Bhairavgad Moroshi Trek Blog – Difficult & risky

Bhairavgad Moroshi is one of the toughest treks in sahyadri because the British blew up the stairs to this watch tower fort. Still many daredevils do climb this fort because of the huge adrenaline pump.This dike structured Bhairavgad Moroshi should not be confused with other forts named Bhairavgad at Chiplun-Karad, Shirpunje & Bhandardara. This fort lies in the Malshej Ghat. More adventures like this one at the end of the post.

How To Reach Bhairavgad Moroshi from Mumbai & Pune

The Fort lies in Junnar – Malshej Ghat region. Reaching the base village of Moroshi is easy as this is enroute the highway from Kalyan to Malshej Ghat. Plenty of private buses, trax & ST ply the road round the clock. The ST charges around 70 while the private vehicles ask for around 100 which should not be too much since ST’s are very crowded. Getting down at Moroshi you can see the the dominating mountain range on the right side( if you moving from Kalyan towards Malshej)

We tried to get into a ST but it was way too crowded & hence opted for a trax, charged us Rs 100 per seat. You may take any vehicle but just in case here is our trax valla’s number –Arun- 95279784425 .

Just besides the Moroshi stop there is a hotel run by Mr Prakash Mane- 9224928808.If you plan to stay here for night , you can use his hotel ShriKrushna Krupa’s corridor for crashing. Seemed very friendly. I wish i had not found this contact at the end of our trip since we had lots of trouble find accommodation.

History Of Bhairavgad

Bhairavgad is a dike formation. Dikes are geological formation where magma is injected into earthy cracks. Over the year the non resistant surface erodes away and what remains back is just the hardened magma i.e. dike is plain view. The dike structure is very rarely found in Sahyadris. Other dike structure i know of is Tail Baila & Padargad.

This fort style hints of Bhoj dynasty. Historically this would have been a very strategic outpost to watch around the Naneghat–Jivdhan & Kalyan-Junnar trade route.

What to watch on the Bhairavgad Moroshi

The things to watch out on the fort are:

1. The vertical west wall
2. Beautiful stairs on the east side
3. Bhiarvnath Temple on Machi
4. 2 caves
5. 6 water cisterns
6. The different forts visible from the top

Difficulty of Bhairavgad Moroshi

The fort appears small but takes a lot of walking time. Till the stairs on the east side / till machi( plateau) the slope is pretty gradual and anyone with normal stamina can reach. Hence TheFREEbird Grade for the fort is EASY till the stairs.

TheFREEbird grade for climbing the stairs is RISKY . Anyone without proper gear or acrophobia should not undertake this. The stairs are broken at places and a beginner without proper gear should not attempt this. The walls have a bit of overhang gradient (*above 90 degrees) pushing you away from the narrow steps. Hence RISKY & Difficult.

One spot where the stairs are broken & small rock climb is required is very risky as you will read ahead. Stairs are NOT RECOMMENDED for a monsoon trek. ( checkout my trek food & trek gear )

Risky Bhairavgad Moroshi – TheFreeBird’s story

So we took off from Kalyan with a trax towards Moroshi. To make things more adventurous we decided to do a night trek.The group comprised of usual faces- Vijay, Prasad,Amrish, Omkar,Amit & 6 other newer faces. Some steel balls decided to bring along their bikes to the base village in the cold winter night.

We reached the village in another 2 hrs or so. On our friends advice we reached Moroshi and asked our driver to drop us to Hotel Something*Vijay (19°19’59.7″N 73°42’06.1″E ). The trax driver said that we should not attempt the fort at night as a leopard was spotted here few days back. Heeding to his advice we decide to rest for 4-5 hours and start early morning. We reached the base village at around midnight 0030hrs.

The entire village had slept off & we requested the hotel vala to allow us to sleep in front of his hotel. He asked us to bugger off. Seeing nothing else we found a school right in front of this hotel where we were permitted to stay for 3-4 hrs, within their premises, but of course in the open. Thats where in i mentioned you a hotel contact hotel run by Mr Prakash Mane- 9224928808 which allows to rest for the night.

I was unable to sleep through the night and kept on counting the million stars. My DSLR is under repair, else i would have got some fantastic astro photographs. 

Morning

After about 3 hours of sleep, the gang got going towards the fort at about 0400 hrs. This is the starting point of he trek.

From the moment go we just followed the broad trail. The trail got confusing, but anycase all the routes lead to the top at the plateau/machi – Bhairavmachi. Just follow the braodest road.

We reached the machi at around 0600 hrs with about 2 hrs of walk. The climb is gradual but does require a little bit of stamina as compared to a basic trek of Karnala. We had a quick breakfast and started towards the main rock patch. As the sky came alive the huge dike of the fort emerged out from the darkness.

The silhouette of Bhairavgad Moroshi was spectacular.

