Me and dad left home at 6:30 on my bike. I drove slowly so that dad could enjoy the light rain and the washed out scenery. We reached RamaKrishna at 8:30, had a hearty breakfast and then set out for the second leg of our journey along the Aamby valley road. The road after Bushy dam, which is maintained by the Sahara group, has always been awesome and was no different this time. It was completely fogged out after Lion's point and the road twisted, turned along till Aamby valley. The base village for this trek is Peth Shahapur, which comes 18 kms after you take the turn from Lonavala.
I parked my bike at the village temple. The route starts from behind the temple and the fort is always at your right side through the route. The first 20 minutes were through a well defined, mud path which halts abruptly close to a tar road that comes in from Aamby valley. This was my first view of Aamby valley and it was very impressive -- wide well paved roads and great looking bungalows. I hear it's 5000/- for spending a day in there.
Anyway, when you see the Aamby valley road, take a right which takes you through a short forest patch. When out, you will see the steps that take you up to the fort. The steps seem to be laid by the Sahara group and there are even hand holds at a couple of stretches. When we were there, a group of workers were clearing the road where there had been a mini landslide. The steps should take around 15 minutes but because I was with dad, we moved slowly taking frequent breaks.
Halfway through, there's a Ganpati temple and a big cave. The Ganesh Darwaza (you can climb to it's top) signifies that you are almost there. The top is a big plateau with a wall running around it's side. Make sure you take a walk on top of this wall -- you can see Aamby valley (with a runway), the lake of Mulshi dam, and if you go in the monsoons the fog coming in from Lonavala valley. Quite some sight!
There is the Korai temple on top and two ponds. We checked them out, took a few pics and quickly headed back down. Dad was missing mom already and I didn't want to come in the way of love. Going down was quicker than I expected with us back at the village within 30 minutes.
The ride back was awesome as the fog had reduced visibility to some meters. Dad had only heard of these things from me and was quite happy to experience it first hand. At Lonavala we again had lunch at RamaKrishna and after a two hour ride were back home before 5 PM. The earliest I have ever come home from any trek.
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