TheFreeBird
Kothaligad trek is famous for its stairs cut through a huge rock to reach the top . Also it has a beautifully carved cave inside the same rock. It reminds me of other such rock carved forts treks like Bhandardurg & Harihar. Did I tell you that Kothaligad fort has couple of perfectly restored cannons. In monsoon it is always surrounded by clouds and has many waterfalls enroute. Ek perfect monsoon trek me aur kya chahiye ? This Kothaligad trek blog captures my perfect monsoon trek experience. More adventures like this one at the end of the post.
How difficult is the Kothaligad trek ?
Niraj what is the difficulty level of the Kothaligad trek? Kothaligad is an easy trek. Only you will need to walk all the way to Peth (4km) from where the trek starts. Since good roads are available only till a little distance from Ambivali, most of the off road till Peth needs to be walked which will take about 60-90 minutes.
How long is the Kothaligad trek ?
How much time does Kothaligad trek take? Well as I said earlier 60-90 minutes of walking from Ambivali to Peth village (4kms) on the bad road is needed. From Peth it will another 60-120 minutes to reach the top of Kothaligad. Hence 3-4 hrs of trek time + time to enjoy the fort. I myself sat at the top for about an hour because I was too glued to the view of the clouds getting created out of thin air at the Kothaligad ridge. So consider about 6-7hrs to start from Ambivali & reach back. Better start your trek early.
Food @ Kothaligad
Hotels are available at Ambivali as well as at Peth. Also on monsoon weekends many food stalls are available on the trek route from Peth to Kothaligad top. Also with increasing popularity many locals provide home made food as well.
Where to stay at Kothaligad ?
Kothaligad has become quite famous over the years. Many camping options have opened up in Peth village where you can get a tent stay + food for Rs 1000 -2000.
How to Reach Kothaligad from Mumbai and Pune ?
Where is Kothaligad located? Kothaligad is located at east of Karjat near the Karjat- Murbad highway. It is 25kms from Karjat, 55kms from Panvel, 90kms form Mumbai & 130kms from Pune. Ambivali is the nearest village with proper roads from where one can walk to Peth & then trek to Kothaligad. As such Ambivali is the base village for Kothaligad
Ambivali > Peth > Kothaligad
To reach Ambivali nearest railway station are Karjat and Nerul.
From Karjat : One can get on a Karjat- Jambrung bus and get down at Ambivali (available from Karjat Station at 0830 hrs ). Return bus from Ambivali to Karjat is at 1530 hrs & 1730 hours. Make sure not to miss it. Shared rickshaws are also available from Karjat (Shree Ram pul ) to Ambivali
From Neral: Shared Rickshaws are available to Kashele. From Kashele shared taxi go to Ambivali
Private Vehicle: Just drive to Ambivali (location ) using google Maps.
From Ambivali you will need to walk almost 4 kms to Peth on a semi-built rough road which gets worse during rains as all the soft soil erodes and all that remains are stones of various sizes. I.e. You cant drive all the way to Peth but can drive to Ambivali, park your vehicle and start trekking Or you can still go ahead for about 10 minutes from Ambivali where proper road is available, but then its all rough.
What should I carry on this trek ?
First few things you must carry are qualities of a good human being - never trouble wild life, never draw on fort walls, never risk your life for selfies, never throw plastic anywhere (carry back all waste) and never play loud music. When in nature behave like animals. BE ONE WITH NATURE
On treks, first preference for food is ghar ka khana, fruits, dry fruits, lemon juice & lots of water over biscuits, breads and carbonated drinks. Also I do carry 1₹ chocolates for quick energy boosts. My normal attire includes full sleeved clothes , cap & proper trek shoes ( No flip-flops) Good goggles i.e anti-glares are must for summer treks. I also carry safety gadgets like fire starter, waterproof torch, whistle, first-aid just in case. Here are few trekking gears which i always carry on treks
Plan to travel full time
The most common question that i get asked is I want to travel a lot but I dont have leaves. Should I quit my job ? For years I have suggested to not quit anything unless you have another source of income. In search of this source of income I tried freelancing , trek leading, vlogging and I realised nothing works in the long term - untill I came across trading
This is perfect fit for a traveller mindset. You can trade from anywhere around the world be it some off the grid village in Himachal or Meghalaya, be it some island in Andaman. All you need is an internet connection and a trading account. You can earn by trading for 1-2 hrs a day and would have freedom to do anything in the free time.Or you might have just earned enough in a day to take the month off travelling around the world. If you are able to learn this then it has potential to make all your dreams come true. I would suggest you take it up as a side project for 6 months to see if you have patience & intellect to master it.
Learn trading for freedom
Kothaligad trek Blog : TheFreeBird’s story
I am on a roll in this monsoon. Last two weekends i have been on two treks namely a 400ft Kataldhar waterfall trek and second was Kondana Caves. On third weekend’s Saturday I visited some offbeat unnamed waterfall ( more about it on my instagram) and on Sunday i decided to do the Kothaligad trek. Since i consider solo trekking idiotic I went to Kothaligad with my friend on my bike all the way to Ambivali which is some 50 kms from my place.
