My first trekking experience.

My first trekking experience

Hi, friends let me tell me u that at 18 years, I am not that type of person whose physique is strong. I am an average type of person whose weight is roughly around 75 kilograms and height about 175 centimeters. Hence, trekking was always going to be a challenge for me due to my weight.
The idea of going to trekking was first mooted to me by my friend, Sushrut. I at first was skeptical of going to a trekking adventure as I had never done it before. He did the work of assuring me that this is a small trek and u will not find any difficulty in trekking due to u r weight. Feeling confident by Sushrut’s words I hesitantly said yes as I needed a break from my studies and wanted to relax in the lap of nature. Hence, our trekking spot was fixed , that is Duke’s nose or naagaphani which is closest to Khandala station and can be seen through Mumbai – Pune express highway.
I did lot of preparations for my trek and packed my bags with tasty sandwiches prepared by my mom and extra set of clothes and some emergency first aid box.
We booked train tickets of Indrayani express after lot of discussion whether that train halts at Khandala station or not. Coming at a conclusion that it doesn’t stop at Khandala we decided to walk from Lonavla to Khandala
On tracks which itself was risky. So at every crossing we stopped and asked the men working on tracks and the person controlling signals about situation of trains coming and going and then we continued walking. Finally after reaching Khandala we asked about position of Duke’s nose to some people and they told us to climb the mountain just after station. After climbing, D Mountain we took a left turn and reached Tata water pumping station and taking that left turn was our first mistake. Walking straight would have helped us instead of going to tata station. Since, No one had gone there before, we thought that we r on right direction. We thought that our instincts were leading us in right way but we were wrong. Moreover the employees at the Tata Station said that we r on right route. We took the route starting from Tata station.
We climbed a lot of steep slopes and I was heavily panting as I had never climbed it before. Our group consisted of six boys and a girl.
Two of them had done trekking before and had no problem in climbing but the rest of us were heavily panting and desperately needed rest. The two of my friends were climbing swiftly like Spiderman n were always first to reach any spot while I was always at last. I had memorized the Google earth maps and drawing a rough map we proceeded. Frankly speaking, the map was completely wrong n I wondered if we had carried a hard copy of map. We walked till we reached a small stream. At that spot, we decided to drink water from that stream which was a bold decision as we didn’t know d source and if it was polluted we all would have fallen sick. But we desperately needed water and I drank it hesitantly. I thought drinking that wate, I drank the shit of numerous crabs in that stream!!!!!!!!
As we looked down d stream, we noticed d expressway passing through khandala. I told my friends that we r on wrong way as Duke’s nose could be seen from expressway far away from khandala near the end of tunnels on expressway. I thought for a second that duke’s nose was on the other side but till then one of my friends had started to go up on mountain taking the path of stream which was dangerous as we had to go against the flow of stream. I didn’t get time to present my views which was my second mistake in d trek. But I thought that we r trekking some mountain and from there we can go further to Duke’s nose.
Trekking against the flow of stream was a courageous decision taken by two friends of our group. We followed them as I had faith in them that they r always leading in correct way. As I began climbing, I had problems placing my shoes in right position. For some time I climbed without help, till at one point I had to cross a five feet boulder in front of me with water gushing at a high speed. I placed my feet at wrong position on the slippery stone and I slipped and came down from boulder with a huge pain in my leg. At that point I thought, it is not possible for me to go up with more boulders coming on my path. I looked down and there was no point going down again.
Till then my friend Sushrut came up who looked to my frightened face and told me my mistake about position of my leg and assured me that he will help me to climb huge boulders coming in my path and I let him go up to help me to cross that five foot stone. I saw back and I saw one of girls in group Ruta bleeding from her head and she also had slipped and fallen right on her head but still she was walking with courage. This ashamed me that if a girl can do it, why can’t I? At that point I thought, I will cross that mountain and I stared to go up. The one who had done trekking extensively, that is Nikhil helped me to cross six to seven high feet boulders and I am really thankful to him and he constantly advised me to place my foot at right position.
Climbing continuously for nearly one hour we reached the top of mountain which of course was a flat plateau. We had a small scare in between as one of my friends had dropped his mobile down stream and to go again down to fetch his mobile. We were delighted that he had got his mobile back. On reaching the top, I noticed a strange shape of mountain which resembled that of Duke’s nose. To my surprise, it was duke’s nose as some kind of structure could be clearly seen on the top of mountain which according to many trekkers blog who had gone to nose was a Small Shiv Mandir. I told my friends about it who also agreed that it was nose and we had missed it by a huge distance. We had taken a wrong decision and landed on top of mountain which was far away from our final destination. We were a bit disappointed with the wrong mountain we had climbed that mountain in such a difficult position that it was really harder than climbing Duke’s nose. I had satisfaction in trekking a tough and difficult path.
We ate our lunch at the top seeing our missed target from the top.
As usual descending was not a huge task as we got a ready made route which was made by cattle’s grazing.
I personally think some precautions to be taken during a trek is that u should consult locals and draw a rough map of u r route. One more sharp contrast I noticed that there were neither birds in surroundings nor any wildlife. May be it’s due to extreme pollution caused due to guzzling vehicles on expressway. Rest all trek was fine with no difficulties and we made a return trip to Kalyan.
I am eagerly awaiting fir next trek and I hope to reduce my weight by nearly 10 kgs so that I have a lighter body to climb mountains and also some sort of training to climb more difficult paths. Looking for better times to come so that I can successfully trek a right mountain………….