Karnala Fort

In late July during Saturday night i planned to see karnala fort on sunday along with viral & anurag. Just few days ago viral was back from mangalore so it was obvious for him to be excited.

As schedule me and viral woke up at 4 am but like again anurag cell was switched off so after getting ready we went straight to anurag house knocking door making entire family woke up.This was the only option we had and top off that it was anurag fault so within 30minute he got ready and we headed towards metro.
We took metro from azad nagar to ghatkopar after getting down at ghatkopar station we took train to kurla station from there to panvel station.The train which we boarded heading towards panvel station was rushed even on sunday morning,REMEMBER-There is no fast train available towards panvel which is the last station on harbour line and it also give you shockups feeling that's how harbour line railway tracks are!

Once we got down at panvel station after hours of train travelling we headed straight towards ST bus stand which is just 5-10 min from station.We caught ST bus going towards karnala bird sanctuary,thanks god there was no rush but driver rided like it's a last day of his life and top of that there was fog on the road,every now&then rain dripping though view on the way was eye pleasing it gave you the feeling like one smoked weed and got his eyes heavy&sleepy.TIPS - make sure to cop middle seat of ST Bus.Bus ticket will cost you like 12rs per person.
Maybe in 20-30min we were at Karnala bird sanctuary which is the base of karnala fort.One need to take entry ticket costing 35rs per person and extra charge for parking if you got one.

Me

Me and viral

Me and anurag

On my way

We reached bird sanctuary but there were more monkeys than birds 'and beautiful pond few steps away.It got that country feel to it.On the way i saw some group of trekkers getting ready however we got busy in our photo session

Pinnacle right there is our destination

Country Traktor

Pond

Mini waterfall

Peacock

Rabbit

After our photo photo session we were confused whether to take left or right way! so i asked one of the trekker he told us to take leftone 'which is time consuming' but easy compare to rightone 'which is steeper' with rainy season around it gets more slippery.It was 11am so wasting no time we started our trek as we were getting up it was getting more stepper and slippery,dnt knw how viral managed to trek in those slipper! Good thing was every 20-30min of trekking there was shelter to rest and save you from rain.
At this point(Below pic) view was getting beautiful with minor fog around.

Caterpillar

On my Way to trek i got call from mandar who was in mumbai yesterday night only.I was unaware neither i would have holla'd at him to come and after couple minutes,guess what? i got call from aakash asking how was the view and journey! Aakash was unable to come because of some personal reason.
Further after climbing some steeper rocks we took a break to rest.

Now we were back on our track,couple minutes of walking & there you go one could see pinnacle of the fort(Below pic) that gave us more motivation to speedup our steps.

Pinnacle behind me

It was easy walking just flat trek from now onwards and couple rocks in between.Once we got at the bottom of fort one need to keep steps carefully on the steel staircase which is kinda slippery during rainy season and further at one point one need to climb little big rock without looking behind because it gives you the glimpse of tropical valley.Anurag was finding difficult to climb those big rocks and almost quited to come further but after looking some other old age people and women's doing it he got the motivation to climb up with help of viral and later on telling us 'he got phobia from height' which i doubt he gave an excuse to get rid off.

Based on our experience it will take 2-3 hour to trek at karnala fort from bird sanctuary depending on weather,photo session,peers.

Pinnacle covered in fog

View from top

Fort entrance

After having some fun me and viral headed upwards to explore while anurag decided to take rest,he was little disturbed.The view upward was amazing we were actually able to see cloud moving,it was getting vanished with noon on the place.There is also caves with water inside them but it is covered by cage maybe because of honeybee hives.

Clouds moving

Now we were at the top.The feeling and scenery out there i can't describe as you can see in the above Pics.Factual speaking pinnacle peak is the toppest but its for proffesional hikers which is not advisable nowdays! because climber fell to his death back in the days.It is said that he was attacked by bees as he was climbing. However, this has not been confirmed.

We decided to roll back to our home before it gets too late and dark! more then that we were hungry

Wind was damn high

On my way back

It was wet muddy while trekking down we all slipped at some point but managed to make a grip,viral leg was literally shivering trying to make grip as he was wearing slipper. Coincidentally anurag who was in his shoes slipped,felt down twice and broke his umbrella spring.

we were all down by 4:30pm and washed our muddy shoes and slipper with the help of tapwater located downwards then we headed back to apna bazar(Andheri West) hopping in 'FOODX' food centre to eat.

Masala Dosa and Veg pizza

We were home by 7:30pm.