!!! My Priceless Experience !!!: "Sindola Fort Trek"

First trek of APEX in 2016 monsoon, all were eagerly waiting for it. Because from last two three months due to heavy summer we haven't done any trek. So we started in the morning at 6:00 AM from Balgandharva Stop towards fort base village Bagadwadi which is 111 KM from Pune. We reached there around 9:30 AM, few members from Mumbai joined us there. All together we were 14 members including drivers.

Sindola fort is a small & located in Junnar region of Pune near Malshej ghat.There is not much history available of this fort, may be it was used as watch tower in that area. Fort is 350 meters (1128 feet) above sea level. The construction of fort is believed as old as neighbors Hadasar & Nimgiri around 5th century. Tough & narrow way to reach the top of the fort, tough in the sense most of the times on one side of path there is 1000 feet deep valley & slippery too. So June first week is best to do this trek.

We started our actual trek at 10:00 AM from the base village, after walking few minutes need to take right turn for fort route, which will lead us through farms. There are too many trees of Jambul, we all eat that like never seen it before :) :) . There are too many ways created may be by shepherds in near by villages of fort. We need to get up on the first hill, our leaders took few more minutes to find the proper route to go up till then other members took rest over there. While crossing this patch we saw some wild trees as shown in pictures.

We all took rest at first plateau, wind flowing there was just awesome & we had introduction round there. From there rather than taking any turns just go straight through Aloe vera (Korphad in marathi) like plants & reached the second plateau. There again go straight through Encalyptus (Nilgiri in marathi) trees, till these everything is very simple except finding the correct path.

Here onward we need to take the left turn to reach the fort entrance situated in between the indent gap of two hills. We all together took almost 3 hours to reach a place from where we need to take the traverse way. So there itself we all took rest & had our lunch (Chapati, Aloo Mater Sabji & Shri Khanda).

There after little risky way starts with valley facing on one side, heading in left direction we reached the entrance of the fort completely ruined bastions available there. There we saw the Lord Ganesh Idol created in stone itself. After taking few snaps there we took right turn which leaded us to the water cisterns. There are 6 water cisterns available in one we found drinkable water, so after filling all our bottles we headed up side to the Flag point, view of Pimpalgaon Joga Dam is amazing from there. We took few minutes rest there & few pictures also. Then after we went exactly opposite side of the top & saved the unbelievable views of Sahyadri Ranges, Harishchandra Fort is fully visible from there, valley views & near by villages view are simply unforgettable.

Then at around 4:00 PM we started descending the fort & by taking small small halts we reached the base village at around 6:00 PM & left the Bagadwadi & reached the Pune at 9:00 PM.It was the great start of the 2016 season. Thank you Thank you Thank you so much APEX ADVENTURES.