Trek to Andharban

The quiet rustle of the leaves due to the cool breeze, the slow moving clouds that were surrounding us, the green pastures, the sound of white water cascading down the majestic hills and the muddy forest trail awaited to welcome us.

That’s where our trek started – Pimpri village base camp near Pune.It was a descent trek unlike the usual treks where one treks up to the peak and down back.It started uphill and we need to trek down to finally reach the Bhira river.

Difficulty level : Medium

Best time to visit : Monsoons

Location : Near Pune

We were a group of 20 people in the trek. It was a trek of around 15-20 km. Terrain was flat for first few kilometers. It involved walking through dense forests, crossing rivers and crossing waterfalls. The path got narrower as one moved forward.

One needs to be careful while crossing the waterfalls and rivers as the rocks get too slippery during monsoons. There are around 3 main rivers that one needs to cross before reaching Bhira. The first two rivers can be crossed by helping each other without any ropes.Heavy rains tend to make the trek difficult.

After crossing those two rivers, the terrain was a mix of flat terrains which were filled with lilies all around, and a descent terrain with slippery rocks. The descent became too difficult due to the incessant heavy rain. The difficult part in any trek is the descent and this trek comprised of around 5-6 km of descent. One needs to be really careful as the path gets too slippery during monsoons.

Due to heavy rains, we couldn’t even use ropes to cross the third river.It was a challenge to cross that river.Our trek lead managed to gather some tree branches to form a bridge which was used to cross the river. Just the bridge wouldn’t be safe either, so we crossed the river by using the bridge one after other holding the rope.Usually, this trek doesn’t get this difficult such that even ropes couldn’t help.It’s only 2-3% of the cases where it gets this intense. Better be prepared for the worst and be relaxed while trekking.Trekking in hurry might lead to serious injuries.

The effort one takes to trek Andharban is absolutely worth-while, considering the view of wide expanse of trees and waterfalls that one could witness.It was so heavenly to see clouds moving around, the beautiful view of a continuous range of huge hills covered with lush green trees and waterfalls. I was head over heels in love with that heaven.Such things make me realize how grateful I need to be of myself to be able to visit such amazing places.I wish I could spend an hour just sitting there, watching the view and having a cup of coffee 🙂

I tried to capture the views using my phone but those pictures don’t do justice to what I exactly saw