!!! My Priceless Experience !!!: February 2016

Sahyadri range has plethora of forts. Taluka Junnar, belonging to the Pune district is no exception for that. Hadsar is a beautiful fort located in this region. Starting from Naneghat, one can combine Jeevdhan, Shivneri, Lenyadri, Hadsar and Harishchandragad into a six-day trek but I decided to go with the APEX group for Hadsar Fort one day trek on 27^th June 2015. We left from Pune on that Saturday at 7:00 AM & reached base village Hadsar at around 9:00 AM, after distributing lunch to every one we started actual trek by taking right turn from the main road.

Clicked By : RC

A while later we passed through few farms & before reaching first plateau, big rocks on the way we had some clicks there. From there heading in right side we were heading towards the fort entrance. On the way we had so many Eucalyptus (Nilgiri), Java Plum (Jambool), Curry leaves (Kadi Patta) trees. After crossing that mountainous route & taking left turn we reached the staircase of the fort which is dilapidated.

Clicked By : RC

Clicked By : Amol Kotkar

Fort Hadsar, also known as Parvatgad, was constructed during the Satvaahanas and was heavily inhabited during that period. It is located on the outskirts of Ahmednagar (known commonly as Nagar) to control the trade route passing through Naneghat. Documentary evidences show that Hadsar was one of the forts exchanged in the 1637 treaty between Shahaji Raje and the Mughals. In 1818 the British forces conquered Junnar and the forts in this region. Like most other cases, main features of this fort were demolished by the british during their attack and later.

The entrance gates of the fort Hadsar are epitomes of the medieval architecture. Twin doors in a tunnel-like entranceway, steps carved out of the rock and the Gomukhi construction of the entrance are worth studying. Passing through the main entrance, the path is divided into two. One leads to the top of a hillock and the other to the second gate. There was Bastion created in the rock cliff near the gates. Immediately after the second gate there we saw water cistern, with potable water.

Clicked By : RC

It was almost two hours after starting the trek so we decided to rest there & had our lunch. Then walking towards the right; there is a big pond with a Lord Shiva temple and a huge Nandi. The hall of the temple has six corners, three of which have idols of Lord Ganesh, Garuda (Eagle) and Lord Hanuman respectively on them. The pond in front of the temple gets completely filled in the monsoon. A stonewalled well-like construction can be seen at the center of the pond. Adjacent to the temple lays a strong bastion. Descending from the right of the bastion-wall, a cistern now filled up with sand soil can be seen. Proceeding little ahead leads us to a carved-out cave in the rock. This was meant for surveying purposes. In temple we asked to pujari what to explore here, then he said if go little further there is Godess Temple in the cave. So me & Vinay Deshmukh went ahead & seen the remnants of old buildings. Also there was goddess temple in one of the old building & seen one Shiv Shankar Pinda & water kund. There we had splendid view of front side hill.

Clicked By : RC

Then we came back & walking towards the elevated area in front of the entrance leads us to three huge stores carved in the rock butting the cliff. These are not suitable for a stay, though. The rock also has images of lord Ganesh carved on it. That view was awesome a way created through the rocks & at the end there was rooms created & we were enjoying that place like hk, 1bhk.

Clicked By : RC

Then we few people decided to go top most point on the fort called as BALE KILLA. There we saw remnants of old buildings & a splendid view of the Manikdoh dam and its surroundings enrich this place. The whole range of Chavand, Naneghat, Shivneri, Bhairavgad and Jeevdhan is visible from here.