The ten people who went for this trek are : Vinay, Mayank , Asif , Abhinav, Mani , Pushpak, Deepjyoti, Prateek , Das & Chaterjee . and those who did not go are : avinash , bashir , Saurabh & ankur .
Those who did not go will now get to know what they have missed and I am writing this to let them know the same.
One of my most memorable treks which costed the 10 of us Rs 26100/- only.
Recap: 2nd august evening , four of us were discussing about a possible trek while sipping our regular evening hot cup of tea at anna’s tapri . I proposed the idea of going for this trek as there were few holidays for us and nasik is a place to discover only during monsoons . Nasik has some of the most beautiful & lush green medium sized mountains to trek . The weather is as usual always overcast during monsoons . It was also our last few 4-5 months together , I argued we had to make the most of each holiday.
But , avinash who can single handedly influence a lot of people did not like this idea since we had gone for anjaneeri trek only a week back . His argument was that why should I climb and see the same rocks and trees again and again . My enthusiasm also took a beating after hearing aviansh’s arguments .
2nd august night , 1 am : I prepared the initial budget of Rs 200/- per person if the number is 10 people. But I had only 3-4 people who were ready to go for the trek at that time.
3rd august evening : the number of people willing to go was still at 4 . I was watching orange county season one when Das said to me just two sentences , we must go even if the number is 4-5 people as we wont get this opportunity again . I immediately booked a Toyota Innova as my sixth sense told me that we would get the required numbers . As the word spread that I have booked qualis for the trek , there were a few more positive enquiries .
4th morning , 7am : Yoga time , after it finished the planning for the trek started .I got the ten people required for the trek . I instructed mani(our mess coordinator) to plan for the food & beverages . Myself and mayank planned for the logistics . I collected Rs 200/- from all interested people . We confirmed for the qualis at Rs 1200/- for the day .
9:30 am : we all had a heavy breakfast and packed bread, butter, chips,water required for the trek . It was heavily overcast which gave me a sense that we all are going to have a hell of a day.
We all waited at anna’s tapri at 11am for the vehicle . Mayank called up the travel agent , who told us that the innova he had promised has not come back from shirdi and hence he is sending a Toyota qualis within 30 minutes . The qualis finally arrived at 12.
We all adjusted into the qualis somehow and embraced ourselves for an adventurous day ahead. Dugarwadi is a beautiful 200 meter high waterfall situated on the nasik – dahanu state highway some 35 kilometers away from our college . It is some 6 kilometers off the state highway , this road was muddy and just wide enough to accommodate the qualis.
I cant explain the mountain tops on the way to dugarwadi , they were all covered in a dense cloud cover and it was raining heavily. It was the most beautiful sight ever . Half way through the journey , our driver played himesh reshamiyaa’s tanhaiya & mauhtarma song …… hell , these songs were enough to bring us to life , everyone was singing on top of their voices ..and yes ..through their noses .. he he …
Ok , after all the beautiful mountains, songs , we reached dugarwadi . The entrance looked like a muddy 2 meter wide canal …. We waded through the water and moved ahead …. There were small crabs in between as well …. They looked beautiful although I avoided going near them . The left-right view was just awesome … I think the pictures will say it all . after about a kilometer of canal , it gave way to half a kilometer of dense forests …. We again waded through the bushy plants all along the 2 foot wide pathway . We stopped for a while after sometime and I only heard the sound of the dense forests , some leaves flapping and some of my friends whistling who were a bit ahead.
Not many people come to dugarwadi and that why it was clean and unexplored .
After the forests , there was a kilometer of plains with some farms around them . We clicked some pictures here and I came upon a hanuman mandir with a monkey like murthi made out of stone . Simple but elegant. I paid my respects here and moved on .
We were now at the top of the mountain . To my amazement , we encountered two stalls after the plains selling tea and parle-g . we did not have anything here and just stopped for some time . We could now see the waterfall , it was huge and the sound of water falling was heard here as well , even though it was still a trek of 2 kms down the mountain .
The view was just breathtaking and our enthusiasm knew no bounds now .
After a photo session with the waterfall in the background , we decided to move on as it was getting late. Now the trek downhill started , it was not as easy as I had imagined. It was muddy, slippery and the pathway was also 1.5 feet wide. The forest were now even more denser. This was nature at its best, I just cant forget the hundreds of the sounds of the typical tropical forest.
The left-right view just kept getting better by each passing moment and yes it was raining okie dokie until now. After about half the downhill trek , chaterjee’s left shoe sole came out . We had a problem in our hands, deepjyoti came to our rescue and tied the sole tightly with the lace of the shoe. It was jugaad at its best. The forest was getting more and more dense and the sound of water falling was increasing with every passing moment. After trekking through the tough downhill dense forests for about 30 minutes , we reached a beautiful scene with a huge tree fallen flat on the ground and the pathway was made beneath the flat tree . We clicked some pictures sitting on the flat tree , it was a good picture . The trek continued with wet mud, slippery moss , lot of dead leaves , steep downhill treks , small pebbles . Well, moving on for 15 more minutes, we reached a place similar to what I had imagined as heaven…. The 20 meter wide river flowing with a lot of brute force … this force was developed because of the heavy rains in the catchments area of the waterfall ….
Their were cries of ecstasy, sense of amazement at the sight in front of us. It was awesome. Now, a lot of murmuring was happening with everyone sensing a hell of a ride ahead….It looked dangerous and it was as we found out later but definitely worth the adventure…..