The west side of the fort is just a 90 degree wall and as such can only be climbed technically. The east side where we were headed had proper stairs until the British blew it off. Damn you British. As we continued to walk towards the base of the fort sun had come out and mildly lit the sky

Once reaching the base of the dike the ginormity of the fort hits you in the face. You begin to wonder the efforts that were taken by our ancestors to carve out the stairs for this mammoth. At the base itself we found two cisterns. One was approachable and other was a bit risky.

The water in this cistern was not potable. But then we had drank dirtier water during treks. Nonetheless we had enough water with us -2 bottles which prevented us from testing the limits of our stomachs today. From here we could spot many forts. This is actually a casual photo unlike many which are posed.

Moving ahead we finally reached the wall of the fort. First cave meant super excitement for us to take pics.

After chilling at the cave we decided to go ahead to finally see the east face of the formidable fort. Finally reached the col where Bhairavgad separates from the remaining Moroshi range. Its super windy and beautiful here. The Naneghat plateau started to become visible from here.

The east side presents a formidable rock climbing opportunity.
We could see remains of a beautiful winding stairs which had lost many of its teeth due to wars with British. Damn you British once again. What remained is a scary caricature of stairs criss crossing the vertical wall blown off at some places & eroded at other. It was going to be one hell of a climb to the top. Just looking at the tall wall got me excited

Unprepared as we were we just carried a 10 ft rope, whole lot of optimism & some titanium balls. The initial climb towards the first cave is a bit easy as compared to the higher steps. But it definitely gives the feelers of the things to come.

Once inside the cave the more prepared people can put on the seat harnesses and rope them self in for the climb. All we could do was to keep our bags in the cave & stuff all the food in one bag to celebrate at the top. The view from the cave.

Scary Patch
One guy from us was pretty athletic. Deepak went ahead the scary patch without any support or prior experience to tie the joke of a rope to the already bolted hooks. What makes the ‘scary’ patch scary is that the steps keep on getting narrower towards the patch & the wall tends to get an overhangish feel. In essence it tends to push you away from the wall. After garnering all the spirits i could i made my way to the ‘scary’ patch tugging on the rope for support. There comes a point where you need to pivot yourself for changing your position from stair-climbing mode to rock-climbing mode. This is the point where without any support one tends to weigh in the risk more than the confidence. Three amongst lost there confidence here and decided against going further.

In the above pic the scary patch is the one to the right of ” TheFreeBird”.I pivoted myself to the rock climbing position & leaned my upper body towards the wall to stay put. The huge ass Quecha shoes i was wearing were not helpful in gaining more traction from the small steps.

I tugged on the rope and with one foot stretched out as far as possible i was able to place my hand over the wall and gain grip for the climb. I pulled as much as possible and with little help from our belay i was able to get over the ‘scary patch’.

Note For Myself
I had promised myself daily 30 pull ups after the Basic mountaineering course. Please start doing them. Your upper body strength sucks big time & yes push ups don’t help that much .

BRO Tip:

Dont attempt this rock patch if you don’t have proper technical support
The stairs are not meant for acrophobic peeps
Never attempt in monsoon

Scary patch Aftermath

After this adrenaline pumping patch we pulled up other guys who couldnt do climb it & headed to the top.

The stairs are not in good condition. Years of erosion and lack of maintenance have left them in bad shape. I am sure this Bhairavgad Moroshi trek will be deemed too risky soon enough – just like the ban at Malang gad.

The stairs were treacherous but provided a sense of thrill like no other. We went passed the next set of scary stairs. The sheer depth on one side kept our body & eyes glued to the stairs.

After this last scary part the next set of steps were a bit user-friendly till the top. We counted a total of over 200 of these steps. The step number is not exact because maths tends to take a hit when you are battling for life 😛

After the steps we reached few empty cisterns which would have been a good respite to the people after climbing all the stairs in the olden days. We only got to see the cactus waving at us.

Further ahead was another set of rock cut cisterns.

Finally after about four hours I reached the top. The view was brilliant. I could spot Naneghat, Teli peaks, Harischandragad, taramati , nalichi vat, ajoba, katrabai, ratangad, Bhairavgad Shirpunje, Kaladgad & few other nameless beauties.

Sahyadri is always beautiful.

Descend

A quick breakfast, photo session & we headed back. The stairs somehow seemed riskier now. Judge it from your own observation.

I found immense pleasure in making a video of this .  Have a look, its definitely worth you time . Click to watch.

Once back on the plateau we could finally see the Bhairavgad Moroshi fort as depicted in famous literature

From the top of the fort we could see a river at a distance. We got down from the fort , reached the Moroshi village & walked for another 10-15 minutes to reach the river for the perfect ending for the day.

The video has come out great for this fort. Definitely worth your time. In the next week i tried chimney climbing at Padargad 🙂

Till Next time.

Bye !!

Hope you enjoyed  reading about Bhairavgad Moroshi.