One Tree Hill Trek to Matheran ❤️Chasing beautiful sunsets

Matheran is one of the most famous hill stations in India where vehicles are not allowed. Normal tourists reach Matheran via the Neral toy train or just drive on the normal road to reach Dasturi Naka ( which is the entrance point of Matheran). These tourists then visit different view points of Matheran by walking or on a horse. However adventure lovers like me love to reach Matheran by trekking from base village to some of these view points. I have already trekked to Matheran via Rambaug Point, Garbett Point & Peb fort. My friend said, “ Itne reels daalke aur kitna jaaloge Niraj, kabhi mujhe bhi trek leke challo “. So I decided to take him to this Matheran trek via One Tree hill point as its a beginner friendly route. In this One tree hill point trek blog you will find all the information to plan this trek yourself. Similar adventures like this one at the end of the post.

Is One Tree Hill Point Trek difficult for beginners ?

The Matheran Trek is a perfect trek for a beginner. Only difficult part seems to be the waterfall route at the top which is called as Shivaji ladder. The waterfall route may seem difficult as you will see in the pictures below however there is a normal walkable path hidden among the rocks. This route is used daily by Ambewadi locals to go to work at Matheran hence is properly maintained. Hence if you just follow the most used path it is impossible to get lost unless you are next level of dumbness 😉

However this Shivaji ladder may be a bit difficult in monsoon when you will need to walk through the flowing waterfall. In other seasons its very easy.

Iss Matheran trek me Khane ko kya milega ?

On monsoon weekends there may be few make shift stalls on the Matheran trek route . However on other times there is absolutely nothing on the trek route. There are few shops in Ambewadi. Once you reach the One Tree hill point there is a proper shop where you can get food, tea, drinks etc & rest assured this hotel to be operational throughout the year as this is an actual home & the only hotel at One Tree hill point. Hence carry your food & water beforehand. ( checkout my trek food & trek gear )

How much long is One tree Hill Point Trek ?

Once you reach Ambewadi it will take about 2.5 hours to reach the top of One tree Hill point if you are fast trekker. From One tree hill point it will take an hour to reach Dasturi Naka by walking. So based on your trekking experience & preference you can calculate the time required.

One Tree Hill Trek route

The trekkable places in above map are Sondai , Garbett point trek, Rambaug Point Trek, Peb fort, Alexander point Trek.

How to reach One Tree Hill Point Trek from Mumbai & Pune ?

There are two ways do the the One Tree Hill point trek. You can reach Ambewadi which is the base village for One Tree hill trek, trek to One Tree hill point , enjoy the views & come back to Ambewadi OR once you have reached One tree hill point you can walk further to the start of Matheran @ Dasturi Naka & take a shared taxi to Neral railway station and head home.

Nearest Railway Station is Karjat

Base Village for One Tree Hill Point Trek is Ambewadi

Karjat > Borgaon Phata > Ambewadi > (Trek to) One Tree Hill View Point Matheran

Shared Public Transport to reach Ambewadi

• By Road to Borgaon Phata: For guys coming from Mumbai side one can take the Karjat bus and get down at Borgaon phata ( Or reach Chouk and take rickshaw to Karjat and get down to Borgaon phata). Many ST bus & shared EECO ply on this route
• By Train: If you reach the Karjat Railway station. No direct Bus is available from Karjat to Ambewadi but one can take any ST bus / Rickshaw from Karjat Station going towards Panvel/ Chouk / Rasayani which can drop you at Borgaon Phata for 10-15 Rs per seat ( 12 kms ) .
• From Borgaon phata There are EECO which run between Borgaon Phata to Ambewadi on hourly basis which take Rs 40 per seat. In case the vehicles are not available one can walk 6.5 kms of scenic road to Ambewadi enjoying the views of huge Morbe Dam.
• BEST OPTION is to reach Karjat station (if you are more in number) is to meet a rickshaw / tum tum driver and negotiate a drop till Ambewadi which would cost around 350-400 for one way drop. One can also ask the same driver to come back to pick u up after the trek ( if you plan to go back to Karjat station again ). In case you end your trek at Matheran there are plenty of options available from Matheran to reach Neral railway station.

It should take about 45 minutes from Karjat station to Ambewadi. Private Vehicle : Just add Ambewadi on Google Maps and enjoy this beautiful drive. Roads are newly made in Dec 2022

One Tree hill point trek blog : TheFreeBird’s Story

One of my friends always cribbed that i never take him to any of my treks. Since solo trekking is plain risky & stupid , I decided to take him to this beginner friendly One Tree Hill trek to enjoy a beautiful winter sunset. So I took my Xpulse and headed towards Ambewadi. This road is newly made and is a beautiful drive going around the Morbe dam backwaters. Once at Ambewadi I parked my bike in front of the school & enquired locals about the route. The trek route starts from the two wells ( location) near a newly built resort.