The route was very scenic and i couldn’t stop from taking pictures every now and then. We reached Ambivali and continued on the right side road till the point where the road bifurcates, we need to take the LEFT to start going higher. The road becomes very bad after a while. After parking the bike on the road side we started our Kothaligad trek on the rough road for next 2 hours taking photos at every possible interval. Jumping 50 times to get a proper take got me excited. Wouldn’t be an issue with the burst mode in mobiles
Could you solve the puzzle in the above two pics ??? 😁
It started raining heavily & I saw many water streams & waterfalls after every 5 minutes. After reaching a plateau the beautiful Kothaligad fort became visible. This is where every trekker would unconsciously spend a whole lot of time taking pics. Nature God was happy with me as rain stopped and i could take some beautiful pics . This Kothaligad View Point provides a beautiful location to take time lapse.
While the clouds played hide and seek game with the pinnacle of Kothaligad , the entire plateau had come alive with many waterfalls pouring across the plateau’s edge . After a brief stop at this point we restarted our Kothaligad trek towards Peth Village.
It took another 10-15 minutes from here to reach the Peth village. No points for guessing why we were so slow. Beautiful scenes with clouds & waterfalls can even make a sad person happy. Aur hum toh excitement ka dukaan hai. As we neared Peth village I realised how big Kothaligad actually is
At Peth village the first hotel – Bhairavnath Bhojnalay is the place where the road bifurcates . Take LEFT from here and walk straight till you reach the base of fort from where the Kothaligad trek actually starts. You will reach another hotel by the name Hotel Peth Killa ( visible on map ) whose owner told me that stay is free and you can get unlimited non-veg thali for Rs 150 and Veg for Rs 120. Cheers to that. It seemed like a good place to stay just bring your blanket or sleeping bags if you are large in number .
Walking a bit ahead we reached the village & going past the temple reached the Kothaligad trek start point.
There are many forts visible on Kothaligad trek but nothing was visible today due to clouds. With clear climate you can easily spot Bhimashankar , Padaragad, Siddhagad ,Irshalgad, Sondai ,Matheran, sometimes even Karnala & Manikgad. Today all we could see was clouds – they were beautiful though. Sometimes the clouds used to open up for a while to give a glimpse of the vast green expanse. Definitely a sight for sore eyes.
The climb is easy . In between the ascend i found a group smoking. Seemed like they had cancelled their climb half way because of exhaustion. Ya buddy keep on smoking . Ridiculous. There are few more stalls enroute which can take your lunch order while going up and you can have it once you are descending. Since we were running late we were just kept climbing till we reached the main entrance / Maha Darwaja.
We continued the climb which seemed like Ganesh Ghat of Bhimashankar but a shorter one. Moving ahead i found few more rock cut stairs.
Next stop was at top where there are couple of restored canons. Good job with restoration. With the canons i could imagine how Kothaligad fort would have looked in its hay days.
From here the route bifurcates near the Bastion / Buruj and goes around the fort. The route from right of bastion appeared very risky and i didnt go there. I did take the left route to reach the backside of the fort where there are many water cisterns and caves.
After going around Kothaligad it was time for the main attraction- The cave & the stairs. The route from Left of bastion leads to a cave and entrance to the top. This cave was the biggest one on Kothaligad. It had beautifully carves pillars and door frames . I can only imagine the human ingenuity to get these done many centuries ago with basic equipment.
This cave was not maintained properly as it smelled like bat shit. 50 people could stay here easy . And groups are known to cook food here. Beside this cave is a temple & the famous stairs to reach the top. The stairs are carved beautifully through this rocky pinnacle. It is indeed a miracle on how it was done 100’s of years ago. Even now it would be difficult to carve out such a beauty with all the available technology. My salute to these great craftsmen.
The stairs are carved like a circular stair case to reach the top. While climbing the stairs there are few windows through which i could see the beautiful greenery and clouds. This was mesmerising.
One last set of stairs to reach the highest point of Kothaligad trek. From here you get a beautiful 360 degree view which was used to keep an eye on the enemy movement in the Maval region
From the top we could only see clouds. Wind swayed the fresh green grass like waves and I was only able to hear the whispering wind & birds singing in harmony . The clouds were getting drifted to the top, right in my face with my hair swirling across my face. Mother nature had embraced me.
If there is anything that can be called heavenly – this would be it. I am pretty sure when i die almighty will ask me ” How was heaven ? ” I would be happy to say ” The Best “
View from the top of the Kothaligad fort in monsoon
Kothaligad was one of my best monsoon trek. I didnt want to leave this place but my freind had to reach home early and i hesitantly started going back. Not before clicking 100’s of pictures. We descended to Peth village in half an hour & had some snacks. Have a look at this vlog i made for this trek.
This is an old video, these days I upload YouTube Ambience videos without any artificial music & just nature sounds . Stay Tuned. Subscribe …
Time for the 50km long ride back home. So many beautiful things. So little time.
Till next time.
Bye !
Hope you enjoyed reading the Kothaligad trek blog .
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I've written blogs covering numerous Sahyadri treks, all accessible in the section below. Additionally, I create ambient Sahyadri videos on YouTube, featuring solely natural sounds such as birdsong, wind rustling through the trees, and the soothing patter of rain—the elements of nature that I hold dear.
SAHYADRI TREKS NEAR
