KoriGad

We were planning a trek for a long time now (A month to be exact), but all 3 of us had different reasons so it couldn't work, but this time we were Lucky and got this Saturday off and decided to go for a trek. Had read about this fort in some of the blogs and found it interesting (and pics were nice too) so it was decided to go for it.

We (Swap, Saurabh and Gaurav) left at 8 in the morning with Swap's Pulser and my Yamaha (Couldn't risk taking Saurabh's Bharat ki Shaan Splendor +).

Old Pune-Mumbai Highway is pretty well maintained and had hardly any traffic, we were pretty fast (70-80km/hr) and reached Lonavala in just an hour's (Plus 10min) time. It was fun driving Rx on the highway after a long long time. It was a sunny day (to our disappointment) but anyways we had fun driving.

After reaching Lonavala we started searching for a Hotel where we can get good Misal Pav (As always) and let me tell you its very difficult to find one in Lonavala where every 2nd shop sells Maganlal chikki and (first shop is of Tourist taxy), but we found one nice hotel (Hotel Annapurna) and we had a pretty good breakfast there.

Korigad is just near Amby vally, we came to know about a secret (Its not a secret strictly speaking but something we didn't knew) Amby Vally is named after Ambavane village which is very near to it and the place where Korigad is located.

One can easily spot way to Amby Vally from Lonavala (Its written on a big board), its about 20 kms from Lonavala city, and way is really good its an enjoyable ride on that road, we passed Bhushi dam on the way which was empty and not many people around. We asked for directions to Korigad, it was surprising very few people knew about it (May be we asked wrong persons or there are many outsiders in Lonavala). We came at Ambavane village and came to know that the way to fort starts from Peth Shahapur village which was 2 kms behind Ambavane. We reached Peth Shahpur parked our bikes at a nearby hotel.

Way to fort starts from the front of the hotel (One can spot a telephone tower as a sign), we started to go from the road (actually a पायवाट) which goes from a not so dense forest (As most of the area is under Amby vally) after a walk of around 20 minutes we spotted stairs which takes us to the top of the fort, we saw few animals such as a wild cat, a monkey and couple of Crabs. It took us about half an hour to reach the top (At around 1130).

Its a plateau on top and there is absolutely nothing left on the fort save two lakes, couple of temples and few तोफ़ा but one can get a good view of Amby vally from the top, its marvellous it looks like a place in England/US very neatly made and maintained, looks cool from the top. I read somewhere that one can spot Lohagad, Visapur and Tikona from the top, I could spot only Tikona (which also I was unsure about) and had no clue about other two. As per information provided by Saurabh, korigad was one of the four forts taken in Swarajya by Shivaji Maharaj the other 3 being the one mentioned above. Anyways it was pretty cool.

We started getting down at around 130, An uneventful journey save where Saurabh lost his precious glasses where we spent 20 odd minutes searching for it with no success. We spotted one small waterfall and spent some time watching small fishes (गप्पी मासे).

On our way back to Pune we thought to take Mulshi route but nobody knew about it so strange Lonavala falls under Mulshi Taluka and nobody is aware of how to reach there. We gave up that thought and went from the normal route. Its so strange the return journey always seems very fast compared to the coming trip, its always the same with all the treks. We were very hungry so stopped at a Dhaba near Talegaon had lunch there at around 4 and reached Home at 6. A real nice, near perfect trek. (A rain would have made it perfect). Check out the pics at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=110425&id=586602959&l=b21fc1d47f