Footprints on the Mountainside

This is the monsoon - the best time of the year to head into the outdoors near Mumbai! Before you lose that temptation striking your mind, let me give you ideas to put into action!

1. Go to Kanheri Caves (a couple of hours): No, I don’t mean to visit the ancient Buddhist Caves, though that can be a side interest. What you are to do is really look at the road as you drive through the National Park, keep an eye out for the numerous streams on the way and find a fun spot for a picnic. Get into the stream, splash all you like, and then go on to Kanheri Caves. Post links to your pics in the comments for all to see. Or tey any of the many picnic spots near Mumbai, like Manori beach, Aarey Milk colony, Elephanta Caves… the rain is not enough to stop boats yet. THIS is the time!
2. Go to Kondana Caves (full day): Drive to Kondivde village in Karjat, do the short hike to the caves, and have a bath in the curtain of a waterfall across the mouth of the Cave. Hike back and tell us about it.
3. Go White Water Rafting (one day, or overnight): While you can do this round the year, the water levels in the monsoon make the rapids on the Kundalika a specially thrilling experience.
4. Go to Matheran (weekend): The monsoon being the off-season, you are never going to find Matheran like this, misty, cool, dreamy and utterly charming. Travel around on horses, stay in a fancy resort an dget drunk….. do all the whimsical things your sanity doesn’t allow in the city and in dry weather.
5. Go and stay on a historical fort in some caves (overnight or more): Try Lohagad, Rajmachi, Naneghat……. Pack clothes and food in plastic bags, and just go ahead!

At least go out, splash in some puddles, drink hot tea on a roadside stall and have steaming pakodas with it!

Go on, ask - why would someone who does this regularly find it an adventure? Its all in the logistics.

On the first September, which is last week (I’m always late with these things) Raka and I accompanied a group from Cleartrip.com that we were sending for a day’s outing on the river Kundalika, and the region around Nagothane.

Considering that the booking numbers fluctuated all the time, and we had multiple pick up points, I just had one of those feelings. Raka and I were due for a break anyway, so we went along for the ride.

The morning pickups were predictably a nightmare and we managed to get out of Mumbai at a record breaking 6:30 with me praying constantly that the water held. White water for the rafting is really a matter of being at the right place and right time, as the Rafting depends on the release of water from the Bhire Dam, further up the valley in the direction of the Tamhini Ghat.

The group was excited and quick on their nerves and it was a mission to keep people moving fast (like it always is with high energy groups). With a few pick ups and some miscommunication, we caught the tail end of the water and I heaved a sigh of relief to see the participants depart on their rafts at the starting point.

This is when I really stopped worrying and caught up with the moment. As always, this region is a pleasure to be in, and it was my trip to catch up with people. I was visiting the Kamath Residency resort after quite a few months, my rafting field staff after even more, and to top it all, I happened to run into Brig. Sushil Bhasin of Empower Camps right there near the rafting equipment, as he drove by with some guests.

For a moment, I wondered idly, if Raka and I should simply hijack one of the vehicles and go ahead to visit Garudmachi - the High Places campsite - who knew who else we could meet out there? Instead, we chose to arrive at the ending point of the river run early and wait for the group to arrive and spent a nice hour watching the tiny fish nibble at the banks and clouds doing their best to impress us with added impressions of peace.

A couple of groups who had left earlier arrived, and I met yet another old friend - a rafting instructor I used to know as Kumar when he was a straggly youth figuring out this job, when we did the pilot run for this route 3 years ago. Now, he looks totally classy with a low ponytail and all that. Honestly, i hadn’t recognized him at all until he came up and shook hands.

Soon, out group came, and it was time to go back to the resort for a well deserved lunch and some lazing around.

Then, we left for a waterfall nearby, and managed to get thoroughly confused by the route and our own mismanaged communications, and out hike to the waterfall turned into quite an adventurous and highly enjoyable hike in the area of the waterfall. It was good fun. Particularly considering that the rain at lunch time had made all the flowing water too muddy to appeal in any case.

On the way back, we hooked up with an online friend of mine - Abhijit Rao and we went over to his place to continue into a weekend celebration that didn’t end until Monday evening.

