Planning

 

We have been planning this bike and hike for a week or so and it coincided with the Weekend Challenge that is being organized by miniOrange (Ganesh and team). We are in the middle of a two week planned rest period of all athletes that belong to the miniOrange sports academy. Complete rest is out of question for these super athletes and hence we planned a number of activities. Ghoradeshwar is an easy climb especially for these super athletes and to keep it more interesting we decided to bike to that place. One or two people decided to hop on the support cars and go straight to the base of the mountain. Beginners can do the same.

Assembly

The plan for Ghoradeshwar was to assemble at 5:30 AM at Balewadi high street cross section. Fun or hard work, athletes are always on time.

 

Bike ride on Mumbai Pune Highway

We had two support cars, driven one each by Jotiram and Hanuman. Its approximately a 16 km ride from Baner to Ghoradeshwar base. We covered this in approximately 52 minutes, since everyone was riding slow and having fun.

 

Hike Start

There are two entries to the mountain. One from the Old Mumbai Pune highway and the other from the Gahunje stadium side. We chose the latter.

Once we got a little higher and looked back, it was the most beautiful scene of pune outskirts submerged in morning cloud. Breathtakingly beautiful, fresh air and best of all awesome company.

 

Its an easy trek with a few points that are a bit steeper than others. But you can easily climb up with rest even if you are a beginner. Some of it has slippery slopes but its mostly all fun.

 

At the top

Our joy knew no bounds and all us got into the mode of clicking pictures of ourselves and surroundings.

 

Ghoradeshwar Temple

There are caves around the mountain which houses a Shiva temple as well. Lots of greenery and some special fauna to be found here.

 

 

Nature at its best

Some more posing…

Downhill trek

After having fun for an hour and a half, we decided to go down. Overall it took us a bit less than two hours and oh what fun!

 

 

Cycling back to base

Biking back was faster. Perhaps it has something to do with elevation. Almost four hours spent in the morning in the company of super fit people and amidst nature!

Recommendation

I would highly recommend this trek to beginners and intermediate trekkers.   If you are a beginner, you can drive up to the base of the mountain and go up. If you are an intermediate trekker, you can either bike and hike or just hike up and down several times. We met a friend whose group was doing multiple ups and downs of the hill to make it more interesting. If you go from Old Mumbai Pune highway, you will find many tea stalls and breakfast joints as well.