Gratification. Noun. Pleasure, especially when gained from the satisfaction of a desire. This term isn’t one that is often used when it comes to trekking; however when Nihar Nair of Vagabond started using this as a basis of his treks, it changed my outlook on the entire concept of trekking. Until then, trekking was always about exploring a new place, or enduring a task to experience how fragile human life can be, by pushing myself. The idea of measuring the quality of a trek through the gratification it provides was alien to me, and when this boy with the perfect beard and chocolate brown eyes (at least that’s how the good guys at Vagabond say it) was telling me about it, I was a bit dumbstruck.
I’ve been a trek and travel enthusiast for as long as I can remember. However, in recent times, I haven’t been able to go on a lot of treks, owing itself to many reasons. The last time I had been to Kalsubai was in 2013, in my final year of college, and since it’s the perfect place to start off again, it only made sense to join my friend Shannon Fernandes (who is part of the core team of Vagabond) on their trip there. To add to that, this trip involved a night trek, which I love, and since he could use the pictures, it made sense for me to go.
For the unaware, as per Wikipedia, Kalsubai (Marathi: कळसूबाई शिखर) is a mountain in the Western Ghats, located in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Its summit situated at an elevation of 1646 metres (5400 feet) is the highest point in Maharashtra which earns it the much glorified title of the ‘Everest of Maharashtra’. The mountain range lies within the Kalsubai Harishchandragad Wildlife Sanctuary. It is visited throughout the year by avid trekkers, Kalsubai temple devotees and wildlife enthusiasts alike. According to the villagers living at the base of the mountain, a woman name Kalsu Bai was punished by villagers and forced to leave the village, and that the woman climbed the mountain and started living on it, and later died there, giving the mountain its name.
To reach Kalsubai, the quickest way to get from Mumbai is to take a local train from CST to Kasara, which is a decent 2.5 hour journey in itself. From there, you’d need to take a hired vehicle or taxi to the base village Bari, which is roughly an hour from Kasara. Based on the various speeds people tend to trek at, it could take one around 1.5 to 3.5 hours to get to the top. If it’s such a long trek, surely people might wonder why would this be recommended as the trek to get back into the groove. I mean, the trek to Karnala fort is just over an hour, and it’s closer to Mumbai, so why this? The reason is that on the peak of Kalsubai is a temple visited by people all year round. This means that there are many travellers who do it all the time, which means there are a lot of places to refresh yourself, with lemonade sellers. The trail in itself too is easy to spot, so losing your path is almost improbable.
Our schedule was a little different to most. As most people want to schedule their trip based on the first train to Kasara, they generally begin the trek only by 5:00-6:00am. However, as our goal was to reach by sunrise, we took the Saturday night train from CST at 10:50pm. This meant we would reach Kasara by 1:20am. The Vagabond itinerary said the taxi would reach Bari and give us enough of time to leave by 4:00am and reach by 7:00am, which is exactly how things panned out ultimately.
I’m a person who loves meeting new people, so deciding to go here knowing nobody other than Shannon made no difference to me. We took the train at 10:50pm, which got delayed and reached Kasara only by 2:15am. On that long journey I managed to strike up conversations with few of the people who were in the group, but being so late in the night, many had started to doze off and grab some needed sleep before the climb.
When we reached Bari, I decided to test my equipment, which involved the borrowed Canon 5D Mark III with the ever reliable 16-35mm f2.8. I made the mistake of carrying Chevlyn’s tripod, which is a heavy duty one. That tripod is great for local shoots, but carrying it for over 7 hours is unnecessarily stupid. In retrospect, I should be proud for being able to not only keep the pace, but not fall behind due to fatigue despite the weight. A few test shots turned out pathetic, but they seemed to be a good gateway to understand what I’d need to do different as we went higher.
The trek was slow as it was not only dark, but the group was filled with people who weren’t used to doing treks often. Given my recent past, I too found it difficult at times, but my ego prevented me from falling short, often pushing myself to stay on Nihar’s toes, who was leading the pack.
As we took our second or third pit stop, which was roughly halfway up there, I decided to take a longer rest as the group went on, so that I could get a little space away from the crowd, and focus on the night sky. The pictures came out surprisingly decent, but pollution from lower areas affected the pictures a bit.
By the time we made it to the top, there were a few groups there, roughly amounting to around 50 odd people on top. Since it has become fairly commercial, the space to be on top is more than enough for those many people. The sun being up gave me enough of reason to shift to Chevlyn’s dramatic Sigma 35mm f1.4, and click some amazing portrait shots, something which I don’t get to do often.
After a good hour on top, we went and rested at the cafes which are at the penultimate stage of the trek, where we had a light meal. Although I generally don’t recommend consuming milk on a trek, people love to sit back and enjoy a tea in that moment; however, I prefer to fill my tummy with some freshly made bhajji-pavs which are easily available there.
The view from top is almost heavenly, and while I was basking in the view, Nihar walked to me and told me to look at the way we had trekked. Even though it was a lot of inconvenience to carry all that weight, the gratification of completing everything and having the perks of carrying that up, is worth it. This is when I truly understood the meaning behind it. Treks are not just about experiencing, but also learning, and this was my major learning moment.
The trek back down was, unsurprisingly, without any stress, allowing us to socialise and talk the way back. My trek down was with Sneha, one of Shannon’s friends, and Shannon himself. Sneha Ramanan was a graduate of XIC, and was just done with her exams. She’s originally from The States, and her character was one that found laughter in almost everything. It’s kind of great that I seemed like Jerry Seinfeld with the regularity of her laughing, but then again, I feel the world could do with a lot more of such positive energy. Shannon himself was an old friend, so not much that we spoke was a revelation, but the trek back made me learn of his fear of heights. ‘What? Heights? How does a person who work as a trek organiser have a fear of heights?’ I thought to myself. It’s weird as hell, but also respectable, to have to deal with this on every day in the field.
When we got down, breakfast was arranged for, which we had and got done by a respectable noon. Taking our luggage and heading back, I looked back to the top and saw all that I had scaled in the past 8 hours. I was ready to get back into trekking, and I was thankful that the folks at Vagabond had made it such a breeze.
Carlton roy D'Silva 