Ahupe Ghat Trek

Date: 23-24th May 2009
Grade : Medium
Height : 3855 feet
Route: Kalyan -> Murbad -> Khopiwali -> Ahupe village
Team : Trek mates is a trek interest group in Mumbai that regularly involve in adventurous activities like trekking, river rafting, water rappelling etc..The team to Ahupe ghat consists of 33 people including me

Ahupe Ghat is a pass leading from Khopiwali in the Konkan, to Ahupe village in the Ghats. Ahupe village is at a height of about 3855 ft. The Ghat drops vertically to the Konkan all around Ahupe, and there are many narrow gorges, with breathtaking drops. the route from Khopiwali to Ahupe, near its upper reaches, is very narrow, and almost a gorge.

Ahupe village is very picturesque, with a lake and an irrigation system. It looks like a remote hamlet because on one side, is the steep drop to the Konkan, and on the remaining three sides, there is a mountain range enclosing it, cutting it off from the Deccan plateau proper. This is a pleasant one day hike with rather dramatic views from the top.

Journey
My journey starts from Andheri then to dadar and finally to kalyan. "Trek mates" groups is being organised by 3rd year Diploma students and i come to know about this group through Orkut.

I always wanna go to different places and do different activies. The problem here is, it is difficult to arrange/gather a team of people for these kind of activies... Adding to that my current job @ Churchgate (involves 2 hrs of travelling) hardly anytime for me to plan. "Trek mates" seems like an ideal group for me as they regularly go for trekking, water rafting etc... Once can find such kind of groups in orkut, facebook, google groups etc... Do explore if you are a nature lover :)

My scheduled meeting point is at kalyan, PF no:1 - below the indicator. Since i am new to the group, most of my communication is with the organizer (Vikram singh). As expected i don't know anyone in the whole group.

This is my first Night trek, so i was energetic and full of enthusiasm. Gradually people started assembling and after sometime we are ready to start our journey. Our team consists of 29 ppl from kalyan and 4 more wil join us at the khopiwali village.

We took a bus to Murbad (local bus) and then a vehicle to khopiwali village. Khopiwali village is the base point of trek. It was no moon day and sky was clear filled with stars...

Soon everyone lighted the torch and prepared ourselves for the onward journey. A detailed instruction was given by trek mates about the journey which includes 5 mins of introduction round after sometime. Nearly after 10 mins we had our introduction round where everyone shared their profile. Indeed it was interesting to know a lot of people this way. Our team had a mixed variety of people from married people to a young boy doing his 11th standard.

Night @ Khopiwali village & Introduction round

I managed to have conversation with a few new people. As per my usual schedule I used to sleep exactly at 12 midnight to getup early for office. So most of the time i was half asleep while climbing. We regularly took breaks and rests. After 3 hrs of arduous climb we managed to locate a water spot, filled our water bottles and also rested there for a while.

After the water stop, we saw a "Green Viper" snake which took the position of a cinema star with people taking pictures of it :)

Green Viper snake & Vilage view

We had a narrow steep path that lied ahead of us. Even lot of regular trekkers struggled to climb. Within an hour we reached the plain which is around 1 km away from ahupe village. After that we reached the Ahupe village in 20 mins time.
To say in short, we started our journey from the base at 12:30 and reached the top at 5:30 am, almost 5 hrs climbing... I wouldn't say it is one of the difficult trek, but indeed consumed time than expected. We enjoyed the cool breeze at 3855 ft with a sense of satisfaction.

Sunrise

After reaching the ahupe village, we soon prepared to have a short nap in the open space facing the sky. I had one of pleasant sleep in an unusual way looking at the open space. The villages spans around 20 football grounds which gave us enough space to sleep ;)

Huts & Villagers

I got up at 8:30 (missed the sunrise :( ) and a hot cup of tea is ready to be served for us. Soon after that we had our breakfast (Thepla) and started to descend at around 9:30 am.
I had a nice conversation with a few people while decending and the topic varies from rajnikant, girls, marriage, happiness etc.. to trekking experience etc... We hardly noticed the time and reached the base sooner than expected.

Kids at Village

While decending i had a chance to look at the water spot. The water is filled with algae at the upper layer and the layer below is very clean and tasty. I once started to think that i should start a company like "Himalayan water" and may be name it as "Ahupe water" ;)

Water Spot

We also had a small snacks sharing session at the base near the khopwali village. Vehicle was ready to pick us up and dropped us at Murbad. From murbad we took a local bus to kalyan. We also had a small feedback at kalyan about the whole trekking experience and the way it is organised.

From kalyan it took me almost 1.5 hrs for me to reach Andheri. I really had a nice experience - meeting new people, night trek, coversation etc etc.. and definitely i can't ask more :)

Next week, one more night trek to Naneghat... Watch this space for my experiences about Naneghat..

Our Trek team