A group of 5 boys were returning from the other side of the river ….They formed a human chain assisted along with a 3 meter long strong flexible tree branch to counter the brute force of flowing water. The water level at places was till the knees and mostly till above the stomach . A person could have easily flowed down the river if he did not maintain his grip in between rocks and some slippery rocks.
3:30pm , 4th august : We kept all our mobiles and purses in the two bags that we were carrying. We got the branch from the returning group, and decided to go ahead with the adventure. The strategy was finalized of to stay together and as far as possible to maintain the human chain . Das, deepjyoti and me lead the way , at first it felt simple . It was all about maintaining your grip at the correct places with the support from the flexible branch. The force of flowing water was very strong at some places along the crossing of the river. After about 15 minutes of struggle with instructions coming from all the ten members as to who should do what …. 7 people were able to cross the river and three members ( Asif, prateek & Chaterjee ) could not muster courage to face the force of the river. Well, I was the one carrying the supplies & after reaching the other side we started eating the stuff …. I think this acted as a motivational factor to make people crossover. Prateek meanwhile was giving all seven of us 1000 bad words/minute …… and asif was worried about his cigarette supplies which were with deepjyoti . Chaterjee was in his own self and suddenly the three people who are the biggest “bakarbaaz” in the batch were very quiet and just trying to grapple with the situation on hand.
Anyways, two of us (Das & me) went back to bring our three comrades to reunite them with the group . Chaterjee came first and barring a few hiccups, he was fine . Prateek tried thrice to cross but relented , then finally he made it . Asif is as thin as a feather, so once he started there were no problems in crossing the river. It was raining heavily all the time and the water flow was increasing by every passing minute. With a lot of struggle , the three of them managed to cross the river.
4:00pm, 4th august : There was a sense of achievement once all three of them were reunited with the group . We marched ahead and came across another river stream to cross if we had to make it to the base of the waterfall .It was a breathtaking view of the giant waterfall, some pictures were taken . It was getting darker by every passing minute. We sat on the rocks in the middle of the river and ate all of the eatables that we had brought with us. Meanwhile, a group of 5 boys were returning from the base, and they took our flexible branch saying that it was they who had bought the branch with them in the first place. They also promised us that they would keep the branch with our reaching distance when we had to return back . This was our biggest mistake, we trusted them and gave them the branch.
Along with having the snacks , we debated on whether to take the risk of crossing over or return back …. After 10 minutes of discussion, we all took a sane decision of returning back considering the adverse weather conditions & the increasing flow of the river.
4:15pm, 4th august : We were back at “the point” where we took a deep breadth and embraced ourselves for the rough ride ahead. The level had certainly increased in the past one hour. Our motivation took a dip when we found out that the branch was nowhere to be found. We had to cross somehow because we had no other option. We could not have stayed back since we had already exhausted our supplies.
I looked at an alternative route and found one , this decision was my second mistake of the day . We saw a group of 10-12 boys who had just reached the base point. They waited and started to watch our return . I lead the 10 of us and all of us formed a human chain , and moved ahead. Slowly and steadily, I somehow found the supporting rocks and moved on . Just before I could reach out to the base point, there was a gap of 3 meter wide chest deep water . I somehow mustered enough courage and remaining strength in my legs to move ahead, found one rock in front of me . My second in command was mani garg , who had held me very tighly. I slipped a little bit and was now really till chest deep with mani and the sole rock in front of mw holding me back . I howled and gathered the remaining strength in my legs and stood up , took two more steps and grabbed the hand of people on the other side of the river. I was safe finally , but for that moment I am sure everyone was scared.
Moving on , mani decided not to again test this route as he is the bulkier one but Deepjyoti and Das decided that they will do it and came through the same route .
What a situation , now three of us were on this side of the river and rest seven were on the other side. Now , the seven of them decided to come form the original route . We searched for the flexible branch frantically but the effort was in vain . Again Das, me and deepjyoti went in to bring back the seven members to safety. Now our efforts were more synchronized and coordinated, all the seven of them formed a unbreakable chain and moved slowly taking one step at any given time . When the leader moved ahead , he waited for the rest six to take that one step ahead. Soon all of them reached this side of the river.
4:45pm , 4th august : Hip Hip Hurraaaah !!! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! Hip Hip Hurraaaah !! …….. yahoooooooooooooooooo …. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh …… were some of then nonstop cries heard from all of us . The ten of us never felt this close having gone through such an exhausting adventure. Hats of to our teamwork!!!!!
We just kept taking about the river crossing non stop during our return trek . It had started to rain even harder. We kept on recollecting every moment, every action by any member, every picture taken . By 5:30, we reached our qualis .We changed there and got into the qaulis. Once our return journey to college started, the songs of himeshbhai were demanded and all of us sang for atleast 30 minutes nonstop ….
Meanwhile, I checked on my Moto razr V3i , it was not starting up …and there was water all around it . Actually, when I had slipped while returning back , the bag was drenched in water and maybe the zip was not 100% closed, so the rain & river water might have got into it . Whatever , I thought my mobile will be up and running once I have it dried with a hair dryer. But that was to no avail, as its circuit was fully damaged . Even mani’s N70 nokia phone met with the same fate, it is also damaged . Hence, the cost of this trip is 12000+12000+2100 = Rs 26100/- . But, I don’t regret it as I don’t think I will be ever be able to buy those moments with any amount of money.
Once again hats off to all my friends who went along and a big booh to all those who didn’t . Cheers everyone.
One more thing, I will try adding some videos of the trek as well provided I can remove the sound from them . Take care all .
