear from my mind, I climbed that part. After that, when I looked back, the scene was looking very beautiful. A little further from there, I climbed the iron stairs. I felt a lot of fear there too. After crossing it we reached the head of Ratangad. In fact, me and many others like me were the first to see the flowers of Karvi, which went viral on Instagram. But to tell you the truth, such as was showing it on Instagram. We didn't see much there. As Ratangad was trending on social media, there was a huge crowd of people.
When I went to Ratangad, there were not many flowers of Karvi. After taking photos for a while, our return journey started. I had more trouble coming down than I did going up. The legs were heavy and the entire mountain range was a downhill one. All the buses got down and stopped at a flat place. There was a small river flowing nearby. As the heat was getting very hot, everyone stopped for a while drank water and some went ahead.
A trek leader and four of us were sitting there having fun for some more time. We thought that the trek leader would know the road so we sat comfortably. And after about 15 minutes we left from there. The trek leader was ahead and we were behind her. After going a little further, two roads were visible. The trek leader did not know which one exactly. We knew only then that we were lost. There were many roads ahead. After a lot of searching, we went out by asking the people passing by (experience member of the second group) for the way. When we saw the river and the hotel that we had seen in the morning, we came to life. Getting hot, hungry and thirsty, all were tired. The trek leader of our group could be seen coming from the front. They said that they were coming to find us.
Finally we reached the hotel, freshened up, had dinner and started our journey back.
My first trek experience was amazing. I got a good friend. Learned a lot of things, but there is still a lot to learn.
I will give you one advice, if you don't have any friends, go with any travel group, you will definitely get a good friend. Just don't share your personal information with anyone immediately.
Meta description
My first experience of Ratangad fort trek was great and informative.I am glad that I started the Sahyadri mountain range and explored the jewel of Sahyadri.
