Basgad Bhaskargad trek blog – Offbeat Fort near the famous Harihar

Just beside the very famous Harihar is the Basgad / Bhaskargad fort. Inspite being so close to Harihar Basgad is very offbeat with only hard core trekkers visiting here. On that day we did both these forts on a single day. Those were the days when I was my fittest. Similar adventures like this one at the end of this post.

How to Reach Basgad / Bhaskargad from Mumbai and Pune ?

The base village for Basgad trek is Nirgunpada. Nirgunpada is also one of the base village for Harihar.

Ways to reach Nirgunpada from Kasara station.

• There is no direct transport to Nirgunpada. One can share the jeep from Kasara to Khodala for Rs 50 and change vehicles ( bus or taxi) to Nirgunpada. Takes around 90 minutes if you planning to travel in the morning.
• We had booked our regular taxi from Kasara to Nirgunpada. we booked the jeep with Mr. Prakash – 9823986233

Ways to reach Nirgunpada from Igatpuri 

• From Igatpuri board in a bus for Trimbakeshwar and alight at Nirgudpada, the base village of Harihar.
• From Ghoti bus stand you can get all sharing jeeps / taxi to Nirgunpada

Things to see On the Basgad / Bhaskargad

Things to look out on/from the fort

• The Rock cut entrance stairs
• Half buried main entrance
• The 2 rock cut cisterns at top 10 minutes after entrance( Almost buried)
• Another Huge cistern , the only one which had water. From this point you can easily see the Utwaad , Brahma Hill, Kaapdya, Brahmagiri, Harihar. At a distance you can also spot waghera, Kalsubai, A-M-K and Tringalwadi .
• Remains of a house
• Hanuman Mandir next to a small pond
• From the Hanuman temple towards the other side there is a tree which has a buried remains of another two cisterns
• Moving ahead there is a cistern facing Utwaad

How Difficult is the Basgad / Bhaskargad trek

The FreeBird Grade for this trek is simple. Just need a good stamina. It takes almost 90 minutes to reach the top & another 90 to explore the fort

Basgad Trek : TheFreeBird’s story

So we took the second last Kasara local to Kasara. The team included Sanjog, Prasad, Omkar, Jitendra, Ambarish, Swapnil Dhumal & Siddhant.  We were so  busy with our trek talks we reached Kasara without sleeping at all.

The familiar taxi driver awaited us at the Kasara station. We set us properly in the jeep and set for the Nirgunpada. We barely slept through the journey and started towards the forts base. Travelling from Kasara to the many treks at night has begun a routine. But still driving through the valleys & small roads in pitch darkness got me excited.

It was around 3 at night , we slept in a small hut after the owner graciously allowed us .It was cold as hell. We snuggled into our sleeping  bags for two hours & started for an early trek at 5 am. You can check  the How to reach section at the top to find the route from Nirgunpada. The Fani hill is at the right side of the road. Fani hill has a pyramid type of structure with the rock at the top giving it a unique shape.

Stay / Food Options:

There are no commercial stays or hotels around . You can stay at the temples in Nirgunpada or you can request some villager to allow you to stay with them ( like we did ) . There are no food options near Basgad. However many hotels have come up with the overgrowing popularity of Harihar.

Basgad Starting Point:

There are many rocks fallen besides the rock on the left side of the raod , thats where the trek starts .  we started the trek on the route passing through lush  green trees. At this place “Basgad” is written with Orange paint which may or may not have withered with time.

The plan was to reach at top by sunrise. We missed that by almost 2 hrs 😛

Just walk the route towards the main fort with the view of Fani hill at your left side. The Utwaad fort was at the right side

We were half an hour into the trek when the sun had come out.

The view was beautiful. The Vaitarna lake shined beautifully in the morning light.

From here we walk though the slightly grassy route. The Utwaad fort in the backdrop.

Since we were getting lost every now and then we decided to mark the route to the top with saffron markings & saffron ribbons. We continued our walk to the top and the weather was increasingly pleasant.

Soon enough we reached the base plateau of the fort.

From this huge rocky wall we take the route towards the right side . we walk besides the huge rock walls for about 15-20 minutes,

We walk till the time we reach the beautiful rock cut steps.

The stairs crawl like a snake through the rocks .Some idiots have defaced the walls. My humble request to everyone to refrain from such mallicious activities & and also discourage others.

The stairs are hidden under the many rocks which have loosely fallen over the years. But we can imagine the glory days.

Another turn through the rock cut way and we reach the half buried main entrance.

On other side another set of stairs take us to the top.

Just at the top are two buried cisterns. Omkar walking casually.

We move to the left side from where we can enjoy the glorious view of Harihar and other forts.

 Brahmagiri trek was done in the previous month and today in the second half we also did Harihar trek. On the right side we can see Kalsubai, AMK and Tringalwadi. But it was too cloudy to capture via camera. Images were captured only in our eyes.

This is the biggest  cistern which had palatable water.

After this we move on to the other side of the fort to the Hanuman mandir. Enroute we find the remains of a palace ?

IN the above pic, the tree behind the temple also covers the remains of few more cisterns. Moving ahead we find a comparatively well maintained cistern facing the Utwad hill.

we went ahead but there was nothing more worthy to be clicked. So we turned back. The view was mesmerising & found this free bird enjoying this view.

Here’s  the free bird enjoying the view 😀

After this since we had another fort to be completed we didn’t rest much and started the descend. One last pic with the main door.

One last view of the fort.

Since  Utwaad would have taken up too much time we decided to do it some other day. So i headed to Harihar for the remaining half of the day.  Harihar Fort has some of the best looking vertical stairs. We were tired but were hell bent to reach here. 

Hope you enjoyed reading about Basgad trek.