Sinhgad fort is nearest fort to Pune city.  On the weekend of 9th Jul 2011 me & my two colleagues Subhash Darade & Sandip Daware decided to climb up the Sinhgad fort for hiking.  We got together near khadkwasala  dam & took a quick breakfast from a street vendor.

There are two main ways to go on Sinhgad fort from base. One road is ghat road using which one can go to top ( Machi ) by vehicle. Another road is for trekkers . We selected second option. We reached base of fort ( Donaje  Village ). In this village you can park your vehicles by paying nominal parking fees to villagers.

We started climbing at 8:20 AM.

At Donaje Village - start of trekking

In below photo Sinhgad top looks hidden in the clouds. It was not raining much .

Sinhgad fort in the clouds

We started climbing. There were very few groups to accompany us. Generally sinhgad is favorite destination of Pune people. We talked with one old couple getting down from fort. They had started early in the morning  & came down within two hours.

With few minutes of climbing there was a beautiful view of a water fall.

View of a water fall on Sinhgad road

Such scenery is refreshing . One do not feel tiredness of the physical activity. There are tough to climb slopes. But always there is one hard to climb short way & one long but easy way. We were using tough routes.

aslant paths

Here comes beautiful view of Sinhgad Valley ( I should say “Maval” valley )

Beautiful view of Maval Valley from Sinhgad

Climbing sinhgad fort is test of your physical endurance. We took about two to three small breaks. Since all of us are regular in exercise so we managed to to reach first gate for fort within one hour & fifteen minutes.

Gate of Sinhgad fort

By the time we reached there , a lot of visitors already reached on fort by vehicle using easy way. Many vendors sell boiled ground nuts, butter milk, cucumber, raw mango etc food items.

Fort inside gate is huge area with lot of points to see. At the entrance there is a location map one can refer to

Location Map on the fort

Some pictures on the fort.

We visited many points on the fort. Wind point is a place where high wind for valley comes on fort. The wind is so high that you could hardly stand there.  A small water stream falling in valley was getting sprinkled up high in the air.

We walked all over the fort for couple of hours & had typical Marathi lunch “Vange Bharit , Bhakari & Bhaji”

The weather on the fort was cloudy.

Cloudy view

Cloudy

We took about one hour to come back down the fort.  That was a really good experience . I also shot few videos . I shall post them here soon.

View all photos of this visit on https://picasaweb.google.com/iphotic/20110709_SinhgadHiking