All in all, one of my not-smooth bits of management, but a fun day even then. And yes, I’m planning to upload pictures, and it isn’t my usual “one day” scenario either. The thing is, I’m waiting for some pictures from Ameya Salvi. Its a new excuse this time.

Update: Some photos from my mobile are up, and can be found here. Ameya is also planning to upload his photos here (one fine day)

Its monsoon time again, and the world is a rich green. While we conduct rafting trips all through the year, monsoon is a special time, because the river is really full of water. We no longer are slaves to the dam that releases the water for our precious white water.

The season is good this year. The field staff have got in another raft to deal with the work load, and trips are running full. Bookings actually need to be done two weeks in advance to have any guarantee of getting a place on the raft. And all this, in spite of having enough water on the river to allow an additional late morning run as well as the usual early morning one with the dam water.

Not bad. Raka and I are in a good mood these days. We’re planning to join a group from JP Morgan who have booked with us this Sunday, and hope that this is going to be a time for us to get away from the city and feel truly like being in the outdoors for fun again.

Who knows, there’s a group from the same company on Saturday as well, and we just might make an overnight trip out of this. Monsoon is certainly not a time to be sitting in the city.

I’ll see if I can get some fun pics out of this.

I came across this article on rafting, which plunged me straight into my must fulfill dreams list. Rafting in Iceland! I can only shiver in anticipation. Glacial melt water that will probably be enough to freeze my poor fingers to the paddles, but I bet my heart will fly over the coldest river available for rafting. Folks, if you’re into adrenaline, and you get hooked and go, don’t forget to let me know.

Actually, the reason why I was exploring rafting on the net is that I had complaints from my clients that the site doesn’t really cover a lot of areas of operations of Wide Aware, and one of them was rafting. Its true. I haven’t yet put half the information I really want to on this place, but then, this site is like my temple. I doubt if it will ever be complete [:D]

Another interesting thing I came across was on the Paddling instructor website, where they speak of Yaka - a Goan company (that is the Indian distributor for Perception kayaks) and their show stealing exhibition in the Mumbai International Boat Show on 22-25 February, 2007. I missed the show unfortunately, or I’d have written here about it, but this sparks my interest again. Another area I need to explore.

The other thing worth noting in the Watery adventures world is the Adventure Safety & Rescue Training Workshop that took place in Rishikesh this February. The courses on offer are quite good, and it seems a very interesting option to explore for refresher courses for instructors. For those inclined to head out into the outdoors, this might be a very good training programme to watch out for, in any case. Its not only instructors who need to handle emergencies.

This brings me back to my main focus - rafting. Hmmm….. I promise to add more content. Not just here, but in all relevant areas of the site, but as its a one man show, do have patience and bear with me. meanwhile, I’d like to share a nice rafting information page about rafting in Rishikesh (yes we do that too, though I haven’t yet written about it) by Anand Kumar to keep you all ticking till I get my fingers on to the keyboard again.

See ya’ll!

I received a call from someone called Girish, who was enquiring about prices for a rafting trip for a group of 20-25 people. Assuming that this was a run-of-the-mill group of employees/friends, I provided the details with practiced ease. The conversation was comfortable, and once the basic details were sorted, we talked about other adventure tour possibilities.

He enquired about the possibility of participation of some elderly members of their group, and said they were reasonably fit and active. We talked about that some more, and then turned to discuss wildlife tours. He was also interested in a trip to the Pench Wildlife Sanctuary. This got me curious. The nature of discussions was quite free-flowing and non-sophisticated for this to be a corporate enquiry, and the number of tours spoken of didn’t suggest young people - in fact, older people were specifically mentioned, as were young people.

I asked him about the nature of their group. Imagine my surprise when he said that this was a family outing! A family this size heading into the outdoors with a specific interest in adventure is really rare to come by as is the willingness to rough it if need be in the quest for adventure.

To quote him, “We’d like to do something original and interesting, rather than the standard tours. The time now points to adventure sports as a very meaningful and constructive means of recreation. So we’d like to do that.”

If this is an upcoming trend among families as Girish said, I feel that this is a very welcome change in the overall Indian perception of “enjoyment”. This is indeed welcome news.

I still haven’t received a booking from him, we will be speaking about it in the first week of January, but I hope it works out. I would love to meet such an interesting family!