Yesterday a few of us decided to visit Sinhagad to catch the sunrise. The last time I had climbed / walked / hiked to anything that remotely resembled steep ground was around 2 years back at Yeur Hills and even then the road up was nicely paved. Without having any idea of what to expect I tagged along for the fun of it. And it was awesome. The sun came up when we were around 25% of the way up, but the breeze blowing off the tops was worth the climb.
The climb is supposed to be the “easy” one, but it did not look that way for the first 20 minutes to me. I did the big mistake of letting others decide my pace and try to wriggle out of the “traffic jam” on the trails. Once I ran out of breath I realized that it was not a good thing to do and settled into a steady pace of walking up the slope. Thankfully enough, the knees and the calf muscles did not buckle under the hammering they took. Stopped for the occasional glass of nimbu-paani and then chugged along merrily, all the while giving way to excited youngsters competing to reach the top in the shortest possible time. That’s for them … not for me 🙂

 

We roamed around the bit at the top of the fort, indulged in some oily snacks and managed to crack all sorts of poor, lame jokes at various folks who did not come with us.

Photoset here.
Climbing is one thing, coming down is fun of another sort. It took me a bit to get adjusted to the momentum and from then on it was a nice, slow and steady pace downhill. It was nearly mid-day when we came down, so the sun did its bit to burn up my bald patch 😉 but that was fun too.