Once we crossed the wells & few houses the route gets away from civilisation and all that is visible are trees, Matheran plateau in front & the backwaters of the huge Morbe dam. Irshalgad & Prabalgad fall on the left side throughout the trek

One Tree hill trek is a constant uphill trek right till the first plateau. The timing could have been better as we were walking directly under the sun, but the cool wind was taking away all the harshness of the heat. As i wanted to enjoy the sunset over Morbe Dam i had to trek in the afternoon. We walked on this ridge till the top. The ridge seems to be unending once you start to walk and it took us about an hour to reach a section before the plateau where the ridge becomes even more steeper

At this steep section there are two routes – one which follows the steep ridge route to the plateau which reaches a well at top & the second one goes to the left which zigzags its way to the top. As it was too hot we decided to zig zag our way to the plateau by taking the left route which passed through canopy of trees. On this route there are many trees but the one which caught my attention was a huge teak tree with size of a two floored building& a huge diameter. Pretty sure it would be valued in millions.

Finally after 90 minutes we reached the first plateau where the Matheran walls become visible. One tree hill starts to become visible and we started to walk towards it. On the way we met some Ambewadi locals who were carrying some heavy wood bundles for fuel. I made them laugh with some jokes. They were going to carry the heavy load all the way down and were still all smiles. Sometimes I envy their lives with how happy they are with simple things in life. Innocence, humility, staying away from all the greed & arrogance and living in unpolluted places so close to nature – these are the real wealthy people. City dwellers are just passing their time on earth running behind non sensical things. Enough philosophy, back to the story. We enter the jungle.

We started late from home and by the time we reached this jungle the sunrays were almost running parallel to the route i.e. if we didnt hurry we would miss the sunset. It is so peaceful to walk among the century old trees with birds chirping throughout the way. The trees , birds always have a calming effect on me but also got me excited with the hope of spotting snakes which I did. Within half an hour we reached the Pisarnath temple from where the uphill climb begins.

As we climbed out of this jungle we reached the waterfall route – Shivaji ladder. The waterfall route appears very daunting with its height and all the rocks looking unstable. However there is a proper route which snakes it way to the top. There are many locals who use this route daily from Matheran to Ambewadi for going to work. Being their daily route this path is very well maintained

Once we found the proper path it didnt take much efforts to climb this waterfall route. By this time the sun was going down fast and It had me worried as I didn’t want to miss the sunset. There is something so soothing about winter sunsets which just hits different.

We rushed through this ladder. I would have stopped here for many photos & reels but not wanting to miss the sunset we just ran our way to the top. There is a small water stream here ( still flowing in December) with the tastiest cold water you would have ever had. I had a quick sip and decided to fill up my bottle on my way down. This water percolating through rocks has many health benefits which bottled water can never match. It some how aids to a very good health. On treks I drink a lot of this Amrut – mere fitness ka raaz

Finally at the top i saw the sun setting over the famous One Tree hill. It seemed a bit steep but i would have climbed this hill. However it would have taken some time and i would have definitely missed the sunset hence decided against it. Instead decided to move ahead to Matheran’s One tree hill VIEW point.

All that trekking to see this view from Matheran’s view point didnt appeal me at all. There are no areas here to get better views hence decided to walk 5minutes on right side to reach Matheran’s Big Chowk point which has much better views.

We rushed to Big Chowk Point not wanting to waste any of the remaining colours of the evening. The view was much better than from One Tree point. We could see the One Tree hill point, Prabalgad & Irshalgad . Had i reached here earlier, with better light we could have easily spotted Sondai, Karnala, Manikgad, Songiri , Rajmachi, Dukes’ Nose, Dhak Bahiri & Bhivgad.

Better late than never. Atleast we got to enjoy some magical moments of the evening. Instead of taking more photos we decided to eat our snacks looking at this 4K landscape.

After sitting here way after the sun had set i could see a million starts in the sky as well as on the land. After my eyes got used to the darkness i could see the Morbe dam water shine from the light of some lake side resorts. I didnt feel like leaving this spot as I couldnt get enough of the view. However as the wind got cooler it was time to descend in pitch darkness. People can head to Dasturi naka to reach Neral station to take a train home. I descended back to my bike in Ambewadi. Glad i had carried torches. We reached down in 90 minutes with occasional breaks to look at the sky full of stars.

On reaching Ambewadi this Matheran trek was complete as I hopped on my bike & rushed home for dinner.

Bye !!

That’s it for the One Tree Hill Point trek blog.