A Misadventure of a Picnic turning to trek

Sun was burning, the climate humid and legs tiring. Water was running out and there was hardly any food. And there was Nature, at her deceptive best. The so-called trail disappeared every now and then, camouflaged by dry leaves. The peak was visible, giving a false motivation that reaching it is so easy. Finally we gave up. For how much you can stretch a simple picnic to an arduous summer trek ? It took equally arduous hour to find our way back to meet some human soul.

We: Saurabh, Nikunj, Chirayu, Rohit and Krishnan.
Place: Karnala Bird Sanctuary
Peak: Karnala Fort

The normal path to reach the Karnala fort is through the Northern ridge. We decided to meander in a nature trail before catching up that path. But we meandered too much and ended up on the South side of the peak. Till that time the kind of landscape we were seeing had kept us not to worry that we were getting lost. Finally, we got to meet a wood cutter. We took his word of hopes and proceeded to reach the peak from the Eastern side. Then the above paragraph happened.

Not that coming back was easy, for back tracking was even more difficult with the questions like "Did we come this way?", "Did we see this tree", popping up now and then. And added to it, we had a few hours of trek in scorching sun left to reach back the place where we last saw water. So it was no wonder we were happy to see some goats grazing and even more happier when the shepherd said the village was just a few minutes walk away. Ghervadi village is nestled between trees on the mountains slopes and it gave us with the much needed water. And after another half an hour walk we were in Apta village among the civilization with vehicles buzzing around.

The misadventure brought back the memories of my summer treks, especially the Ethina Bhuja trek , where we got lost on every possible opportunity. The trip was supposed to be leisurely break from our academics and work, but turned out to shake some of us to the bottom. But the Bird Sanctuary area turned out to be having amazing landscape and if not for birds, which we hardly saw, we vowed to come back here for the landscape during or after monsoon.

The following Map of our trek route (rough one) was made out of Google map.

The monsoon treks ...

Missing those wonderful soaked days of monsoon treks ...

The sky is overcast,
The climate is humid,
The clouds are dancing
To the tunes of thunder,
It is another monsoon weekend,
We are in another monsoon trek.
The sky opens up,
And starts pouring down,
The trees of the rain forests,
High and dense to stop even sun,
And its punishing rays,
Could do nothing but get wet,
And let us soak in rain, but
We are not complaining, because,
We are enjoying it.

It is still raining,
We get new friends,
Whom we don't notice,
For we are busy with,
things from the sky,
They climb our legs,
And call for attention,
By biting us and suck,
'Yikes! Leeches', cries one,
'Oh! there they are', laughed one,
We drive them away, with
Salt and tobacco powder,
And it is still bleeding, but
We are not complaining, because,
We are enjoying it.

It is still pouring down,
We are in the open now,
With the rocks and grass around,
Totally wet and drowning.
Our weights have increased,
By the water that has soaked us,
And now the wind blows,
Blows to chill our bones,
And the wet cap flies,
I chase it on the slopes,
The rocks are slippery,
I slip and fall in a pool,
And get up smelling mud, but
I'm not complaining, because,
I'm enjoying it.

We are still in the open,
The visibility is too low,
The black giant a bit away,
Is not clear if is a rock or an elephant,
Not sure if we are on track,
Or are we heading due North,
Instead of going east,
Just then the mist clears,
We run in all directions to scout,
But the mist soon comes back,
And so do the scouts,
We don't know where we are,
And we decide to munch food,
We are not complaining, because,
We are enjoying it.

It is dark and pouring outside,
With the incessant rains continue,
As the stream nearby roars,
We sit inside tents, shivering,
And searching for a dry cloth,
For even the sleeping bag is wet,
And we try to sleep, still wet,
With the wind blowing the tent off,
And water tries to enter,
Through every possible opening,
And the thunder keeps frightening.
The night passes through,
With barely some sleep, but
But we are not complaining, because
We are enjoying it.

Only a monsoon trekker will know why we enjoy it ...