Sandhan Valley Trek

Sandhan Valley Trek

Normally every trek starts with climbing & then descending, but first time in my life i did a trek where there was no climbing, only descending till the end. The trek was Sandhan Valley. Sandhan Valley is situated in the western ghats of Sahyadri. The valley is located on the west side of beautiful Bhandardhara region near Samrad village. The village itself is located approx.  at 3000 fts above sea level. Valley is surrounded by Alang, Malang, Kulang, Kalsubai, Ratangad and Ajoba mountain range.

Friday  night we started our trek journey by 10:30 PM at Kanjurmarg Bridge , we started our journey in Tavera for Sandhan Valley. Is too cold outside so we take a tea break.

After taking snacks along with tea we started our journey to Samrad village. At 4:30 AM we reached the small yet very beautiful Samrad village.

We took halt at our trek guide Datta’s house. He was the one who was going to give us technical support required at 3 patches. We reached too early & our team needs some rest so Duta provide us the space to sleep .

Most of our team members take a rest in their sleeping bags which we had brought for us for the trek.

After morning rituals and breakfast, we take a group photo before starting our trek.

After group photo we started our trek at 8.15 Am.

Before starting our trek dutta take us to visit Konkan kada , which is one of best moment for us .

We enter the valley in just 10 min and from that time our foots were going to just walk on the rocky path. We crossed 2 water pools, in both the pools we first passed all the luggage.

  The water level in the first pool was below waist height and in the second pool it was above the waist height. (The water level changes according to the season).

By observing my clothes anyone cam get the idea about water level.

We were passing between two huge mountains range. The sun was spreading its rays but the mountains were just blocking it from reaching us. Sandhan Valley is also called as Valley of Shadow as it hardly allows the sun rays to reach the bottom. The valley is also an awesome place for photographers.

The descending is not that simple as it looks. We need to make way from many big rocks. The main problem faced while descending is that we were always in the search of shortest and the easiest path but there is no such path. 6 member of our group went ahead and 3 guys stayed back  as they were finding it difficult to descend. The path till the first rappelling point is very time consuming.

We all are waiting for our rest team members to join us for rappelling. While waiting for our rest team members we found our one of team member kunal  is sleeping withing 5 minutes. After around 6 hrs of walk on the rocky path we reached the 1st rappelling patch.  The first rappelling patch is about 45 feet. By 3 PM the we all completed our  1st rappelling patch. 

Rakesh was enjoying rappelling so he went up one more time to experience rappelling .

At 4 we started our journey towards the second patch. We had told the guide to make sure that everyone of our team will reach the second rappelling patch. 2nd and 3rd rappelling are of just 10 -15 feets as compare to 1st one but are as thrilling as the first one. 

Thanks to the two girls coz of them we even enjoyed rappelling as by the time we reached the 3rd and the last patch it was about to dark.

We reached our camp at around 6.15 PM. Beautiful sky packed with shining stars, chilled weather made us forget the tiredness. After the delicious dinner we decided to sleep, so we can get up early and enjoy the next day trek.

  Early morning we started our return journey. The rocky path was back in the trek.after an hour trek we had a break for Breakfast. We had Garama garam Poha as breakfast & Tea.

After our breakfast we started our return journey with full of energy. After  moving 30-45 minutes we all get puzzled when we saw how to clear a this tricky stone patch. Then dutta climb the stone & tie a heavy thread (Wire) to tree & drop the tread for us to climb that phase. God knows how we cleared that phase but definitely everyone enjoyed that phase of climbing.

Dutta bhau was the man who helps us to climb this patch very easily & salute to him to carry our heavy weight bags.

  When everyone clears that phase we started our journey again , but this time less rocky  patch & we are getting some trees shadow  which will help us to take rest . There is one more straight climb patch we have to cover .After completing this last difficult patch everyone want to take rest for some time . 

After walking about an hour we reached the plain ground & then speed up our speed. This was my first ever trek that got concluded in the day light. And yes Sandhan Valley trek was the most thrilling and memorable trek till now for me.