gb Goes TREKKING - to LOHAGAD

Date: Sunday, July 27, 2003
Departure Time: 00:00 hrs (midnight between Saturday and Sunday)

Returning on : Sunday evening

A friend from the community has been organising lots of treks and is thorough with routes, arranging vehicles etc.. we zeroed down to Lohagad which is near Lonavala. (next stop after Lonavala->Malavli)...(scroll down for brief description)

What he said is that we could rent a jeep and Leave either at 12am or 5am...the jeep would be more convenient and it would come upto 200 bucks per person, if 10 people turn up. Personally I believe 12am makes more sense as dunno how many would be able to WAKE UP and reach a decided common spot (like say Dadar) if we LEAVE at 5am...

We need your Confirmations by 20th July (this weekend) so that the jeep can be arranged for.
Also we request an Advance of Rs.250/- say at the next gb Sunday meet on 20th July.

A few pics of Lohagad from various sites on the net are at  www.picturetrail.com/tatva

Here is some information about Lohagad:

Lohagad must have been built during the reign of the Satvahans or possibly even before that. Malik Ahmed, the founder of the Nizamshahi in 1636, Adilshah captured the fort. In 1657 A.D.,Shivaji Maharaj conquered it. But the Mughals took hold of the fort under the 1665 Raja  Jaisingh treaty. On 13th May,1670 the Marathas again captured the fort by scaling it's walls. Finally in 1818 the British took hold of the fort.

On the way to the top, we come across four successive entrances, the Ganesh Darwaja, the Narayan Darwaja, the Hanuman Darwaja and the Maha Darwaja. All these doors are quite strong and are located on the serpentine ascent of the fort. Hanuman Darwaja is the oldest of the quartet. The remaining three doors were built by Nana Phadnavis. The space between the second and the third door contains some cellars used as granaries. After entering through the Maha Darwaja, on the left we come upon a spacious rock-cut cave at the base of a hump, adjacent to the fortification. This cave is known as the Lomesh Rishi cave. There is a natural spring in one of the water tanks, containing fresh, clean water.



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